Maui

Maui was wonderful! We had sucha  good time snorkeling , reading on the beach and eating really good food. That is seriously all we did! We stayed in Kihei, on the western side. I highly recommend staying here or in Wailea if you go. You're central to everything and they have the best beaches. That's all I will say here's some pictures!

Ke'Anae Peninsula. This place was sooo cool! We're sitting on cooled lava that flowed into the ocean 960 years ago.

Authentic Hawaiian shaved ice! I could eat a dozen of these!

Super attractive right?

The view from the Grand Wailea

He' so handsome. We layed out on this bluff and read until the sunset!

This is my buddy! I swam with him for about 20 minutes...until a man-of-war wrapped itself around my leg! It's a good thing no one could hear me under water because I'm pretty sure some 4-letter expletives escaped my mouth!

On the boat back from Molokini Crater ( we snorkeled in a volcanic crater. Cool, huh?)

Wainaapanapa black sand beach

This was on our drive on "the road to Hana" it's a 52mile one lane drive with over 60 one lane bridges. it was gorgeous!

Seriously the coolest tree ever!

Entering the bamboo forest

Waimoko falls. A 700 ft. waterfall that we hiked through the bamboo forest to see. It was seriously breathtaking

The best french toast ever!!! It was stuffed w/bananas and then sauteed in coconut syrup and topped with crushed pineapple! This was the fort time ever I out-ate and finished before Joe!

Joe is outnumbered!

Thursday afternoon I had a Dr. appt because to check my placenta etc....I had passed some clots so they decided to do an ultrasound. After making sure everything was okay (which it was) the Dr. said "would you like to know what you're having?" HELLO!!!! Of course, Joe wasn't there, so I felt a twinge of guilt for about seconds. Baby was on its side with its back toward us, I was skeptical. The Dr. moved thhe wand around a little bit and said "I do not see any testicles"! That can only mean one thing: It's a girl!!!!!!!!!!!

We're pretty stoked! I'm excited for Bella to have a little sister to play with. They'll be almost 25mos. apart.

Back in bed!

Apparently I'm supposed to learn a lesson about patience or something! I started to hemorrhage again this morning. I freaked out of course! I had to wait for Joe to come home and of course Bella picks this time to be super ornery! I just went in my room, shut the door and said a prayer! We didn't go to the hospital, we went to my Dr.s office. I'm glad we did because we would've waited for hours at the ER. The first thing she did was make sure baby was okay. THANK YOU!!!! The last tie this happened I kept asking the ER staff if we could just listen for the baby's heartbeat, they kept brushing me off. 

DON'T THEY KNOW THAT I WAS FREAKING OUT AND THAT WAS ALL I CARED ABOUT!!!!!

They did an ultrasound today and everything looked okay. Baby was sucking it's thumb and kicking it's feet. Very reassuring! As soon as I saw that I knew everything would be okay. I have a blood clot that formed at the tear on my placenta. The Dr. said it just needs time to work it's way out of my body. In other words, this isn't the last of this kind bleeding. More than likely this is going to happen again and I'll have to stay in bed a couple of days. 

Why can't these things happen when I don't have an 18 mos. old to take care of!!!!!!!!! 

If anyone has any good book or movie suggestions I will gladly accept them seeing as I have plenty of time on my hands the next couple of days.

Bed Rest+ME=NOT FRIENDS

This has been a hellacious week! The fact that I'm still alive after being on bed rest for a whole week is beyond me! Thankfully the bleeding has stopped. I still feel super tired. I can tell my body is working hard to mend itself. Baby is doing great! I actually felt the first little flutter of movement this morning! It took me a minute to realize what it was. It was a wonderful feeling after everything we've been through. I still can't pick up Bella and she is having a really hard time with it! Hopefully soon!
I am so blessed to have wonderful friends and family around. It has been really hard for me to accept their help. I am so stubborn and prideful! I have learned some good lessons. I learned not only is it important for us to serve others, It is equally important to allow ourselves to be served by others. When we don't we're denying them  the opportunity to grow spiritually and ourselves to accept love. That's my deep thought for the week! 


