12 Days - Day 2

Here are the adorable little hats I made on day 2 of the 12 Days of Christmas Charity!

I plan on adding some ribbon...as soon as I get some

Do you think this would work for a boy?

This one still needs its leaves

12 days - Day 1

I decided to join a short challenge for the Christmas season. "But you can't even post a picture a day for one month," you say? Well...taking a decent picture is harder for me than what I'm doing, now.

I've joined Sunset Crochet's 12 Days of Christmas Charity! I've committed to making 12 preemie hats in 12 days. Bonnie at Sunset Crochet got together a few other designers and created several adorable patterns for everyone use.

I'm having a blast!

Here's what I completed the first day:

This isn't one of her patterns, but I was anxious to get started.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

I hope to make at least 12 of the little Santa hats in different sizes. I've always read that pretty much any size preemie hat will be accepted since the babies are all different sizes. I think I'd like a seasonal hat if my little one had to spend the holiday in the hospital.

It's amazing how grateful these little hats have made me. Trip spent a few days in the Level II nursery (lowest level of the NICU) due to some O2 levels. He went home with me and Jack, though. I can't imagine what the parents of babies in the NICU go through.

OK, now I'm rambling. I'm lucky enough to have been interrupted by the boys constant chattering and questions about 1,000 times during the few minutes I took to write this post.

Yarn Bowls

Want to win a beautiful yarn bowl? Head on over to Inner Hooker's website and check out the giveaway she's hosting!

This is the one I am in love with:

Source: etsy.com via Amanda on Pinterest

This one is all sorts of cute, too:

Source: etsy.com via Amanda on Pinterest

Should I stay or Should I Go now

Farah Here reporting Live:

Amanda has been having some contractions/pain for about 24 hours now and mid morning today she called her OB's office.  The suggested that she take a trip to the L&D at the hospital.  So far so good.  She was contracting 2-4 mins apart on her way to the Hospital and she Does not want a VBAC so they gave her a shot of Terbu.taline to try and slow/stop things.  She is in good spirits, she said her phone battery is dead and Terb makes her Twitchy.  The L&D told her it would be along night so Send her all the good thought you can

What IF?

If you haven't read about what Mel & Resolve are up to, well...why not?  Have some tissue handy if you're going to read through the comments.

My what IF?  What IF I spend my childrens' hard earned childhood miscarrying their siblings?

I didn't even realize until I typed it, but this is one of the main reasons I'm hesitant about TTC again.  I AM terrified of losing another pregnancy. Yes, I have had a successful pregnancy (immensely successful if I do say so myself). I have also had unsuccessful pregnancies. Three of them, by my count. 1st one, no clue what happened...2nd one, ruled ectopic but barely missed being ruled chemical...3rd, triploidy natural miscarriage.  4 pregnancies, 4 outcomes, 1 positive, 3 negative.  Luckily it looks worse on paper than it is in real life, because I think we can all admit that 1 positive outcome is amazingly positive and gets better each day.

But do I want to risk the emotional and physical trauma of more losses? The pain isn't overwhelming now, but each loss dredges up the old pain and compounds it. My boys are young right now, but as they get older they'll see what Tim and I are going through. Do I want to do that to them? Do I want to do it to me or Tim?

Of course this is only one of the reasons I don't want to TTC right now, but it's definitely the most emotional and physical reason. The other reasons are purely time and money.

So what's your What IF?

Say Yes to the Dress!

Tim's semi-formal graduation dinner is coming up very soon.  As in 11 days away, soon.  What?  I didn't mention he's been away at school all month?  Yeah. Gotta love the military when they give you 3 days notice that your husband is leaving for six weeks.

But the important question today is, which dress should I wear??? I ordered a bunch of dresses and decided to let my internet buddies pick one out for me.  Please ignore the hair, lack of makeup, and fact that all of the dresses are wrinkled.  Please also forgive the blurry shots and bad lighting...self portraits suck.

Please vote, even if you've never commented!  The poll is on the right and will be open for a week. :-)

[caption id="attachment_1526" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Dress 1"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1527" align="aligncenter" width="163" caption="Dress 2"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1528" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Dress 3"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1529" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Dress 4"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1530" align="aligncenter" width="291" caption="Dress 5"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1531" align="aligncenter" width="278" caption="Dress 6"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1532" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Dress 7"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1533" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Dress 8"][/caption]

Giveaway! ***and the winner is***

I used a random number generator to choose.  And the winner is Aleigh!

