The Boy Who Lived

(If you’ve NOT read Harry Potter then a brief explanation – Harry was the target of the evil bad guy but somehow managed to withstand the death curse thrown at him despite many others being killed by said bad guy. He became know as “The Boy Who Lived.”)

And this is repeat info for some of you but for those of you not familiar with Ben’s story – some background before the punchline. Apologies in advance – I censored a bit, but Ben’s story is not for the faint hearted.  I talk about life and death and babies and lots of blood, so please read with caution.

I spent three months of my pregnancy being told I was going to lose Bennett. (In very kind and gentle terms, for the most part.) At 10 weeks we discovered I was miscarrying (again, we had just had our second miscarriage in July then got pregnant with Ben in August.) I was put on bedrest and I was already on progesterone supplements and we were sent to see the OB back up for my midwife then he sent us to the two perinatologists/high risk specialists. We also had a few other ER trips in there for complications (like, oh, my water breaking at 22 weeks) during which time poor freaked out ER doctors and OBs on call at the nearest hospital had to see our ultrasound and tell us we were losing our baby. (We reassured them we had been hearing that for months.) The perinatologist when he first saw my ultrasound called in his partner so they could be check it out – which is NOT comforting for a pregnant mom, let me tell you. They said it was the biggest subchorionic hematoma they had seen in the last decade of their practice. Woo-hoo! We aim to impress. Wiki Link (Essentially my placenta was not cooperating and instead of nourishing Ben it decided to partially detach and just bleed into my uterus, surrounding the amniotic sac. Not cool.) Continue reading “The Boy Who Lived”

The Adventure Begins

We’ve been quiet here, I’m guessing no one is still following along but I needed a spot to document this wonderful and wild journey.

We’ve been pondering (a) where we should take Ben to see and experience things and (b) how to afford it. 🙂 He wants to see the Tardis in England, he’s a huge Dr. Who fan but alas, passports alone for a family are size will cost over $1000. (I still hope to make that happen someday!) It’s also tricky in that with my work I’m pretty much on call all the time – I have to plan vacations literally 9 to 10 months in advance and I’ve got babies on the schedule for next spring and summer already. I can’t just drop everything and go on a trip, but I don’t have more than week off call for months into 2014.

Stateside Ben’s big wish was to see Harry Potter world in Florida. (He also wants to see California, a waterfall, a mountain, snow, I should write up his whole list.) I did some preliminary research and saw tickets for the park would run our family about $1,000, it’s a 16+ hour drive (I am NOT that ambitious) and plane tickets were about $400 each (times 8!) Plus hotel, food, etc, etc. I felt so sad to tell him but I just didn’t see any way we could financially pull that off anytime soon. He said that’s okay – he would be happy with going to visit Legoland or Going Bonkers here in town. 🙂 He’s such a sweet kid… and he had no concept of the money involved, so we’ll be sure to get him to Legoland at some point, too!

We were running Kit to an eye exam and when we came home there was a letter on our door step. I wasn’t expecting anything so I opened it and read the letter – several times, because I couldn’t believe what I was reading and was in complete shock. I think I worried Kit when he saw me crying and saw the FedEx overnight package and wondered what bad news the letter held! Continue reading “The Adventure Begins”