All Aboard

The boys and I made a last minute trip to the mountains this week to visit my brother and his wife and to see what all the mountains had to offer. We stayed busy from the minute we got there until we left yesterday but had so much fun doing as much as we could in such a short time!


Some of their good friends own a landscaping company so their office was our first stop so the boys could have some up close action with big diggers and huge trucks. Carter was much more into it than Cooper as usual and quickly found the horn on every truck there! Coop isn't really a fan of loud noises so the air horn Carter blew over and over was probably Coop's least favorite part! He kept telling me, "Mommy, that horn hurt mine ears" as he covered them up.

Our next stop was the lake at Grandfather to check out the trampoline and swim a little. The water was cold to say the least but the boys, all three of them, didn't seem to mind! Brian was a trooper and swam with them so Sarah and I could stay warm on the beach. I thought Cooper would be much more hesitant than he was but he went right to Brian and loved every second of it as you can see!

I love how Carter is holding on to Cooper's leg in this one!
Carter's swimming lessons have really paid off thus far. He's doing great swimming with his arms as well as his legs so he gets where he's going much quicker these days. I'm sure the life jacket helped but he wasn't intimidated at all.


Carter loved jumping off the side into the water. Cooper wasn't ever that brave, maybe next year!




Cooper wanted to come back to the beach but then stood their pouting because he wanted to go back out with the big boys!
Sweet Brian quickly came to his rescue.


I wish this was clearer because it would be so sweet! My camera just doesn't zoom quite as far as it needed to unfortunately.
Brian showing off his back flip for the boys.
Yes, Cooper will be 3 in September and still sleeps in a crib. He's perfectly happy in it and as long as he's happy so are we! Containment is a luxury to me that I know is about to end but I'll enjoy it while I can for just a little longer. Having said that, he slept in a big boy bed (air mattress on the floor) at Brian and Sarah's and was quite proud of himself for doing so. I told him to call for me on the monitor instead of getting out of bed so as soon as I thought I heard Mommy, I ran right up to greet him. I guess I was listening a little too hard because he was sound asleep so I ran down to get the camera before waking sleeping beauty. I think the paci will hopefully go when he transitions to his big boy bed soon. His front teeth are definitely begging me to get rid of it by the looks of them anyway!

Our last stop before heading home was Tweetsie Railroad. They loved it all and I think we made a good choice in going the day before Thomas rolled into town! The train stops for a little cowboy and bandit skit that Carter seemed to like. This picture is when indians jumped on the train and were running through our train car so he was a little taken aback! Coop sat like a stone in my lap the whole time but kept telling me after the skit that it was a "nice train!"

Carter and Sarah took a drive in the Tweetsie cars. Carter must've been too fast for a picture from the front!
Cooper loved these cars and was determined to steer instead of me, even if that meant bumping the rails a few times!


Carter was dying to ride the "fair wheel" as he calls it so he and Brian rode together and Cooper wants to do whatever Carter does so we hopped on too. It went much faster than I thought it would and I definitely felt my stomach drop each time around but Cooper didn't seem to mind it thankfully! I'm sure the poor little guy in my stomach had something to say about the ride!

It was fun to see the boys ride things together because last year Cooper wouldn't get near any rides that I couldn't do with him. They loved the airplane and helicopter as you can see.









Coop wasn't sure what to think of the dark tunnel the mouse train took us on!

This poor little boy cried his eyes out on the boats while his whole family stood on the outside and watched, talking the whole time about how mad he was. Take him off the d*&$ ride if he's that miserable!


When I asked Carter his favorite part of our whole trip, he said it was when he lost his flip flop on the chair lift and it rode up the lift sitting on a seat by itself! He got quite the kick out of standing there with one shoe on watching his other one ride up to greet him!

As hard as it is to get two boys to look at the camera at the same time and smile, I can't imagine what it will be like to add another to the mix! I'm really just starting to show now at 18 1/2 weeks but still feel like I look like I ate too much instead of being pregnant! I'm ready for a cute pregnant belly and to be able to wear maternity clothes because I'm at the in between point when most of my regular clothes are uncomfortable but maternity things look ridiculous.

We had so much fun on our trip and can't wait to do it again next year! Thanks Brian and Sarah for an awesome time!

You Make Me Smile

These first few pictures are from Jamey's birthday (April 27th) so I'm a little behind but better late than never! With all the chaos of doctor's appointments and worrying behind us, we've now all but Jamey had a stomach bug last week so hopefully we are all going to stay well from here on out!

