recovering

I am still in the hospital but feeling a lot better. Heavily drugged, which is managing the pain quite well. I am hoping to be released tomorrow afternoon. I miss my kiddos but am thankful to be in the hospital receiving such good care. Hopefully, when I am released, I can go back to my normal routine and no more pain or medications. Thank you for the prayers and warm thoughts. Please continue to pray for peace and quick healing.

hospitalized

I have been admitted to the hospital for treatment. Please pray this works and I can come home soon.

a rough patch

I promise to update very soon with some great stories and pictures from Thanksgiving (and Halloween too for that matter!) but right now I just wanted to let you know that we need some prayers or happy thoughts.  On Wednesday, I began experiencing a tremendous amount of pain and bleeding, which could be normal but got progressively worse.  Yesterday, the pain was so great I could barely stand or walk and I began vomiting.  G and I spent 6 hours at the ER, where it was determined that I have developed a uterine infection :(  I am on very strong antibiotics and pain medications now and have been ordered to rest for at least the next three days, at which time I need to go back to my doctor.  Definitely frustrating but we are glad to know there was a reason for the pain, fever, etc.  We have once again been reminded of how fortunate we are.  Yesterday, it was clear that we needed medical advice and we tried for over an hour to contact the OB on call with no success so I took advantage of our friends R and L (R is an OB).  He was on call at his hospital but his wonderful wife called him and had him call me.  You know you're feeling really lousy when you are willing to talk about your symptoms with your friend's husband!  He told us he was concerned about infection and suggested we get checked out quickly (he was right!)  As it became obvious that we needed to go to the hospital, our family dropped everything to take care of Alli and Eli.  Then, last night, our dear friend and neighbor Jenn, kindly "babysat" me while G took clothing and pjs over to the kids since I was so drugged (five doses of IV pain and nausea meds had me quite loopy!).  This is not fun (stating the obvious I suppose) but once again, God has shown us how he is taking care of us every step of the way by putting these wonderful people in our lives.  We feel very blessed to know all of you!  Please pray that this physical ordeal passes soon so we can figure out a way to move forward.

finding the perfect Christmas tree

After enjoying some Black Friday shopping with my mom and napping.  We bundled up the kids and went to Stock's Tree Farm (owned and operated by Great Pop and Uncle Greg).  It was a rainy day so Alli had a bright pink umbrella.  As soon as we got out of the car, Alli announced that she found "our most perfect tree ever" then proceeded to lead us all throughout the tree farm "just to be sure" :)  Wouldn't you know, we agreed that the one right next to our car was THE one!  Alli had a blast "helping" Daddy cut down the tree. 

Eli was less than impressed by this outing and decided he would rather hang out with Great Pop and Uncle Greg in the car where he could play with gadgets!

Funny thing was that one of the best parts for most kids about the tree farm is getting a candy cane ~ definitely one of Alli's favorite things ~ but Eli would NOT take a candy cane from Uncle Greg :-)  He waited for Uncle Greg to give it to Great Pop and then he was willing to take it.  Not like his sister who would take candy for anyone.  Guess we need to work on both of them!

Our Snowy Thanksgiving Week

What a crazy week we've had . . .

It started snowing Monday morning and just wasn't letting up.  Surprisingly, Alli's school wasn't cancelled so I piled the kids in the car and started to take Alli to school.  It was sketchy getting out of McCormick Woods and Old Clifton Road was no better.  After giving myself many pep talks about having lived in New England and handling snow just fine, I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't safe to continue and we turned around.  I called Alli's school to let them know she wouldn't be there and we spent the morning playing at the house.  The snow kept piling up outside and Garrett decided to leave work early that afternoon.  He got home around 4 p.m.  I didn't really notice the wind but we got a doozy of a windstorm right about that time.  I did, however, notice the lights flickering so I began lighting tons of candles and found some flashlights.  I also decided I should make dinner quickly ~ just then, the power went out.  I still had use of our stove so I made the kids grilled cheese sandwiches.  Alli was freaked out by the loss of power and it was clear that it wasn't coming back on any time soon so we decided to pack some bags and head to my parents' house.  They still had power at that point and have a generator so even if they lost it, no problem.  It took us nearly an hour to get to their house (it usually takes about 10 minutes).  We were very low on gas but there was no power at the gas stations until we got to AM/PM right by my folks.  Just as we tried to pump the gas, the main transformer for the area seemed to explode (horrible, loud noise and everything went black).  Cue screaming from the back seat from Alli.  Can't say I blame her, it was loud and a little scary.  We went to my folks and Dad was getting the generator going.  By this time, we were hungry and exhausted.  Thank God for family!  We all stayed the night and enjoyed the heat and hot showers/baths.  Pretty much the whole county was without power and the roads were awful!

The next day, we played at my parents' house and G took his final CPA exam.  We tried to build a snowman but the snow was way to powdery and just wouldn't stick so we made a snow pile with arms and a face ;-) 

Alli LOVED playing in the snow, Eli didn't know what to think and decided he wanted to go back inside.

