What's up with Kari?

I have been MIA lately. I know that. In fact, every post that has been written the last few months has been written by my husband. To be honest, I couldn't bring myself to sit down and write. It wasn't like there wasn't anything to write about. I mean, Brianna turned 7. We had Thanksgiving, Jonah turned 5 and started preschool, Christmas, New Years. We found out we are pregnant! There has been a lot to talk about. To be honest, I just couldn't find the energy to do it. I know that I have been depressed. I know losing the baby in May sent me into a spiral, and I thought that I was doing good for a quite a while. I had myself fooled to believe that if I just continued to push through I would come out of the fog and life would get normal again. So I pushed through. But the house started to fall apart, Brianna's birthday came 2 days after the day we were due with out baby, and while I told myself the distraction of celebrating her birthday was a very wonderful distraction it brought to light even more what we would be missing with that baby. Christmas time rolled around, and I probably wouldn't have noticed. Steven decorated the house. We went Christmas shopping. I probably could have just let it roll on by, but I have 3 children that needed the celebration. I did too, but I just didn't have the energy. The day after Christmas we found out we were expecting again. I should have been excited...instead I called Steven into the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat and sobbed. How could this be happening again? I can't do this again! I don't know want anyone to know. We will keep it to ourselves and once we hear the heartbeat we'll tell everyone. I can't go through all this again. That lasted all of 1 week. The morning sickness (which I swear was named so by a man who has never been pregnant and has no idea what pregnancy induced nausea and vomiting is like at all!!!) was lasting all day, I was exhausted and knew I wouldn't be able to hide it from anyone any longer. We told everyone on New Years' Eve, an exciting way to start a new year, the expectation of new life! But I felt like I couldn't breathe. I'm not going to, I told Steven, until I hear the heartbeat. Then maybe I'll be able to exhale.

Everything with this pregnancy has been exactly what the other pregnancy was not. I am sick all the time, I have no energy. But for the most part things have been good. The kids have been really excited and they are calling my belly Julia. For their sake I really hope it's a girl. They'll be really upset otherwise! But who am I kidding, I'd love for it to be a girl too! Balance things out, 2 boys and 2 girls. That would be about perfect!

Thursday I started bleeding. We're still not sure why but it scared me to death! I called my doctor and they had me go to have some blood work done to check my hCG levels. They put a Stat order on it and my doctor's office called me an hour and a half later. She laughed when she said my hCG levels were over 200,000 (and I'm only about 9 weeks at this point!!!) and said I was definitely pregnant. They had me come in the next day for an ultrasound. When the baby popped up on that screen I felt my heart start to race. There it was, a little peanut kicking and punching away. And then I saw the blip on the screen that was the heartbeat. The feelings that rose up in my at the moment...I can't even tell you! My eyes filled up with tears. What I didn't get last time was filling up the room, the sound of that little heart! And boy was it fast. 185 beats per minute (sounds like a girl heart rate to me!) They never figured out where the bleeding came from or why. They aren't worried about it, but if it happens again we'll have to take a look and do some more testing. But for now, I have peanut pictures on my fridge, and I can't help but smile every time I pass them!

I can't say that I'm completely out of my fog. I have battled with depression off and on over the years. I will probably be treated for it for the rest of my life. My parents both suffer from depression also so I come by genetically and I tend to be at a high risk of situational depression. I worry about postpartum depression with this one. I had it with Brianna. So I have a feeling I'll end up back on meds after this one is born, but I know they'll help me, so I say Bring it on!

For now I'm trying to figure out how to get the house back in order and prepare for this baby. Steven has been a huge help, but I feel like he is doing an unfair share of all the work right now, especially after he's been at work all day. I'm thinking it's time to get back on the FlyLady wagon since I did really good when I was following her program in the past. I think I'm just going to have to babystep my way through this pregnancy and learn to FLY again!

So that's where I've been. I can't guarantee that I'll be better about posting any time soon. I don't see daily posts in the near future. But I will try to post every few days and let you all know how things are going. And of course, it will be time for belly pictures soon! ( *yippy*) Thanks for sticking with me as I've been so in and out lately. I hope you'll continue to stick around!