Jamey had eye issues so I promise the redness in his eyes is solely from contact problems rather than birthday fun.

Cooper took care of the candles before we could get to the 2nd line of Happy Birthday!

Pool time in our yard with pasty, white boys. It'll be interesting to compare this one to another one later in the summer...
Carter's Mother's Day letter we mailed to Nunu.
Yesterday after church we took Woody swimming at a lake in our neighborhood. The weather here has been awful so we leaped at the chance to actually get outside for an afternoon! These pictures make me think of the Uncle Kracker song, "You make me smile" for some reason. I know that song has nothing to do with your children but looking at these pictures just makes me smile and hopefully you as well.

Even though it was close to 90 yesterday and ridiculously humid, Carter didn't want to change out of his church clothes (he knew better than trying to wear his blazer, tie, and church shoes thankfully!) so needless to say he was a little hot.
I like Jamey's face in this one.
And this one!
Sweet, little Coop with quite possibly the cutest flip flops ever. He loves them and wears them everywhere!


This was Cooper's face right before he threw the tennis ball into the water after Jamey told him over and over to hold it and wait to throw it! Can you tell he's trouble?

I love that Carter still has his hand in his pocket and his shirt tucked in at all times!

Here comes the windup...Carter had a brilliant idea to put packing tape on the bottom of all of his shoes to make him fast like Buzz Lightyear and he slipped pretty good on the dock in Woody's wet tracks. He was horrified that his clothes were wet but handled it much better than he usually handles something like that!

I promise he wasn't trying to jump but we just wanted to make sure no one but the dog went swimming in the dirty water!




Hot little boys!

Hope, Prayers, and a Little Luck

My lack of posts lately has definitely not been from a lack of things to say as I've had more on my mind than I ever imagined but just haven't felt strong enough to share it all yet. To say the last two weeks have been a roller coaster would be quite an understatement.

It all started April 27th, Jamey's birthday. I worked the 26th night shift but was so looking forward to being off for Jamey's birthday and having the chance to celebrate with him. I had just reached 13 weeks in my pregnancy so I was already breathing a sigh of relief that the 1st trimester and it's worries were no longer a concern. We had a babysitter lined up for the boys so we could go out, which we very rarely do, so it was all set to be a special night for him. I was so excited and happy. I had a doctor's appt. that afternoon for my 1st trimester screening, which I didn't do with the boys, but is now considered a standard screening test offered to all pregnant women, so I was planning to take advantage and enjoy the chance for another peek at the baby since they do an ultrasound.

Oh if I would have only known what I was getting into. The ultrasound seemed to go great from my perspective. It was a precious little active baby wiggling around and a strong, regular heartbeat. The picture of perfection to a mom and what an overwhelming experience it is. The pictures at 13 weeks were so clear and the baby already looked like such a little person in there! Immediate, overwhelming, unconditional love are the words that come to mind when describing just how sweet that first real glimpse is. The ultrasound tech told me to go upstairs to talk with the provider about my results, which scared me to death but she reassured me that this was standard practice so my fears went away. After waiting close to 30 minutes in the waiting room to be escorted back to another waiting exam room was definitely trying on my patience but I was very unprepared for what I was about to hear. A midwife came in to tell me that my nuchal translucency measurement was much higher than normal and that I'd likely need to be seen by a perinatalogist either that afternoon or the next day. I was floored. She then went to check with the MD on at the time and she said they'd get me in in two weeks with Duke for another more in depth ultrasound and an amniocentesis.

Needless to say, this wasn't at all the news I expected to hear. Thickened nuchal translucency can be indicative of Downs Syndrome, Trisomy 13, and 18 and also other congenital heart defects. There is blood work that goes along with the nuchal translucency to tell you based on your age, etc. your probability of having these conditions. The blood work took 1 week to come back but I was very relieved to get a call from my MD last Monday to tell me my blood work was normal but that my high nuchal reading made my chances for Downs 1:50 and 1:48 for Trisomy 13 and 18. Had I not had this screening test done, my chances just based on age are more like 1:400. I was completely overwhelmed with emotion. I was sad the whole time but tried to hold it together as much as possible and two active little boys certainly helped in that regard. Sleeping was impossible and when I did sleep I had awful dreams about all the things that were wrong and just how awful it was going to be for us.

