New Year's Eve with the Bedards

Our friends, Art and Nicole Bedard, have a family tradition on New Year's Eve which has become our tradition as well. It was actually started by Nicole's mother, and Nicole and Art have taken over hosting it for the past several years. They invite all of their family and friends to come over on New Year's Eve. Everyone brings an appetizer or dessert.

It starts with praise and worship music.

Everyone sings along. Art and Nicole have collected a supply of music books so everyone has the words, and the kids will call for their favorite songs.

After about a half hour of music, they pass around the blessing cup (actually, the group has become so large that they have three cups. As the cup comes to each person, they say what they are thankful for and how God has blessed them in the past year.

I think my favorite part is how all the Bedards cry when it's their turn. And often when it's other people's turn. I know that's weird to say, but I love that they wear their hearts on their sleeves this way, and the deep love that they express for each other every year.

This year I was also very moved by Nicole's father, who talked about his experience this year in going to the adoration chapel and how God has blessed him just by letting him sit five feet away from his savior every week.

After everyone's had a turn, there's more music.

And some dancing

By now, it will be around 10, so we'll all break for food and spend time talking with each other. Matt and I usually spend the time chatting with Bill and Marie and Art and Nicole.

Until around 11:40, when it's time to put on funny hats.

At Midnight, everyone counts down, and then there's lots of hugging.

It's a great way to begin the new year! Thanks Art and Nicole for making us a part of it.

Me, 2011

Check out the belly!

I took this picture on New Year's Day. Being pregnant is weird, because I have had such body issues my whole life. I can't think of a time post-adolescence where I haven't been embarassed by my body and believed that I just needed more discipline and will power to actually be attractive. I find myself envying girls who had the strength of will to be bulimic and anorexic, and if that doesn't sum it up, I don't know how else to explain it. There have been times when I haven't felt as bad, but never a time when I've looked in the mirror and been pleased.

So to suddenly have this belly, and be pleased with it... it's strange. I'm still paranoid about gaining weight and terrified of my post baby body. But this belly showed up literally over a weekend right after Thanksgiving. On Friday it wasn't there and then Monday it was. And I was excited about it. Which I guess is a step in the right direction.

Also, those disney pajamas are some of the most comfortable things I've ever owned.

Something to be Thankful for

I'm not normally superstitious. I owned a black cat, I've opened umbrellas indoors, and I don't toss salt over my shoulder when it's been spilled. I don't believe you can spare your mother's back by jumping over cracks in the sidewalk, and I don't believe you can bless yourself by only picking up pennies when they're facing head's up. I just don't place store in that kind of thing.

But for some reason, I have been reluctant to post on the blog that I'm pregnant again.

I know that it won't cause a problem by posting it. I know that talking about the pregnancy here is not why I miscarried in May. But still I have thought about what I wanted to say here and then found myself thinking, "eh, I'll do it tomorrow." And so it's postponed another day. Until today, that is, which is the day that I have decided that I need to stop being superstitious about this and just talk about it.

So, I'm pregnant. Bun in the oven. Expecting. In a motherly way. So far things are going well. I had enough morning sickness to be reassured without being terrribly inconvenienced. I've dealt with the soreness, and being tired, and food aversions, and having to give up sweets for a while because they seemed to be the one thing which reliably made me sick. We had an ultrasound and saw the heartbeat, and then in our most recent appointment we heard the heartbeat. I've been doing progesterone shots again and dealing with the side effects of that (extremely itchy, and painful breasts. It makes me terrified of breast feeding).

Now we're solidly in the second trimester (officially 15 weeks and 5 days) and I'm starting to show slightly. I'm in between morning sickness and feeling the baby move and so I still have times when I am fearful. Thankfully my friend at work has lent me her fetal doppler, and so I can hear the heartbeat at home. It's a great model, and I can actually record from the doppler to the computer, so once I get better at locating the heartbeat and figure out how to actually record and post it, I will post it up here. I also have an ultrasound on December 13th, so we'll be able to see the baby M&M (as Matt's mom calls it) and found out if it's a him or her.