 

Using a Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor? Know someone who is? Need test sticks? Don't want to pay $50 for them? Great!

I've got one unopened box of 30 Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor Test Sticks that expire 09/2009. I am giving them away! If you're interested, or know someone that is interested, just leave me a comment and you're entered to win. The giveaway closes 05/15/09 at 3:00pm EST. I'll email the winner that evening, so make sure you enter your email address!

 

National Infertility Awareness Week

 

It's National Infertility Awareness Week.  Make your voice heard!

Navigating the Land of IF
Silent Sorority

Vote for Mel!

Vote for Mel for the best medical/health blog!  (You can and should vote every day!)

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-medicalhealth-issues-blog/

Voting in bullets

Yay me!  I voted!

• I arrived at the polls @ 6:45 this morning


• At 9:00 a poll worker came out and informed us that they weren't checking anyone in because they were full.  (Full???)  Their process was to check you in, give you a number, escort you to the auditorium where you would wait until your number was called.  Then you would wait in line for your turn at the polls.  The auditorium holds 400 people.  In 2 hours they hadn't been able to move even 1/2 of those people through?  I'd only moved all of 1,000 feet in two hours.  (Mr. W just informed me that 1,000 feet is 1/5 of a mile.  I'd moved a maximum of 200 feet)


• At 9:05 another poll worker was explaining the same thing but also informed us that 3 of the 9 machines had broken.  This caused a serious stirring among the crowd (read:  some people grumbled, but others started yelling about it trying to get people as riled up as they were).


• At 9:30 I had almost made it to the door of the school.  I would probably have to wait at least another 30+ minutes to even be checked in and given a number.


• At 9:30 a really nice woman (voter, not poll worker) walked up to me and told me that her husband had spoken with the curbside voting worker and he agreed to let me do curbside voting.


• At 9:35 I found my way to curbside voting and the attendant begrudgingly allowed me to vote.  (He obviously wasn't too fond of letting me vote this way since I didn't have a handicap placard.)


• At 9:45 I was the proud owner of 3 "I Voted" stickers!  The guy that checked me in was nice enough to give me a sticker for each of the babies' books.  :-)

After all of that I ran through a drive through for second-breakfast (I feel like a hobbit, but I was starving again!) then headed home.  By 10:00 I was asleep on my couch where I remained until my Mom called and woke me up at 1:30.  Now I sit and wait for the results!

ADDED:

So all the people that were in line @ 7:00 (as long as they're willing to wait) still get to vote.  Which means that SC probably won't be done reporting their votes until sometime next week!  We're such a backwards freaking state!!!!  I've noticed from other blogs that no one else seems to have had issues with lines that were many hours long.  WTF???

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day: Take Action

October 15th is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day in the United States. More than 25,000 children are stillborn in the United States every year leaving mothers, entire families and communities devastated. Estimates of the rate of occurrence of stillbirth make it at least as common as autism.

Stillbirth is not an intractable problem. Greater research would likely significantly reduce its incidence, but good research requires good data. H.R. 5979: Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act is under consideration by Congress. This proposed bill would standardize stillbirth investigation and diagnosis, thus providing more data for the needed research. Better research means fewer children born still.

On October 15th, remember the thousands of unfinished children lost and the families who remain to grieve them. Honor them by taking action. Let's help pass H.R. 5979.

Action Steps:

Step 1. Write your Representative!!
-Follow this link to get instructions on how to write your Representative asking them to co-sponsor this bill.  The more co-sponsors the bill has, the more likely it is to pass.  Please note, this is for the House of Representatives only.  Do not contact your Senators at this time.

Step 2. Use Your Blog to Enlist Others
-Copy the contents of this entire post and publish it on your blog immediately.

GOAL: Enlist 10 of your readers to spread the word

Step 3. Use Your E-mail to Enlist Others
-E-mail 5 bloggers and ask them (nicely and in an unspammy way) to publish these action steps on their blog. Consider contacting celebrity bloggers, political bloggers, medical bloggers, or bloggers who are not part of your reading community.

GOAL: Enlist 3 bloggers outside of your normal blog sphere to spread the word in other online communities.

Step 4. Help Pass the Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act
-By October 15th, publish a post on your blog supporting H.R. 5979 Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act. For maximum impact, title your post: "Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act."

GOAL: 1,000,000Google results on October 15th when that term is searched for. Currently, Google only returns 20,400 pages - most of which have nothing to do with the bill.

What will you donate? or bid on?

Take Back the U.T.E.R.U.S.