This nursery was quite a bit of work.  When we first bought this house last November, we knew that this room would need a complete and total redo.  It had a wallpaper border at the top (I HATE THOSE!!!) and an old and yucky carpet that looked and smelled like someone had been brutally murdered on it (and when we tore it up, the marks on the hardwood floor didn’t do much to convince us otherwise).

These before pictures were taken before we actually bought the house.  I wish I’d taken more detailed photos of that scary carpet.  Just to prove that it looked like someone was murdered on it and then the carpet was bleached to death.

Luckily the room looks completely different now.  The contrast from that dark and smelly room to the bright and cheery room that it is now is awesome.  It’s a happy room.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this Vintage Snoopy bed set.  I guess I could have re-used Lukas’ bed set.  I made sure that his was very unisex and it is still damned adorable, but I really wanted this baby to have something of his own and for Lukas’ bed set to always be JUST Lukas’.  These boys are going to have to share a LOT of things during their lives, and I see no harm in throwing in a unique thing here and there.  Sure, these bed sets will probably be donated when this baby has outgrown his, but I still just wanted this to be something that was unique to each of them.  I grew up with lots of hand-me-downs and I know how those few things that were all mine were so special.  I want my boys to have those few things as well.

Here is the changing table/chest of drawers that my Facebook followers talked about last night.  Jessie put it together and kept doing silly Jessie things that had my in stitches.  This is EXACTLY like Lukas’ and that is simply because it is an awesome piece of furniture.  After it is no longer a changing table, it can just be a dresser/chest of drawers until they move out and take it with them.

Now I’m really going to kill you with cute.  Who’s ready for itty bitty baby clothes?

Drawer full of tiny socks, tiny hats, and dozens of bibs.  I’m so glad that I didn’t have to re-buy a lot of these.

I get excited about holding my new baby in my arms when I am reminded how tiny he will be.  That’s a tiny sock!

I’m hoping that both of us will be out of the hospital and home by the time trick or treaters come around to my house.  I plan on sitting on my front porch with my little baby swaddled and wearing this as I hand out treat bags.

Before I started having kids, I remember my mother-in-law telling me that I needed LOTS of onesies.  She was right and I’m glad that I have lots here.

Teeny tiny shoesies, anyone?  Yes, they are shoesies!

Teeny Tiny bunny slipper!  Passed down from his big brother who was able to wear them for about the first week of his life before he outgrew them.

Teeny tiny sneaker also passed down from Lukas.  Lukas wore these ONCE.  The child was born with size 12 feet, I swear.

A closet stuffed full of clothes.  Most of them are hand-me-downs, but there are a few outfits in there that are just for the new baby.

For those of you perceptive enough to notice the wallpaper on the inside of the closet, yes, we are leaving the pink ribboned wallpaper up.  When this child is old enough to have a problem with the pink ribbons inside of his closet and complains about it, we figure he’ll also be old enough to help remove it.  I hate wallpaper so much.

ATTACK OF THE GIANT BELLY!

Aaaaand the weird belly button thing is back!

And to put a proper end to this cuteness post, I give you a picture of my beautiful first-born.  He thinks Momma’s bed is paradise and takes every opportunity to get snuggled in under that quilt that he and I both adore.

Beach from Somer Canon on Vimeo.

I can’t help it.  That totally harrowing event at the end always makes me crack up laughing.

It had been 5 years since I’d last been to Rehoboth Beach.  I love this place.  It was the first beach I had ever been to (at the age of 13) and it is the only beach I really like now.  Sure, when I was 17-18, I really liked beaches that had lots of clubs and hot guys to flirt with, but now that I’m a momma and a wife, I prefer the smaller, quiet Rehoboth.

I hesitate to say outright that Rehoboth is a gay beach.  It’s a beach where lots of families come to mingle with the gay people.  So I guess the most gentle way to say it is that Rehoboth is very gay friendly.  It’s one of the things that makes this place so charming.  There are awesome gay stores (Out Gear) and just really really cool people there.  Jessie and I actually went there on our honeymoon.  It was slightly off season and we really got a good view of how the town itself is very gay friendly.  It was a great week.