In the meantime, here was our first peek:

I've been putting this off

Today's my late night shift, which means I don't have to be in until 12:30. So I'm sitting in the kitchen writing this while my oatmeal simmers on the stove. Since I didn't have to get up and get ready for work, I stayed in bed with Matt until he needed to get up. That may seem like not a big deal, but for a morning person who likes to get up and get things done, it's not an easy thing to do. I get antsy and impatient, as if I'm waiting in a long, slow moving line. After an hour of laying there trying not to move around too much I picked up my phone and read some of my favorite websites until he finally woke up. Once he was up, it was coffee and getting the trash out before the garbage men came, and making plans for dinner since both of us probably won't be home before 9:30 tonight.

Um, if you're a robber planning on coming when we're not home, please erase that last sentence from your brain.

Matt's been working 12 hour days all week long (including Saturday), because the Xbox changeover needs to be finished in the next two weeks and he had originally thought he wasn't allowed to have overtime for that project. Turns out, he is, so now its "do as many stores as possible each day." It's also no husband around until after 9 every night, which can be a good thing because I am more motivated to get practical things done when he isn't home, but it's usually a bad thing because he's not home to hang out with and talk to. I'm glad this is only for two weeks.

Since I've had time to get things done, posting on this blog has become a more pressing obligation of sorts. In the past 8 weeks or so, I've been reluctant to post. It was hard to put into words what I was going through, and then once I had, it was maybe something I didn't want to put into words. Because I had thought that I was recovering from the miscarriage, and I had been given the green light by my doctor to try again. So with the next cycle we did, only to get my period.

I was devastated. I was so angry, depressed and hopeless, as bad as it was immediately after the miscarriage, and I couldn't find a way out of those emotions. I was snappy and touchy, and it seemed like everything I said just came out wrong wrong wrong. I would say something and it would seem to be deliberately hurtful and stupid, and I couldn't explain why these things were coming out of my mouth, and I would be mortified but unable to take it back or amend it. And in my head I was thinking "Who is this person???" Matt got the brunt of this, but coworkers, friends, and family weren't spared, until it finally came to a head one night two weeks later and I picked a fight with Matt over literally nothing at all. Poor Matt was at a complete loss as too why I was so angry, and getting angry too, and then when everything had reached it's absolute boiling point I crumbled into tears and begged him not to be angry with me. Praise God for this man, because he instantly hugged me and held me while I sobbed and tried to talk about how I'd been feeling ever since I had gotten my period.

I know the reason I was so angry was because I was supposed to be pregnant. While the logical side of me knew that one cycle doesn't spell out infertility and we could try again next month, the illogical and insecure side of me was constantly telling me that I would never get pregnant again, and that this was just the first of an eternity of disappointing cycles. And I know that we got pregnant easily with Samantha, but I was so afraid that that was it, the only chance we'd had. I felt like a failure, and like I'd disappointed everyone again.

That was the worst night. Things have gotten better since then. But it was still just too hard to post anything and I didn't want to post pictures of all the fun times we've had in the past two months as if none of this stuff has been going on as well. At the beginning of this year I had promised to be more open and more real, because this is the journal of our married life. Sometimes it may take me a while to work up to it, but I am still committed to posting all of this stuff.

So, happier posts are coming. And my oatmeal is done.

Overdue Post 4: a day with the boys

Thursday, I had my continuing-ed testing in Concord. I came home to find that Matt had taken the boys for the day. So we played some games, made mac n'cheese for lunch, and took them to Livingston Park for the afternoon.

And what's a trip to Dorr's Pond without stopping for ice cream at the Puritan?

Overdue Post 3: Walking in Massabesic

Last Sunday, Matt and I took a walk around Lake Massabesic. Despite the heat, it was a gorgeous day, and we really enjoyed exploring the trails and discovering all of the plants that grow in the area. I was surprised to find that there were wild blueberries growing along all the paths which hadn't been completely stripped of berries by animals or other walkers. We were also surprised by how big around the lake is. We walked for two hours and really only made it about 1/3 of the way around and back.

Overdue Posts 2: Diocesan Tent Revival