Today was Joe's graduation! I am so proud of him and everything he's accomplished. He has worked his butt off to get here! It was nice to see him officially celebrated!


Well that's all for now...I'm off to read East of Eden by John Steinbeck...I'm still not sure how I feel about it...I'll let you know later....

Scariest night of my life!

Last night I stayed up late talking to my dad. At about 12:45 I stood up to go to bed and blood started gushing out of me. It was literally like a fire hydrant had been turned on. I immediately start freaking out because A) I'm dying or B) I'm miscarrying. We rushed off to the ER. By the time we got there I was soaked through with blood. 


(you would think this would make the ER staff want to HURRY!!! Oh no I sat in that waiting room hysterical for 45 minutes soaking their chair with blood!)


We finally got back into a room. They did a pelvic exam and found that my cervix was closed. A good sign but I was still losing a lot of blood. They eventually did an ultrasound...at first I couldn't see a baby on the screen, so I lose it again....the tech says hold on I'm looking at the opposite of your uterus. She then panned over to BABY where we saw a glorious heartbeat and baby doing somersaults and sucking its hands...I lose it AGAIN because A)Baby is alive and 


B) I figured out at this point that I probably wasn't dying. It turns out I have a sub-chorionic hemorrhage  where the embryo implanted into the uterus. (Basically a small tear) The Dr. said this was fairly common and the earlier it happens the better your chances are of continuing pregnancy etc...


We are not 100% out of the woods, he said there is still a slight chance of miscarriage. But he really felt confident that everything was going to be fine. Baby's heartbeat was really strong and baby was super active. I am on complete bedrest until the bleeding stops. After that I have to take it easy and can't pick Bella up until it has completely healed and is gone!
(trying telling that to an 18mos old while she's crying at your door and saying "Momma, please! Momma")


It was the worst feeling in the world thinking that I was losing my baby! I felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck. Totally helpless! I wanted to scream at every Dr. and Nurse that was taking their sweet time! In my mind the minute I walked in there they should've wheeled me to ultrasound so I could at least know everything was okay.


Needless to say we are not going to France! Of course I am beyond bummed, but I'll take my baby over France. Funny how those things happen. France isn't going anywhere and at least now we'll actually have time to save up for it rather than coming back with nearly $1000 in debt! We're going to try and go to Barabados or Hawaii in July or August for 4-5 days. It's closer not as much walking and traveling. Lots of relaxing.

Bella's Surgery

We finally got to meet with Bella's surgeon last week after months of tests. At her last VCUG (http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=voidcysto) They found that her kidneys were both severely backed up and that the left kidney was worse than last time. She still has a cyst on the right kidney. 


(http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/378075-overview) 
(http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec11/ch148/ch148b.html)
These talk a little about Bella's Condition


Her surgery date is Monday Sep. 13th. What they're going to do is reconnect the extra ureter tubes to the bladder (possibly make one long ureter) and completely remove the cyst. It's a pretty complex surgery because she's so tiny. They will have to make a cesarean type incision, which is good because they won't be cutting through any muscle. This will allow her to heal more quickly. We'll have to spend about a week in the hospital.


The good news is that they don't need to remove the top half of her left kidney, drastically reducing our hospital stay! Phew!


The bad news...she will most likely have to come home with external drains in place. They will have to go back and remove them after 2 weeks or so....this freaks me out! How in the world do you stop a 22 month old from pulling it out!


I'm nervous because Joe can't take any time off and his mom will be back in school. I will be flying completely solo at the hospital! 


The best news is this will be the LAST surgery ever!!! She'll need about 6 months of intense follow-up and then 1/year. I'm so excited! 

Notice anything different?

If you look to the right of this page you will see a new addition to my blog!