We had a very good weekend there.  Lukas was good at night and slept well, and he enjoyed all of the shops and the sand.  The water, however, was another story.

This year is the first year that I’ve been able to get Lukas into a swimming pool without the child freaking the hell out.  I’ve taken him swimming every summer of his life and he’s always hated it.  This year, he’s been all about swimming at Grandma’s house and doing daredevil dives into our arms.  So it was a bit of a stretch to believe he’d be ok with water that has waves and knocks him over.  He wasn’t impressed.  We got him to venture out a couple of times and even got him to go out into deeper water with us holding him.  And then a huge wave broke right upside the poor child’s head and he was DONE.  Maybe next time I’ll be able to talk him into going out deep with me.

We all had a good time at the shops.  He marveled at the hermit crabs, sea shells, and preserved baby sharks in a bottle.  He loved the Christmas shop and Out Gear (everything had rainbows!!).  He loved all of the neat little eateries.  He ran us ragged going from store to store, but he had a good time…..so it was worth it.

I’ll post a video tomorrow, but for now, here are some pictures from our trip.  I can’t wait to go back!

Playing in sand.

Lunch at Nathan’s.

He pooped out from all the shopping and slept through dinner.

Wearing his “Macho Man” hat.

BEST.  CHRISTMAS TREE.  ORNAMENT.  EVER.

Video tomorrow!

Friday, Jessie left work early and we went to my mom’s house.  My mom and step father are out of town but they gave us permission to use their pool and cabana while they were gone.  I spent that Friday cooking fried chicken for a picnic while some weird cable guy was in my house for almost 2 hours trying to ignore what I was telling him.  Want me to go into that story?  Too bad, I’m doing it anyhow.

Ever since our cable company has made the switch to where you need a digital cable box to get even basic channels and we got a second box just for that reason, we have been having horrid problems.  We subscribe to a bundle package where we have cable television, cable internet and the cable telephone.  Once we got the second box, things started fucking up.  On Demand wouldn’t work and the phone and internet kept going out.  I don’t like being without internet, but it really pissed me off that we were paying for phone service that was really unreliable.  They sent a workman out.  This guy was really super nice.  He kept me informed of what he was doing and when he found the problem he tried his best to explain it to me even though it was way over my head.  Basically maintenance had to come out to my house and replace wires and couplings at the pole.  That still didn’t fix the problem.  They sent another workman out.  This guy was also extremely nice and he listened to me when I explained what the last guy had done and I suggested that perhaps this second cable box was causing the problem since the problems started when we got it.  He agreed and said that he would replace the second box no problem.  He had to try two different boxes before one worked and he even explained to me why the equipment sometimes didn’t work.  He was awesome.  Well the new box fixed the On Demand problem but not the phone and internet problem.  *sigh*  They sent out another workman.  This guy was a doofus.  The best way I can describe it to you (especially my WV readers) is that he was a know-it-all redneck.  You know, the guy who thinks he knows how everything works and will not listen to reason.  Basically he came and stood in my living room (where there is NO cable equipment) and talked to himself for about five minutes….thoroughly creeping me out in the process.  Then he asked me what the problem was.  I explained to him that the phone and internet kept going out.  He then started going through the same long process that the first guy went through.  I stopped him and explained to him that he was the third workman who had come to our house about this problem and that he might want to look at the modem first.  Then I heard the signature know-it-all redneck line:  “I’m gonna tell you right now that your numbers are going to be out of whack!”

I tried not to laugh because he reminded me so much of a dumbass a friend of mine used to be married to.  So he looked at the numbers and then stood in my backyard talking to himself a while longer.  Then he came to me and asked me to show him where the cable modem was.  I showed it to him and you know what he ended up having to do?  Change out the modem.  Like I suggested he should try.  He was at my house for almost 2 hours.  But, the good news is that it seems to have fixed the problem.  I’m not really miffed at the cable company.  When we call, the people are always super nice and they always send a workman out the very next day.  And up until know-it-all showed up, the workman have all been awesome.  I hope the problem is fixed though.