I don't think I've ever prayed so much in my life. I'm ashamed to say that because I think it seems weak to turn to God when you need Him but I was desperate and didn't know what to do. Talking to friends and family helped beyond belief but at the end of the day I couldn't help but feel alone. I think it's just who I am but I try so hard to shelter people around me from things that can hurt them so I naturally tried to be strong for Jamey so that he wouldn't be worried as much too. This is where I found praying helped me so much. One night last week was the worst I had been feeling about it all and I prayed and prayed and prayed that God would please grant me the strength, courage, and grace to get through the next few weeks and whatever they may hold. I didn't so much pray for a healthy child as I did for God to give me the strength to help me make it through whatever was to come our way. The next day I felt like a completely different person. I was relaxed, calm, and actually happy, a feeling I hadn't experienced much at all lately. I was so amazed and thankful to finally have a little peace about the whole situation and honestly feel that I owe it all to the power of prayer and wonderful, supportive friends and family.

Week 2 of waiting had finally come and my mom was coming to be with us and watch the boys for my long-awaited doctor's appointment at Duke. This was yesterday, May 12th. I was so anxious I didn't know what to do but thankfully my appointment was at 9:15 so I didn't have to wait too long. I was emotionally exhausted at this point and so scared I wouldn't be able to hold myself together much longer. They called us back quickly for my ultrasound and all looked pretty good. I'm only 15 weeks so they did as much of an anatomy scan as possible and were able to get good looks at pretty much everything that would be concerning. The baby BOY, by the way, looked great and there was really only one cause for concern. He had a choroid plexus cyst which is a marker for Trisomy 18 so my chances for it went from 1:48 to 1:10. Cooper had one of these that went away by my 28 week ultrasound so I was a little relieved that it was something I had heard of and knew something about, but the odds scared me to death. It was a little too early to do an amniocentesis and a little too late to do a chorionic villus sample (CVS) so we had planned to come back a week later for an amnio. I was frustrated and sad to have more waiting ahead of us but the wonderful doctor came back in to ask us if we would want to try the CVS, even though it was a little late to do it. She felt comfortable that she could get a good sample because my placenta was on the front of my uterus so we agreed to go that route. They said they'd be able to call us with preliminary info, specifically regarding Downs and Trisomy 13 and 18 in about 24-48 hours.

Music to my ears. The thought of knowing something definitively in one day was immediately enough to sell me on doing the CVS! They were able to get a good sample and said they felt confident they'd be able to call us the next day with the results.

This brings us to today. Lastnight was better than I expected it to be because I truly felt things were going to be fine but waiting to hear was pretty torturous. The boys had school this morning so my mom and I went to the mall to pass the time but couldn't even shop. For those of you that know us, you know how rare that is! We wandered Crabtree pretty aimlessly and had planned to go to lunch but just didn't have the stomach for it. After picking up the boys we came home to wait on our tv repair man to hopefully be fixing our tv, which by the way has been out since Monday night! Waiting was hard enough, but waiting without any tv to use as a distraction was awful! We put the boys down for their naps and mom ran some errands and I stared at the computer trying to think of things to do to occupy my racing brain.

Just before 3pm, the phone rang with a number I didn't recognize. I honestly think my heart stopped, just as it had all day when my phone would ring and it was someone else. It was the genetics counselor from Duke and she immediately said she had good news to tell me. I was completely overwhelmed with all the emotion I've been trying to keep bottled up for these hellacious two weeks. I held it together to get off the phone with her but couldn't hold back any longer. I couldn't even talk. Relief doesn't even begin to describe how happy I felt to know that all would be well and that we had the birth of a healthy baby to look forward to. All this time I've been so guarded about it all that I haven't been able to be positive. I worried we'd have to have an abortion and not be delivering a baby in October/November. I didn't want to wear maternity things or even look at baby stuff because I was so scared of bad news.

Right now I am on top of the world. The knowledge that we are having a healthy, chromosomally normal baby boy is the happiest thing in the world to me right now. He will be such a welcome addition to our family and I am so overwhelmed with love and attachment to him already. The thought of giving birth and holding him for the 1st time after all this brings me to tears. I am so, so thankful for all of my family and friends who have listened to me and sent me notes, texts, emails, kind words in passing that I don't even know how to thank you. Please know that from the bottom of my heart you have all played such a big part in getting me through this awful ordeal and for that I am forever grateful. I truly have the best family and friends in the world and going through something like this helps to remind me just how special they are and how much I am loved. Thank you, thank you, thank you.