Two Hearts... Make that Three

I've been a bit quiet lately here, and, as usual, it is not without cause. I've essentially spent the last several weeks moving between my bed upstairs and my chaise longue downstairs. I do sit here at the computer some, but much less frequently than I have before. That is because, as some of you closest to me know, and as others may have guessed, we have once again been blessed with a tiny little person who, for the time being, has taken up residence in my womb and, in the process, has thrown my life into a complete tailspin. Today we had the pleasure, for the first time, of both hearing and seeing its tiny heart beating - we were able to see the heartbeat on Tuesday as well. We're about 6 1/2 weeks pregnant, and we've decided to share the news a bit more widely than we have until now, both because we believe that even the newest, most fragile life is worth celebrating and because we'd like to know that people are praying for us. We are thrilled to know that all of the diagnostics so far have shown a healthy baby that is growing as expected and whose size and heart-rate are good.

That said, nothing with me is ever uncomplicated, including, apparently, pregnancy. Our first pregnancy ended early this year - the baby had survived until 7 weeks, and we found out at 8 weeks that it was no longer developing due to a highly unusual complication. I had a molar pregnancy (also known as trophoblastic disease), which meant that the placenta was irregular. Ours was a "partial" molar pregnancy, which means there was a baby (as opposed to complete molar pregnancies in which there are only abnormal placental cells), but it had 3 sets of chromosomes rather than 2, apparently resulting from two sperm fertilizing the same egg, though nobody is sure why this happens. Even if the baby had still been developing when we got the diagnosis, it almost certainly could not have survived until birth, but by the time of our first ultrasound, the end had come. I had to have surgery to be certain that the uterus was clear of abnormal tissue. There was also some concern that the irregular placental cells could regenerate, which might require chemotherapy to treat. All in all, it was a sad, scary and difficult time for us. We needed to wait several months before trying to conceive again, and I had to undergo testing to make sure the placental abnormalities did not recur.

By the grace of God, we conceived immediately when we were ready to try again, and this pregnancy is much, much healthier by comparison. We have, however, had news of a different sort of complication this time that does not necessitate quite so grim a prognosis. The ultrasound revealed that I have a small blood clot in my uterus that could pose some threat to the baby. There is nothing that can be done about it except to wait and see what happens. My body my reabsorb the clot, and it may become dislodged and pass. To the best of my understanding, the largest danger lies in more uterine bleeding (like the bleeding that produced the clot), which is something I cannot control beyond limiting my physical activity. The doctor has ordered me to do nothing strenuous and not to worry. I can handle the first part, the second is a challenge.

We would very much appreciate your prayers for the health of mother and child (and Dad, who is picking up the slack in our lives), but mostly for peace. God is much bigger than blood clots and our worries, and I, especially, would do well to remember that. I suppose it goes without saying (but humor me and let me say it anyway) that we consider this pregnancy, clot and all, to be a huge blessing, and we would very much like to be blessed with a healthy baby several months from now. For now, we're thrilled to have 3 hearts beating in our home.

Calorie Conundrum (a.k.a. why eating healthily is a pain in my stomach)

After recovering from a Thanksgiving food coma and then a visit to the doctor on Monday, I decided, with the doctor's encouragement, to upgrade my diet. This means that Dan's dinners get an upgrade, too, since he'll eat what I eat. I'm basically focusing on simple, organic foods (if it has ingredients I don't recognize, I don't want it going in my mouth), whole grains, whole fat dairy (except for ice cream and the like), lean meats, fruits and vegetables to a greater degree than I usually do.

However, I have almost immediately encountered the annoyance I always have with healthier approaches to food - when surviving on veggies, fruit and whole grains, it takes so much dang food to make up my minimum calorie allowance that I find I can't eat everything I am supposed to eat in a day. Starving myself won't help matters, so, as has happened in the past, I find myself cramming food in my mouth at bedtime and spending a few hours a day trying to figure out how to balance everything day-long without come up wanting. I also spend much more time in the grocery store reading labels, which tries Dan's patience when he is kind enough to accompany me to the store.

Of course, the one thing I still need to remedy is sodium intake; sodium lurks everywhere - which I will eventually do by replacing some of my favorite packaged foods with home-made, but I figure I can take it one step at a time. I just had to complain about it.

And here, as homage to diet as it was, are pictures of our Thanksgiving feast sans the from-scratch pumpkin and pecan pies Dan made. I was very pleased with the food, overall, and I was even better pleased with the company. Among other things, I was very glad of all the help I had from Heather when it came to making the food and from Jeff and Daniel when it came time for clean-up!

Pictured are the turkey with vegetables and stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries, creamed corn from my Grandfather's recipe, mashed red potatoes, sweet potato casserole with pecan topping, gravy, Dan's freshly canned hot pepper relish, Boston canned brown bread and yeast rolls (and the butter and wine, of course).