ANYHOW, we spent the evening at my mom’s house swimming in the pool and just enjoying each other.  That night, we let off a few small fireworks to try to get Lukas excited for the 4th.  He wasn’t very interested.

Saturday, we went to a local lake to try fishing only to find that with all of the jet skis and motor boats (and lack of fishing areas) there was no chance we were going to get any fishing done there.  So, we shrugged it off and went back to mom’s house and spent that very hot day lounging in a pool.  It was a great day.

Sunday we were pooped and decided to stay home in the air conditioning.  That night, we grilled out and let off fireworks.  Again, Lukas could have cared less.  Jessie and I made clowns of ourselves playing with sparklers and doing stupid stuff trying to get his interest, and he ended up getting really annoyed with us.  Then we brought out the big noisy fireworks and he was still not having it.  Oh well, maybe next year.

Today we WERE going to stay home and just chill, but in the middle of writing this post, my mom called from her car on her way home from Philly and asked if we wanted to come over today.  I know part of the invitation is because it is hot as hell outside, but I know she really just wants to see Lukas.  It makes me a little misty-eyed to know that my mom will probably be to my kids what her mother was to my brother and I.  It makes me happy they will have that kind of connection with someone outside of their parents.

So I am finishing this blog right now with a very excited toddler pulling at my arm screaming “GRANDMA’S HOUSE” and “BIG WA WA” in my ear.  It’s cute and annoying all at once. I’ll end this with some awesome pictures from the weekend.  I have videos as well, but I’ll make a separate post for those.

I don’t know if it is a Lukas-thing or a little boy-thing, but this kid LOVES being naked, and I know my mom will get a good laugh out of seeing him running around bare-ass on her patio.  I also love my censor-the-winky job.

He was more interested in the mac n’ cheese than in the fireworks.

It was a good holiday.  Stresses were forgotten and I remembered to count myself as lucky to have two sweet faces smiling at me when I looked up.  Soon it will be three sweet faces.  Life is good.

I had another blog post in mind for today, but this little blah blah is really just a platform for me to show off another video of Lukas being cute.  Today we sat in the sunroom and played with some of his toys and munched on some Oreo cookies.  We both share a deep love for Oreos, even though our view on how to eat them differ.  I am all about keeping them whole and dunking them.  Lukas is a split-and-lick kind of guy, which upsets me greatly.  He’s ruining a perfectly good cookie!

Lukas Oreo Face from Somer Canon on Vimeo.

Note:  I also LOVE how every “sentence” end in “Momma.”  If he’s talking to his toys and I’m in the room, every sentence directed at them still ends in “Momma.”  It’s really freaking cute.

When I put his bare tushy on that potty, I still wasn’t 100% sure that he was ready.  I didn’t expect anything to happen.  I sat  him down, sat across from him and just calmly began chit chatting with him about pee pee and poo poo.  He enthusiastically chatted back and wanted to focus mainly on pee pee and his winky. 

Suddenly, he got quiet.  He looked down at his winky and, to my surprise, started going pee pee!  I squealed and clapped and exclaimed over and over again what a good boy he was.  He continued to go pee pee  until his bladder was empty.  You could have knocked me over with  feather. 

I called Jessie and my mother and excitedly informed them of this new development.  Everybody was excited and stunned at how he seemed to “get it.”  An hour later, I cautiously took him back down to sit again.  I’m prepared for setbacks and accidents.  I’m prepared for flukes.  But he went pee pee again!!!  Again!!  He’s sitting next to me right now enjoying some ice cold apple juice and his next appointment with the potty is in a half hour.  If he goes pee pee again, I will take that as a sign that he is definitely ready to start potty training seriously. 

5 years ago, I never would have thought that a few ounces of urine would make me so excited that I would blog about it.  But I just did.  I just shared with the world that my son squirting a little pee has made my week.  Oh, parenthood!

