Summer is a time for reflection

It has been a while since I posted.  I missed several weeks.  The end of the school year is always busy and when you couple it with the exhaustion I'm still feeling, it was hard to find the time to sit down and write.  I have had plenty of time to reflect. 

The end of the school year is always a time of reflection for me.  I reflect back on how the school year was, what I would do differently professionally, and start to think about goals for the next school year.  The summer vacation is such a beautiful thing, not only because it gives me to to recharge and refresh 

and the downtime to reflect, but it also gives us all, teachers and students, a time to start anew.  What other career truly allows for this?  It is for this reason that reflection is so important in teaching.  I also use this as a time to reflect upon my personal life, especially in the past two to three years.  This year, I couldn't help to think back to where I was two years ago and how bittersweet that is.  Two years ago, at the end of the school year, I was pregnant with my angel baby.  The day before school ended, I went for an ultrasound to find that the baby was measuring small.  Dr Pauli suggested we come back in a week to see if the baby was growing on progress.  Well, we all know what happened there.  In the last few days of the school year, I thought about this a lot, especially as I've helped a few others cope with similar situations in the past few years and it always brings it all rushing back.  I consider helping others part of my therapy and I feel like helping them is something I need to do.  I hate that others have to go through the same thing I went through, and feel like the least I can do is to help them through.  Then I started to reflect upon last year.  At the end of the school year last year, I had just completed my last round of IVF and was awaiting egg transfer.  I ended up leaving early on the last day of school, missing our last day luncheon for my transfer.  I was pretty certain upon transfer that it was not going to work as the quality was not very great.  I started the summer on the two week wait.  I was due to test on July 3.  Almost exactly a year ago today.  I went in for my test thinking for sure it had failed and was planning out the fun the things I was going to do because I was not pregnant.  I was shocked when they said my hormone levels were elevated but low.  I had to put the fun things off for a few days to see if the levels had risen.  Of course they hadn't.  So July 5th, 2013, marked the day I went back to living life.  Now here I am - closing in on 22 weeks.  We're past the halfway mark and we're having a baby!  Now we get to count down instead of count up.  18 weeks and 2 days till our due date.  It is so exciting to think that we're getting so much close!  So many people talk about being scared.  I've had so much time to reflect that we're not the least bit scared.  We just wish it could be Nov, so that she will be here. 

So, many of you are probably thinking what is new with the baby.  She is kicking and moving constantly.  We're still waiting for Chris to be able to feel - every time he puts his hand on my belly she stops moving. 

Last post, we had gone for our anatomy scan and had been told we needed to come back in a few weeks because there was something they couldn't see in the heart because her arm was in the way.  The follow-up was yesterday.  She was still being difficult, so we will have to have yet another ultrasound.  The good side of that is that we get to see baby girl again.  Here are her most recent pictures. 

I'm still feeling pretty tired.  Not so tired that I need two hour naps, but I am finding I need more sleep at night. Working out is not getting any easier, but I'm still doing it.  I fear the heat will get me soon, though I am fortunate to have places to swim and people to swim with.  This morning I swam for 30 minutes at Walden Pond, which is just a magical place.  Last week, I swam 3/4 mile in the ocean. I'm still biking and running too and when I don't feel like those things I go for a walk. A couple of weeks ago I participated in a 26 person marathon relay, where each runner ran a mile on a track.  I have never raced a mile, so I got a PR with 7:42 at 5 months pregnant!  

My belly is starting to pop out and I'm finally starting to look visibly pregnant instead of fat, though it still pretty much depends on what I wear. 

This has been a wild ride and I'm certain it is not over with.  I'm grateful to each of you who reads this blog.  It means a lot to share my story with people.  I'm also grateful for the support I have gotten from so many people.  I love the messages I have received from so many of you, offering words of encouragement and support.  So many people have been so generous and have sent me gifts, which we are so touched by.  A friend gave me a whole carload of baby stuff that she is currently not using. 

 It was fun looking at all the wonderful stuff she had and it feels so real now that we have baby gear in the house, including a car seat and a swing.  We feel so loved and supported.   Thank you all so much for being there for us.  We're so happy to be able to share this ride.