The Saturday 7

1. Lucy is obsessed with reading books to herself this week. She makes me stack all her books in one big pile next to her pillow, then plops down and "reads" every single one. Usually a couple times. I love it!

2. Justin and I made a list of the good things that will come of not having a baby this fall.

• He'll be able to coach at Northpointe again. I was due on August 17, and soccer usually starts around August 10. I was putting the kabosh on coaching this year, but no more! 
• I'll be able to work longer (I was going to quit my job when the baby was born), and pay down more of our debt. (Hopefully we didn't just accrue some more debt with the hospital bills.)
• I don't have to stress about getting Lucy potty trained, in a big girl bed, and broken of her binkies as quickly.
• I won't be pregnant all summer.
• I'll be able to go to Ladies' Retreat. (I wasn't sure I'd be able to go, since the baby would be 1 month old.)
• I can go back to drinking as much caffeine as I want. :-)

3. These things were both on facebook, but I want to record them here too: For the first time this week, Lucy pointed to a picture of me on the computer and shouted, "Mama!" She usually doesn't identify me as anything, so I was pretty excited. She also finally figured out how to say the love of her life's name: Elmo. It kind of sounds like a mixture of apple and elbow - Albow. But it is soooo cute. :-)

4. Justin's birthday was on Tuesday - the day of my D&C. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to send a cake mix with Lucy to Niki's house, and Niki was nice enough to make it for him. Then my parents brought over his favorite pizza (BBQ Chicken from Jet's - I'm not a fan.) And I had wrapped his presents on Monday before all hell broke loose. So he at least got a little bit of a birthday. Really, he's just getting an extended birthday. We went to TGIFriday's last night. And we'll probably go to Red Robin tonight. We love us some restaurant food!

5. After we're done celebrating his birthday, I think I'm going to go on a diet. If I'm not going to be pregnant this summer, maybe I can be skinny! Haha. I'm going to buy myself some Special K cereal for breakfast, make myself eat salads for lunch, and try to majorly cut back on my snacking. And I really need to start Couch to 5K again. I did it for like a week last time and gave up. We'll see . . .

6. My work schedule worked out really perfectly with all this week's events. I was only scheduled on Friday. I had the D&C at 1:00 in the morning on Tuesday, was super sore and achy on Wednesday, and was just finally feeling back to normal on Thursday. By Friday I was back to my old self. Also, Justin had Friday off. He kept Lucy at home, so I could ease back into work without her. It went very well. Lyla and I did some fun things we can't usually do with Lucy around while Chase was at school (paper dolls, painting), and both kids took good naps for me in the afternoon. (Chase is 5 years old and still takes a 3 hour nap most afternoons!)

7. One thing I forgot to mention in my "Emotional Turmoil" post from earlier this week is the thing that has been hardest for me with this miscarriage. I wrote off the first miscarriage as a fluke. The doctor assured me something was probably just chromosomally wrong with the baby. Once we had Lucy, I assumed it'd be smooth sailing in every pregnancy from here on out. After having 2 miscarriages, I've suddenly become one of "those women" who loses babies. You know, those women you hear about having so many miscarriages and you secretly think I'm so glad I don't have that problem. I'm comforted by the fact that I apparently can carry babies to term, I just wonder how many more I'll have to lose before another one will make it. :-( 

Sorry to end on such a sad note. Thanks again for all the love and support this week. We've gotten so many sweet cards and emails and messages. We appreciate you all!