The pregnancy seems to have stabilized and I am now in my 11th week.  That means that this baby is now in the fetus stage and has only a 15% chance of miscarriage at this point.  That’s SO much better than the 50/50 odds I had before.  I am extremely happy about that.

The sickness is also starting to chill out a little bit.  I think this gorgeous weather is helping a lot.  It’s nice to go outside and play with Lukas in our backyard and watch for birds and squirrels.  We pick flowers and water the rose bushes.  It’s really nice.  I still have days where I just can’t seem to kick it, but they are getting less and less.  I’ve lost a little bit of weight, but nothing close to what I lost with Lukas.  This time around, since I have the medication so early, it’s mostly the nausea that has kept me from eating.  Even talking about food is miserable sometimes and certain smells set me right the heck off.  For instance, we bought a new refrigerator because the one that came with this house was really old and it was also moldy on the inside because they turned off the electricity and didn’t open the doors on it.  I could never get that mold smell completely out, so Jessie surprised me with a new fridge.  Well, this new fridge’s “new fridge smell” made me sick every time I had to smell it.  And I have to smell it several times a day.  Lukas needs to eat and he needs juice.  That sucked.  I was getting him some lunch one day and accidentally got a big whiff of that smell and ended up vomiting in my kitchen sink.  I felt really bad about that because Lukas was beside me holding on to my hand saying, “Are you ok, Momma?  Momma?  No cry, Momma.  I sorry, Momma.  Momma?  Are you ok?”  And after, every time I would cough, he would look at me and ask if I was ok.  He’s never seen me vomit before and I felt really bad that it alarmed him like that.  But he’s a sweet boy.

Another completely amazing thing is that my belly has popped a little bit already.  With Lukas, I wasn’t showing until around week 20.  Now I’ve got this little belly sticking out (more so than my cheeseburger belly).  People have made comments about it, so it’s not just me seeing it.  I know that second pregnancies show a lot sooner, but sheesh!  I need to get my old ugly maternity pants out already!

Another thing of interest is that the bedroom is FINALLY done.  My in-laws came up on two weekends and Jessie and his father worked their asses off getting this bedroom ready for me.  It was so nice of them and I am so thankful.  This room looks fantastic and it’s so nice not to be sleeping on a mattress on the floor anymore.  Once I get all the pictures hung and all that, I’ll post before and after pictures.  It’s a HUGE difference.

A few weeks ago, when I was really down and feeling sorry for myself, a new blog came to my attention that I am really thankful that I found.  Our Baby Bump Story is an infertility blog.  It’s a beautiful blog that I love to read.  The author is a woman who has been trying to conceive for a few years with no success.  The tone of the blog has it’s ups and downs.  Sometimes she is hopeful, excited, and optimistic.  Sometimes she is defeated, tired, and scared of her dreams of motherhood never coming to fruition.  It’s a sentiment that I can’t personally relate to at all.  I mean, all things aside, it’s been relatively easy for me to conceive both times.  I have NO fertility problems and I think that, for me, that would be a thousand times more heartbreaking than the HG.  It’s nice to get another perspective sometimes.

That’s about all for now.  I think you’ll start seeing more regular posts soon.  With Lukas, the sickness backed off with the medication at about 18 weeks, but I was also weak and I’d been untreated for 16 weeks.  Maybe by the time the second trimester comes along, I can start living a semi-normal life again.  I have one question for you all this time, though.  I know that I did the belly picture thing with Lukas.  Personally, I don’t find it to be all that interesting this time around, but if you, my readers and friends are at all interested in gawking at my bulging belly, I’ll post pictures on this blog for you.  Leave your feedback in the comments.

He looked over at me and nodded.

“I’m afraid to have anymore children with you.”  I said.

“What?  Why?”

“I wanted to fix some things in this relationship before we bring another baby into this family.  I wanted us to be more stable.”

This conversation occurred on February 18.  I found out I was pregnant with my second child on February 19.

It was a Friday night.  I’d been feeling sick and fatigued for the last few days.  He went out and bought a box of home pregnancy tests.

