So today, we took Chris to the Dr.'s for his four month check-up.  I wanted to get it done now, because I will be going out of town for the holidays, at both my mother and mother-in-law's request.  And honestly, I'm glad to be home for the holidays, and my birthday.  It will be nice to see all my friends as well.  I miss them so much, and I will feel better down there.

But anyways, Chris had his check-up.  His Eczema is clearing up, but it's still pretty bad, and finally we have some prescription medicine for him.  That makes me feel so much better.  Except I'm still getting all confused because one doc told me only bathe him once or twice a week, while the other told me to bathe him every night.  *sighs*  Well, I'll try bathing him every night, and if that doesn't help, then I will cut back to once or twice a week.  The Doctor wants us to try the Euricine again.  We shall see, but I'm sure he's allergic to it, but we'll see.  They also gave us a body wash to use.  they didn't say anything bad about the aveeno, but they think this might be even better.

Then came the hard part.  Getting his shots.  God, that part always makes me queasy.  Although he's usually fine afterwords, hearing him scream when he gets his shots, *sigh*  It's heart breaking.  And it took all afternoon to get him down for a nap.  He's sound asleep in his swing right now.  And on top of all this, he's teething.  I'm worried a little about taking him on the plane, he screams so much, I'm afraid that some flight attendant will try to kick us off the plane.

Well, I'm sure I'm just being silly, but Chris is awake...again, so I think I'm gonna try to feed him again.  At least I got some of this written.

And Don't worry, I'll be taking more pictures soon! 

So yesterday, Danny's sister, Mary came up from Portland to finally meet Christopher.  It has been so cute seeing these two together, playing and laughing.  Christopher simply adores his Aunt Mary, and since she lives relatively close, we're hoping that he can spend alot of time with her, and playing with her.

 We're hoping that she will be here sometime in October to celebrate my birthday, and so she can play with Christopher some more.

So, my friend Katrina showed me her totsite for her daughter, and I just had to have one of these for my beautiful baby boy. Which means I have yet another blog.  However, this one is special, as this one is just about my son, and his acheivements and my hopes and dreams for him.  That should keep my headaches down from trying to keep up with yet another blog. 

Since I just wrote an essay about how I found out I was pregnant, I think it would be appropriate for this first post.  So here it is:

Before September 11^th of last year, I would not have believed you if you told me I was pregnant, despite the clues being there.  The fatigue, the sore muscles, and the lack of a menstrual cycle all pointed to something being not quite right.             My husband’s submarine had returned only a few weeks before from a particularly long patrol.  I enjoyed having him home, but I couldn’t quite get the energy to do anything.  The lethargy was disconcerting and it was not unusual to find me napping on the couch in mid-afternoon.  I also found myself in bed before ten and didn’t wake up before eleven in the morning.  It felt as though the only thing I was doing in those weeks was sleeping and eating. 

On September 11^th last year, I had a headache that would not quit.  I tried Tylenol, Excedrin and Aspirin, but nothing seemed to work.  I think I took too much Aspirin at one point that night, because I started to feel really strange, and it frightened me.  At first, my hands went numb, that pins and needles feeling you get when you’ve slept wrong, or sat on your foot too long.  I found myself shaking them trying to wake them up.  It did not work.  My heart felt like it was racing and I found myself breathing quick and sort of shallow.  I’m not sure if that was from me worrying about taking too much Aspirin and the numbness in my hands or if it really was from taking too much Aspirin.  I don’t think I will ever know.

My husband tried to calm me.  He told me it was nothing and that it would pass; that it couldn’t be as bad as I was making it out to be.  I needed to relax, he said.  I tried.  We went to bed around ten, and I tried to just roll over and go to sleep, but I still felt off.  I also started feeling pressure on my chest, like my cat decided to sit on me while I slept.  That is really what sent me into a panic.I woke up my husband.  He was his usual grouchy self, convinced I was being paranoid over nothing.  Still, I convinced him to go next door to talk to our neighbor, who is a Naval Corpsman.  He told us because it was chest problems that it was better to err on the side of caution and get me to the hospital.  He even offered to drive us, since we didn’t have a car at the time.  He dropped us off at the Hospital around ten thirty that night.  We checked into the ER, and they asked the question that always annoyed me.  “When was your last menstrual cycle?”  I’m never regular in that department, so when I gave August first, the next question of course was, “are you pregnant?”

Bitter as usual, since I wanted to be pregnant for so long, I answered, “there’s always a chance, but I highly doubt it.”  Every time I took a pregnancy test, my hopes raised, only to be dashed at the inevitable negative results that greeted me after the ten minutes in limbo.  I had given up all hopes that I would ever be pregnant, and resigned myself to fostering and adoption.  I went back into the little triage room, and changed into the drafty hospital gown that is opened in the back. 

So I sat there, hooked up to all these machines that measured my pulse, heart rate and blood pressure.  I thought about my book sitting next to my bed and longed for anything other than the sound of the constant beeping of the machines.The doctor came in and asked the same questions again.  He grunted when I told him I didn’t think I was pregnant, and he ordered a urine test anyways, since they couldn’t do a chest x-ray if I were pregnant.  I grumbled about it, since I had just gone to the bathroom before we left for the hospital and I didn’t know if I had enough left in me to get in the cup.I managed to fill the cup enough for them to get accurate results on the test.  Then it was just a waiting game for them to come back and take me to get the x-ray.  I was sure I wasn’t pregnant. 

I’m not really sure how long it was between peeing in a cup and the doctor coming back with his clipboard.  We exchanged some pleasantries and small talk, and I wondered why he came himself instead of one of the techs to take me back for the x-ray.  That’s when he showed me his clipboard, which had the results of the pregnancy test. I don’t know how long I stared at that positive result before it sunk in what he was telling me.  I was pregnant.  My heart rate jumped up to one hundred and twenty five before I was able to calm it.  They did some more tests, but they never figured out what had caused the problems with my heart and breathing, especially since it cleared up after I found out the results of the pregnancy test.

And now I sit here, looking at my son, and thinking back to those first few weeks, and wondering how I had become so jaded that I didn’t realize my dreams had come true the night my husband came home.