Our neighbors were great about keeping us posted and let us know that evening that power was back so we drove home.  Fortunately, it didn't take too long to warm up the house (I cranked the heat as high as it would go and had the fire going).  We had one little scare ~ about 20 minutes after we got home, we lost power again!  Alli burst into tears.  Luckily that power outage lasted less than 5 minutes.  But, just to be safe, we packed some bags again ~ I told Alli that since we were prepared, we likely would NOT lose power again.  I was right ;-)

The roads were still pretty bad on Wednesday so Alli's preschool was cancelled.  We spent the day around the house.  I was not feeling well at all and called my OB, who wanted me to watch it and call with any concerns.  Given the holiday, I decided to wait it out.  The pain meds seemed to help a little.  Wednesday night, we went to the Thanksgiving Eve service at Church.  On our way there, we asked Alli what she was thankful for, her response (and the tone she used!) was priceless . . .

Princesses and pink things

Ahh, to be 3 :)

Today, Alli and I made corn muffins since she missed her Thanksgiving feast at school.  She loved doing this!

Eli was having lots of fun playing and hamming it up while watching football with Daddy & Uncle Z

 Garrett's parents and brother joined us for a turkey dinner and it was a very nice, relaxing day.

As you can see, we had lots of help in the kitchen.

 Everyone enjoyed the food ~ eating, grazing or playing ;-)

 We could not be more thankful for our families or these two little angels . . .

Now it's time to plan tomorrow's Black Friday shopping with my mom ;-)

we're grieving but living

G got home Friday evening and we were all thrilled to see him!  Thanks to wonderful friends and family, there was food in the house for dinner (as an aside, thank you to all who sent over meals, this was so thoughtful and helpful!).  After the kids went to bed, it was finally time for us to begin processing the loss, and I finally cried (which I hate to do!)  It was good.  We know that God is with us and will help us along this path.  Obviously, there are many questions and far too few answers, answers we know that we may never have, but we realize that now is not the time for any big decisions.  Rather, we will process our loss, allow ourselves to grieve and then have difficult conversations.  One thing we have both realized is how thankful we are that we shared the news of our blessing despite this loss.  Having your support and prayers has been so helpful to us during this time.  We cannot imagine going through this in silence.  Thank you so much for letting us share and for your support, prayers and hugs.  Our pastor commented today that he was surprised to see us in church today as it must be difficult to face the questions, and yet it was exactly what we needed.  We were able to light a candle for our baby and be surrounded by so much love and support.  So many people hugged us and some cried with us.  We discussed this on the drive home and said it was exactly what we needed.  So thank you for letting us express ourselves and rest assured, we will survive this and we realize how much we have to be thankful for right now.

three weeks . . .

The past three weeks have been one giant, emotional rollercoaster in casa de Fisher . . .

Just one day after our last post, we got news that knocked us off our feet

To say we were shocked would be a HUGE understatement.

Given our history of infertility, and being told we couldn't conceive on our own, we never dreamed this was possible.  I had been feeling lousy for two months and we took a test simply to verify what we already knew (i.e. we were not pregnant).  We sat there shell-shocked that Wednesday evening.  I called my friend Sarah, who had always said she thought this would happen to tell her she was right ;-)  The next day was spent calling my doctor, getting a blood test and trying to set up an ultrasound as we had no clue how far along we were. 

Friday morning, G and I went for the ultrasound and saw a beautiful, wiggling 9 week baby with a heart just flickering away. 

We instantly fell in love!

Logistically, we had no clue how to make it work with three kids but we knew God would show us the way.

Saturday, we decided to share the news of our blessing with friends and family.

I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong but figured it was just be doing my normal worrying.

Our first OB appointment was on Wednesday, three weeks from the day we took the pregnancy test.

Once again, we got news that shocked us and left us numb.

Our once wiggly baby was still and no longer had a heartbeat.

G is in MN for work (returns this afternoon) so I was on my own.

Let me assure you, I was on my own by choice. 

Both of our families would have been there in an instant had I let them.  I am not one who likes to show emotion and I knew I wouldn't be able to keep it together if the family was there.

Thankfully, two women helped me stay sane that afternoon through their emails and offers to let others know the news.  I doubt either will ever understand how much their emails meant to me that day and that I could not have handled things as I did without them.

The kids were with Barbie Gramma.

I called G to give him the news and he called his mom so I knew the kids were fine.

My OB (who I love ~ her entire office is amazing!) recommended a D&C given how far along we were in the pregnancy (11 weeks 5 days - although it appears the baby passed away within days of our first ultrasound).

She wanted to do it Friday but I asked if we could do it that day.

Although she thought I should take time to process, she rearranged her schedule and made it happen.

I had surgery that afternoon.

Apparently I lost a lot of blood and I woke up in quite a bit of pain but they were more than willing to give me as much pain medication as I wanted so I took all they were giving. 

The emotional pain is enough, I wanted the physical pain gone.

We are coping as best we can.

I am still in pain and taking the pain meds so I am fairly numb.

G gets home this afternoon and I have a feeling that once we are together, we will begin to process the loss.

Thank you all for your prayers, support, emails, calls, flowers, food, and friendship. 

It helps to have the love and support.

We trust that God will continue to help us through this loss.