“Give me a kiss for luck,” I said as I went to the bathroom.

I took the test and tried to compose myself after seeing the positive result.  I stood on the stairs looking at him.

“Well?”  He asked.  “Are you pregnant?”

I nodded and sank to the floor and started sobbing.  He stood there just staring at me, not knowing how to react.

Yes, I was unhappy about this.  For several reasons.  The number one fact being that I wasn’t ready.  I’m still so scared of going through this again.  Intellectually I know that this pregnancy should be better.  We know about the HG, we are closer to family, and I’ll have a better idea of what to expect.

Emotionally, well that’s a different story.  Emotionally, I’m scared of my abilities to be a good mother to Lukas while sick and pregnant.  I’m scared of how a new baby will affect Lukas.  I’m scared he will feel pushed aside.  I’m scared that the things that are broken in my marriage will become aggravated once the new baby comes like they did when Lukas was first born.  But the big thing?  I didn’t plan this.  I wasn’t taking prenatal vitamins for 6 months prior to this pregnancy like I did with Lukas (which was good since I was unable to keep anything down, prenatal vitamins included, for the first 5 months of that pregnancy).  I didn’t have every detail worked out ahead of time.  The control freak in me is freaking the hell out.

But it’s happened and now I need to warm up to the idea.  I’ve had nearly a week to let it all sink in.  I’m warming up to it.  I’m getting excited about another baby in the house.  I’m still having my sour moments, but they are about this being unplanned and not about me being unhappy about a new baby.  A trip to Target’s baby section helped me to get the right perspective about a new baby.  I walked to the pajama section, picked up a set of footie fleecy pj’s in a newborn size and started crying.  A new tiny baby.  Oh yes, I can get behind that idea.

I’m doing ok.  Really I am.  The sickness has kicked in earlier this time around.  The motion-sickness-but-not-moving-reading-nausea is terrible.  That’s why my online presence is being so quiet.  I’d like to thank everybody (my friends and internet family) for all the well wishing and congratulations.  You guys are great.

Since I didn’t have a baby shower with Lukas, I was thinking about throwing myself a party in late spring.  Not a baby shower, just a party.  A chance to celebrate a new baby without soliciting gifts from all of my guests (not that I’m against that, I’ve just already got most of what I need).  I’ll flesh that idea out after I can finally get an appointment with a doctor and get some pills.  I’m not taking this lightly.  I may be pregnant, but I’m still the Momma to a toddler and he needs me.  He needs me to not be bed-ridden and to be able to chase him round the house and play bouncy ball with him.  It will be taken care of ASAP.

Until then, my dear friends and family.  Thank you so much again for your love and support.

Then there are those nights when he quietly gets out of bed, goes to his door, and says through the door, “Momma.”

I’m awake in a flash and going to him.  When I open the door, I am greeted by a tiny creature dressed in fleece footy pajamas with a blue blanket hanging from his mouth.  Tiny arms are reaching up for me.  I bend down and the tiny arms wrap around my neck.  I pick him up and hold him for a minute, just standing in the doorway with his tiny form in my arms.  His warm soft cheek presses against the side of my face.  Little hands have found my hair and are lightly playing with it.

I walk him back over to his bed and lay him down.

“Sit, Momma.”  He cries.  I get in bed with him and pull the covers around us.  I stretch my right arm out and he snuggles into the nook between my chest and arm.  Tiny hands reach up and start playing with the button on my shirt.  We both doze.  He wakes up, not realizing I’m still there and cries out.

“Shh.  Momma’s here.”  I say to him.

“Momma,”  he says as he grinds his face into my chest.  He’s asleep in a matter of minutes.  I slowly make my way out of his bed.  I pull the covers in around him.  I kiss the soft hair and warm skin at his temple.  I pick up a tiny hand and kiss it before tucking it under the blankets.  He sleeps the rest of the night.

