I hate needles.

But I'm going to have to learn to love tolerate them starting in November up until Baby #2 arrives.
I have to back up just a bit.  I have a condition called neutropenia, which means I've been basically walking around with very little white blood cells in my body for about a year.  Doctors discovered I had it during my sixth month of pregnancy with Lucy when a blood test I had came back showing a dangerously low level of white cells.
Most of the time, as my doctor puts it, neutropenics are "created" during chemotherapy, because chemo tends to kill white blood cells in the process.
Since I'm so special (not) after a bone marrow biopsy (which suuuucked), various other tests and having my blood sent off to the Mayo Clinic, it was discovered that I have an antibody that takes my white blood cells out of commission.  My immunologist described it as police only pulling over all of the white cars on the highway, and ignoring all of the other cells.
There isn't really much they can do to treat me for it, and I'm pretty healthy despite this.  I rarely get sick.  
The problem is, I passed the antibody on to Lucy before she was born, and it not only attacked her white cells, but her platelets, too.  This left her at a high risk for bleeding out, so at two hours old she had one of two platelet transfusions, as well as other medications to help flush the antibody out of her system.
Well, I'm pregnant again, and I still have the lovely antibody hanging out in my system.
In order to prevent Baby #2 from having all of his/her platelets and white blood cells depleted before he/she is born, a treatment plan has been in the works since I let the doctor know I'm pregnant.
There's a medication called intravenous immunoglobulin that will essentially put a shield around the antibodies, preventing them from doing any harm to our unborn child.
Which means I get to go hang out at the infusion clinic at Kaiser once a week, receiving the medication through an IV.
Honestly, I'm thrilled.  Can't you tell?!  I'm accepting visitors, since each treatment is going to be up to four hours long.
I friggin' hate IV's.  I've come to accept blood draws.  But IV's?  Ugh.
There's also a chance that if they have a hard time sticking me each week, I'll get something called a PICC line, which is just a friendly way to saying long friggin' tube that goes from my wrist, snaked up a vein until it gets close to my heart, and stays there for a few weeks.  Dear God, Lucy, just don't rip mommy's PICC line out.
 

We survived the first year!

I know, bad mom!  She turned one a whole month ago.  But we survived!
Stats:  21 pounds, and 28 inches.  That means she tripled her birth weight and grew a whole seven inches in height.

Favorite foods:  eggs, sweet potatoes, avocados, cheese, bananas and pancakes.  She also drinks water like it's going out of style, so she's truly my kid.
Favorite activities:  Looking at books, terrorizing playing with her doggies, going on walks and swimming.
Least favorite activities:  Taking naps and being told no.  She roars when you tell her no.

We had her first birthday party on Sept. 7 at Andy's mom's house, and it was great to see relatives that we don't see very often.  She had her first taste of cupcake and loved it! 

 

It's been an exciting year and we're excited for what the next year brings us, including a little sister or brother for Lucy in March.

Work and weekend

We did something that's rare these days and had our friends over for a get together.  I'm going to rewind a little bit to Friday, though.

While I'm primarily a stay-at-home mom, I pick up work on the side and write articles for newspapers that belong to my old chain.

That means my lovely little assistant gets to come along on jobs.  I was a little apprehensive at first to bring her with me on photo assignments and interviews, but it's actually been really great.

We're building memories together and I'll have fun stories to tell her when she's older, which I love.

This Friday was no exception.

We went to a local retirement home to interview some of the residents and their new pen pals, which are local Girl Scouts.

Since Lucy had been refusing to nap that day, I put her in the baby carrier where I knew she wouldn't fuss.

She was as good as gold as far as not crying, but she did cause a few chuckles.

Imagine trying to take notes and having a rubber monkey shoved in your face.  Lucy loves to share, nothing wrong with that. : )

She got wriggly towards the end, though, and ended up with some pen marks on her arm.

Since we were in the area, we visited daddy at work.

The next day, we had our friends over for a barbecue.  Pre-baby, we used to get together with them weekly, but since Lucy was born we don't get to see them a whole lot so that was nice.

Andy decided to make bacon wrapped hot dogs, which he and the dogs were equally excited about.

