What have you done with myself?

Is there an influx of hormones in the 23rd week or something? I feel like I'm off my rocker.

Want to know what I've been doing all day? Scrubbing my floors. Like on my hands and knees with a bristle brush and toothbrush scrubbing. Ok so maybe people actually do that but I HATE cleaning. I seriously get more cleaning done when someone is coming over than I do just regular cleaning.

The other night Rich came home from work at midnight to find me scrubbing the oven.

WTF!?

I also feel a little manic the past few days. Like I could burst into tears at any moment, and I'm normally not like that, even while pregnant. Last night I drowned my sorrows in a tall glass of ice cold milk...and there were casualties. In the form of an entire bag of Lindt truffles. My Sees candy almost didn't make it but I've been holding on to that treasure for as long as I can, because I've been craving Sees this whole time and we don't have any near us. I kid you not, Rich found me passed out on the bed surrounded by Lindt wrappers. It was probably a sad sight.

I guess it doesn't help that the insurance company is stressing me out, and Braedan's surgery for his hernia is tomorrow morning.

I'm back!

I promise I have not forgotten about the blog! In my effort to stay off social media I sort of just lumped the internet in general in there and neglected the blog for a while. Then as I was making my way back into the etherverse my New Year got really interesting.

On New Years day I got a call from my mom to say that Braedan was having some unusual swelling of his testicles. They were going to wait until my aunt, who is an RN, could look at it the next day but to be prepared because she might be taking him to the ER. At this point they were still in California and I was sitting at home in Colorado 1000 miles away from my baby who needed his momma! I stressed for a whole day before hearing from my aunt that she thought he might have a hernia and to get him checked out by the doctor as soon as they returned home. A hernia? How in the world does a 4 year old get a hernia!?

We saw his pediatrician the Monday after he got back from vacation and she couldn't say whether or not he had a hernia for sure, but that he definitely had a hole in his abdominal lining that was causing fluid to build up in his scrotum. Both circumstances involve a hole in the abdominal lining but a hernia means that intestines are pushing through the hole, where the other problem called a hydrocele is just fluid. We were referred to a pediatric surgeon for further analysis. Oh boy...here we go...

We saw the surgeon a week later and he confirmed that Bam does in fact have a hernia, and it needs to be repaired sooner rather than later to avoid the hole getting bigger and/or developing a problem. So, how does a 4 year old get a hernia? Well apparently it's fairly common. About 2-5% of boys will have this type of problem. For most children the problem fixes itself by 12 months, but for others it sticks around and requires surgical intervention. We're in the latter group. Oh joy! So my poor precious baby boy is scheduled for surgery next week.

Although I am glad that we caught the problem before it was really a problem (he's not in any pain now), I really hate putting him under. Braedan has only been put under once and that was to get tubes put in his ears at age 2. Ironically, it has been almost exactly 2 years since he had his first surgery. He was so disoriented when he came out of anesthesia that he was crying for his mommy and I was sitting right next to him telling him I was right there! He just didn't comprehend. That was the hardest part. I also had to go it alone as both my mom and Rich had to work that day. Luckily for me, Rich works evenings now and my mom is taking the day off to be here. So, I will get to have my awesome support rocks to keep me sane.

My resolution this year was to focus on the positive. I can not be more glad that my son has been amazingly healthy since birth. It's a blessing that this is our biggest problem.

Slugs, snails, and puppy dog tails...

That's right folks, it's a boy and we are just as shocked as you are!

We certainly were thinking it was going to be a girl, and I'm honestly thinking about buying a lottery ticket because the odds were against a boy. All of the wives tales (and not to mention the fact that Rich is the only boy in his family and the youngest) suggested we should be having a girl but they were wrong!

I'm still a little shocked, but excited for Braedan to have a little brother. I am glad I can finally look at baby stuff and know what I'm looking for!

We don't have names yet as we decided to wait to discuss names until we knew the sex of the baby. We started talking names this morning after finding out, but haven't come to an agreement. To keep a little element of surprise we've discussed keeping the name quiet until the baby is born. So have fun guessing until then!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Happy New Year! Rich and I rang in the New Year with some very good friends and had a great time. I still miss my baby boy, but he probably had more fun than me! I'm a little jealous he got to spend new years with our family in California setting off illegal fireworks. :)

Tomorrow brings lots of changes for this blog and for the Liggett family. We have our anatomy ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow morning and hopefully we'll be able to find out the sex of the baby! I plan to change the look of the blog to reflect what we find out, after we tell everyone else of course.

I'm very anxious for tomorrow. For so long I've tried not to get my hopes up for one gender over the other, and so the baby is just that, a baby. Ambiguous for now. To think about knowing the gender, of giving the baby a name, seems very surreal. So look tomorrow for an update on what we find out!