The next morning, I am awakened by the sound of one of his noise-making books honking loudly by his door.  He is awake and is patiently keeping himself occupied until I let him out.  I get out of bed, open his door, and a tiny creature in fleece footy pajamas flies past me, stops, turns to me and says “Hi, Momma!” before darting into his toy room where he plays with his train set until breakfast.

He eats his yogurt and fruit quickly and quietly knowing that finishing this dish will get him a bowl of Cheerios and milk.  When I set the cereal before him, he looks up at me and says, “Ank oo!”  I sit across from him eating my breakfast and checking my email.  He lifts his small plastic spoon for me to see and proclaims that it is a green spoon.  I tell him that, yes, that is a green spoon and that he is a very good and smart boy.

Now it’s time for Sesame Street. The time of day that I dread and he loves.  With the hour-long show comes 10,000 questions about minute details on the screen.  Yes, Elmo is red.  Yes, that is Mr. Noodle.  Yes, I see Big Bird too.  No, that is not a cat, that’s a dog.  Yes it is.  YES IT IS.

He has not been napping lately.  Usually around this time, it is nap time but now I pull some special toys out for him.  We cut wooden fruit, play with cars, or fry bananas in his play kitchen.  When I go upstairs to shower, he stands in the bathroom with me standing on his stool and compulsively washing his hands and getting water everywhere.  I brush his teeth and he begs for a sip of water from his ducky cup.

Now it’s time for his lunch.  I put him in his chair and serve him a plate of bologna, cheese, and a crackers or chips.  He asks for a sippy.  I bring it to him.  He tells me to sit.  I sit and we chat while he eats.  We talk about the house that he can see out of the window.  We talk about the kitty misbehaving.  We talk about what kind of cheese he is eating.  We sing the ABC song.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  I get up from my chair and remove his empty plate before he can ask for another encore.  I let him down from his chair.  He grabs my hand and says “DOO DOO!”  And drags me upstairs where we play with his train set (choo choo).  We come downstairs and chase each other around for a bit.

I ask him if he wants chicken for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants fish for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants rice for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants noodles for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants a weiner for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants French fries for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants M&M’s for dinner.  He says yes.  I opt for chicken.

His father comes home.  He goes crazy.  They say their hello’s and hug and kiss.

We sit down to dinner.  When he sees that he did not get M&M’s for dinner, he gets angry.  He repeatedly pushes his plate away from himself and I keep pushing it back telling to eat a little bit.  He puts a piece in his mouth and takes it out before chewing.  I tell him to eat or go to bed.  He doesn’t want to go to bed so he eats one piece.  Only one piece.  We give up after about 45 minutes of screaming and tantrums all around.  We go downstairs and watch a DVD.  Then we go upstairs and play with the train set some more.  Then it’s bath time.

He plays with all of his toys, splashes us, points out his winky 200 times, and turns on the cold water and squeals when it hits him.

We take him out, brush his teeth, lotion his body and put him in fleece footy pajamas.  We read him a book.  We snuggle him under his blankets and kiss his cheeks.  He says night-night to us.  We turn off the light and tell him that we love him.  We close the door.

“My other babies are alive, too?”  I asked.

“I can’t say right now.”  The doctor said.

“YES you can!  These are my babies!  I deserve to know at least if they are alive!  I deserve to see them and hold them!”  I said.

“I’ll keep you updated,” he said coldly and left.

We kept asking the nurse to tell us stuff, but she refused as well.  We kept asking when we could take the one baby home and they kept saying that they didn’t know.

It was an infuriating dream.  I’m so tired of having these sad dreams about babies.  But pretty much any dream that I have of having another baby is sad.

Not a day goes by (and I mean this, literally…I’m not just telling a story…it’s every day) where I don’t struggle with the decision of whether or not to have more children.  The decision has been left 100% up to me by my spineless husband.  Ok, that’s not fair.  It should be my decision.  I’m the one that has to be pregnant again.  I’m the one that will be doing the reorganizing of our home and lives so that we could fit one more.