 

Girl likes her bargains

Silly mommy.  You've been buying my toys from Target, and I want nothing to do with them.  Like poor little interactive puppy...
But you were smart and went to Ross and I can't get enough of this cube!
I can't wait to take this little bargain hunter yard sale-ing.  Hopefully her love of non-name brand clothes and toys lasts!

Shhhh....

Do you hear that?  
I do.  It's the sound of a baby sleeping, which is no crying!
We decided to try the dreaded CIO (cry it out, as known on message boards) two Sundays ago.  
My darling baby girl started playing me at night.  She'd fall asleep in my arms but wake up the moment I put her in the crib and cry.  So I'd pick her up, rock her to sleep, and then put her in her crib.  And then she'd cry.  Lather, rinse, repeat.
Nothing is harder than hearing your precious cry alone in her crib.  But I realized that that rocking a high school, or college, student to sleep each night is ridic.
I felt like a total jerk leaving her in her crib to cry.  I would plan each night to get all kinds of cleaning done at night while she put herself to sleep, and it took about a week for her to learn to get to sleep without freaking the eff out.  My house should have been spotless.
But hearing her cry for an hour would bring on a sort of attention deficit disorder where I would start projects but not finish them because I just wanted to drop everything and pick her up and snuggle her.
It wasn't until a week in that I realized her third nap of the day was probably what was keeping her from falling asleep on her own.  She just wasn't tired enough to go to sleep.
Once I dropped the third nap, it was like a switch was hit and she'd cry for a second when I put her down and then she'd fall asleep.
Naptime is the next beast we have to conquer.  I will admit this freely:  I still hold my seven-month-old during every nap during the day.  A lot of times we nap together, and it's something I look forward to.
But we agreed that in May we would try to get her to independently nap.  We gave it a go in March, but crying twice a day for an hour made her a different baby.
Hopefully it goes well.  Stay tuned!

She loves Cartman!  I couldn't get both of them to not be blurry. 

 

My little lady lately

We seem to have fallen into a daily/weekly routine around here lately, which is good!  Bedtime continues to be a challenge, but Lucy is slowly learning to get to sleep on her own at night.  Next up is working on napping solo during the day.  Which I'm looking forward to, because as it's getting warmer out, she's become a little heat generator.
She's been getting two solid meals a day, either oatmeal and a fruit/veg or yogurt and a fruit/veg.  I've been making most of her fruit and veggie purees, with the exception of carrots, which I buy in those fun little pouches.  I guess the carrots you buy in the produce section can have high levels of nitrates, which is okay for adults but not for babies.

Broccoli puree.

 So far she's eaten peas, sweet potato, apple, pear, avocado, banana, zucchini, yellow squash, potato, green beans and broccoli.  
Green beans and broccoli haven't gone over too well, I think they might be a little too chunky for her liking.
Everything else has been a hit though.  
She doesn't seem to have any interest in feeding herself, though.  I've tried given her diced banana, avocado and puffs.  She's either more interested in the plate they're one or smooshing them all over the place.
She love love loves eating frozen cherries in the mesh fresh food feeder.  They are messy as hell, but she loves it.

She's also gone pro with the whole sitting thing.  She still falls over on occasion, which makes me nervous, but I guess falling over is part of learning.  She doesn't usually care when she falls, unless she falls onto a toy.

 

 

Vacaville

I am so on the ball with this blogging thing.  Not!  (That was supposed to sound like Borat.)
Not this Sunday, but last Sunday, we drove to Vacaville to visit my grandparents, a.k.a. my mom's parents.
Andy had two weeks off and funnily enough that Sunday was his last day off.  Vacaville is only about an hour away, so I suppose we could visit more often but as always, life gets in the way.  You would think since I'm not working, we'd go down there more often but I'm not brave enough to drive down solo with Lucy.
She did pretty good on the drive down, but that's probably because I sat in the back seat.
It was nice to catch up with my grandparents and for them to see Lucy.  They are getting up there in age, in their early eighties, which makes me sad.

I hope that they are around long enough for Lucy to have memories of them.  
We went to lunch at the diner they like to have coffee at after church on Sundays.

 My uncle Mark and his wife Lynda live across the street from the diner, so they joined us for lunch.  We went back over to my grandparents house after lunch, but we didn't last very long over there because someone was cranky!!  Plus we had to get home to Brody and Cartman (who I like to refer to as Biscuits and Gravy.)

 Home relaxing with her doggy!