Good days

I know I have been MIA for the past few days but its actually a good thing.  One of my very good friends MR came on Wednesday for the afternoon which was great timing because DP had to go to a work meeting that afternoon, leaving me for the first time. My best friend LH then came on Thursday which worked out even better because DP went back to work full time that day.  It was so great to have her here.  She lives in Athens, so we don't get to hang out as often as we use to for sure.  It made me so happy that she was able to come and we got to spend so much girl time.  She is one of the only people besides DP that I really feel comfortable talking to about Jackson and really being able to be honest about how I feel.  I hate crying period.  I really hate crying in front of people and rarely do it to be honest.  I will cry around DP some but only if it is really something serious, like the past few weeks.  LH is one of the only other people I will cry around so it was great that she was here and I was able to cry and talk with her.  We stayed up way to late several nights and worked a 1500 puzzle in like 12 hours! It was crazy and awesome:-)  We went to Payne's Prairie in town  with my mom. Neither one had ever been to this amazing place where there are literally hundreds of alligators and wild horses.  I love it so much.  Here are pictures of it from a different trip, I didn't take my camera this time. 

It is such a beautiful relaxing place and I love to go and just walk around.  Afterwards we went to Bentos because I really wanted sushi!  This was the first time I had been out really in public to eat.  We had gone the day before in the middle of the afternoon to get pedicures (awesome of course!) but let's be honest I was not worried about seeing people I knew then.  I was kind of nervous about being out and seeing people so we sat in the corner and it was great.  Overall Saturday was a great day. 

 

Sunday my in-laws come into town and DP helped his sister start to move out of her apartment. I spent the afternoon with my parents, brother and sister-in-law.  DP also planted a rose bush his parents had bought for the funeral.  It is nice that we can have an additional reminder of Jax.  After leaving my parents, DP suggested we stop by the cemetery.  My parent's house is only about a mile away from it so I figured this was a good time. I knew it was going to be hard to back there for the first time and it may be hard to go back always but I wanted to.  It was hard, and I cried when we got there and walking over, but once we were there I felt better.  I was glad to actually get to look around at those who are laid to rest near him. At his funeral I was not for that, so it was good.  He got to talk about him and to him a little bit.  We of course promised to come back and said see ya later little boy when we left.  I love saying that to him! 

 

Monday we had our doctor's appointment with my OB whom I love!  DP has talked to her and text with her but I have not since before Jax was born.  The visit was great.  She said she feels that we are really doing great and that she is really happy about where we are emotionally and where I am physically.  She even cleared me to return to the gym!!! I plan to write an entire post of this alone but let me just say the #1 thing I missed during pregnancy was the gym! I love the gym so to be able to go back makes me feel like myself again more than anything else.  We talked about what now some.  She said she feels really strongly as do our other 2 high-risk OB's that the only reason my water broke and he was born so early was because of his conditions not that my body could not carry him.  We are still waiting for some of the genetic testing to come back, but all the blood test they ran on me indicate that I did not have an infection or an incompetent cervix, or anything else to cause this.  We pray all of this is true as it would be the biggest blessing we could imagine given the situation.  We know and have known that little Jackson was a sick little boy who fought so hard to stay here on earth with us.  She feels like with the blood clot, 2 threaten miscarriages, and the CDH that my body was trying to say for months that something was wrong and really was trying to miscarry him for a long time.  We are thankful that my body and him held on as long as it did.  By him making it to 25 weeks we feel he has so much more of an identity and a purpose that had I miscarried him at 5 weeks, 10 weeks or 14 weeks (like my body tried to do) that we would never have been able to know him and Dr. Kays would not have been able to learn more about CDH from us and from him.  My OB agrees completely!  She loves that we are doing the memorial fund.  She knows how much I love research ( I am a huge research dork!) and feels we are doing a great job of combing our/my love for research with our love for our son.  Speaking of the memorial fund we are already amazed at people who are donating!  It is such a blessing and words can not express our gratitude.  Anyways back to what now:  given that she does not feel my body was the cause of all of this she encourages us to think about having biological children still.  We have not been sure about this since we got the CDH diagnosis months ago.  Depending on the rest of the results, it maybe a possibility for us.  We do have 4 frozens which is a blessing at this point because I can not even think about doing a fresh cycle right now.  This is where we left it: we go back to her in 3 weeks and go back to my RE who treats me for the endometriosis after 3 months which should be in October.  I like this plan, I feel like it gives us time to decide what we want to do.  I know what I want, a take-home baby, but I am not sure how I want to get to that point, adoption or FET. We will pray about it between now and October and use the results as a guide as well.  Please pray for us as we think about this decision and for the results.