Jessie has given me his input which basically said, “I’m perfectly fine with it just being the three of us.  But if another baby should come along, it’s only good news.”  That sounds like the perfect and wonderful thing to say…and that’s exactly why he said it that way.  Because it sounds perfect.  The truth of the matter is that Jessie is a little hesitant to have me pregnant again.  The first time scared him to death.

I still get a little defensive about that first pregnancy, and with good reason.  People have listened/talked about my first pregnancy and the sickness with either complete ambivalence or have been cold about the subject in a way that would suggest that perhaps it is thought that I was lying.  The reason why this pisses my off royally is because NOBODY was there.  I was 3,000 miles away from everybody!  Nobody could see how freaked out Jessie was.  Nobody was at my doctor’s appointment when the nurse said to me,

“You’re 4 months pregnant, your clothes are hanging off of you and your skin is completely gray.  You need help.”

Nobody was with me on those days where I sat in bed and cried because I couldn’t even keep down the two sips of water that I had just had.  Nobody saw me lying in bed for 12 weeks.  Nobody was there with me when I cried what water was left in my body when they told me that it was a disease and that it was more than just morning sickness.  People heard about it from Jessie (who tells things in a cold manner.  It’s just his way) or read about it in blogs.  Nobody was there.

Nobody was with me when I found this site almost a year after my first baby was born and read that studies have shown that in all likelihood, if you suffer the sickness in one pregnancy, you can expect to suffer it in any subsequent pregnancies.  Nobody saw me sitting at my computer crying.

The most painful part of the aftermath of that sickness was the lack of support from family that I received.  People looked bored when I talked about it.  People made hints that perhaps it wasn’t as bad as I was making it out to be.

Surprisingly, the most sympathetic person was my mom.  My mom had no “advice” for me such as the whole toast and crackers thing.  My mom listened to me with pure sympathy in her voice.  My mom listens to me talk about it to this day.  She is active in these conversations, meaning she doesn’t just stare at the ground and wait for the subject to change.  This is because my mom could relate.  Studies have found that the disease may be hereditary.  My mom had two kids and experienced the sickness twice.  The first time was bearable, the second time was more like what I went through with Lukas…..except she never got any medication and she got even less support and sympathy.  My mom was the only person besides Jessie who even tried to listen to me.

In case you’re new here or have forgotten, the disease that I’m talking about is Hyperemesis Gravidarum.  I wear a little blue rubber bracelet on my wrist to show that I support the research going towards this sickness so that it is more recognized.  I am am member of the community behind this research to give support to people currently going through the sickness and, like me, have people who believe that they are being overly dramatic about run-of-the-mill morning sickness.  Truthfully, it is that lack of sympathy and support from family that is the most hurtful.

So back to my dream and the debacle of whether or not to have another baby.  I’d love to have another baby.  I love being a mom.  I had one beautiful baby, so logic would dictate that I could possibly have another beautiful baby.

My current answer when asked about whether or not I’ll have another baby (asked by people who weren’t there the first time and still look at me with skepticism) is that I’m not going to think seriously on the matter until Lukas is old enough to understand that Momma is sick and why Momma is sick.  And although I think about having another baby everyday, it is the truth.  I can’t seriously consider having another baby with Lukas being so dependent still and still needing so much attention.

If I’m lucky, I’ll get a new OB/GYN who will talk to the doctor who treated me the first time (she ordered me to have the next doc call her if I get pregnant again…I was the first case of HG she had ever seen, so I’m sure she’ll remember me) and who will give me the medicine that I need to keep me from vomiting so much.  I can’t start taking the medication until at least 8 weeks of pregnancy.  With Lukas, I started getting nonstop sick at 6 weeks.  If I’m lucky, that’s only 2 weeks of hell.  I can’t do that while chasing a toddler around, though.

I honestly don’t know what I’ll decide in the end.  By the time Lukas is at a point where I can make the decision, I may decide that I like this dynamic of a three-person family.  However, I may start thinking about how great it would be to have a baby in the house again, a little bundle of squishiness and farts who has toothless smiles and tiny toes.  I guess we’ll see.