April 20th - Easter Evening
Easter evening we had another great ham meal and egg hunt at Craig & Peggy's. They boys had a great time playing outside and riding bikes and being together. It was an exhausting and fun day!
April 20th - Easter Afternoon
We spent Easter afternoon at the farm with the Huntrods. Imagine my surprise when Zach came riding up the lane on his 3 wheeler alone!! Chris was giving him lessons in the field and he left Chris at the bottom of the hill and drove up by himself! He does a great job and is really safe and conservative about riding. I am so proud of him!
April 20th - Easter Morning
Zach had a great Easter and got spoiled by the Easter bunny. After some fun at our house, we headed to my parents for an amazing noon meal with ham, gravy, potatoes, and all of the fixings. My parents also set up a really cool savenger hunt for Zach, but I guess I was too busy helping with clues to take any pictures of that.
April 19th
Oh hello there! Remember me?? Anyone still out there??
Sorry for my very long blog absence. Life has been busy and I have a million excuses but mainly the truth is I have just been lazy and uninspired. Not to mention every time I get the camera out, I get one of the faces below from my very opinionated 5 year old. While I think he is very adorable, you can only share so many crazy face pictures.
Another big factor is December 31st we found out we were pregnant again. I feel like I have been holding my breath waiting to finally feel less scared about the whole thing for going on 4 months now. It is a very stressful (and non Sara-like) way to live. In December we had our 4th fertility procedure. It was our Hail Mary last attempt before seriously throwing in the towel and accepting life as a family of 3. We were emotionally (and financially) drained from the fertility process but I thought I would regret not trying "one more time". We had so much bad news and heartbreak in 2013, I just knew God was preparing us for a happy ending. That cycle I didn't listen to the doctor's timing recommendations. I listened to my body and my instincts and we had the procedure when I thought we should. I still can't believe it worked. We have found out about all of our other pregnancies together. This time Chris was at work and I called and told him. Instead of a celebration, it was more like a "here we go again" feeling. And in a sick twist of fate, my due date is the exact same as the last pregnancy we lost at 16 weeks in March...September 7th...my Dad's birthday. All of that sounds very glum, but we are beyond excited. It truly is the miracle we have been waiting for and I am starting to slowly breathe again. I have been blessed with an easy, problem-free pregnancy so far and I pray that continues.
In the next few days I hope to get the blog caught up. I am going to leave this post at the top and the other posts should drop below in order. Thanks for caring about our little family. We love you all!
Sorry for my very long blog absence. Life has been busy and I have a million excuses but mainly the truth is I have just been lazy and uninspired. Not to mention every time I get the camera out, I get one of the faces below from my very opinionated 5 year old. While I think he is very adorable, you can only share so many crazy face pictures.
Another big factor is December 31st we found out we were pregnant again. I feel like I have been holding my breath waiting to finally feel less scared about the whole thing for going on 4 months now. It is a very stressful (and non Sara-like) way to live. In December we had our 4th fertility procedure. It was our Hail Mary last attempt before seriously throwing in the towel and accepting life as a family of 3. We were emotionally (and financially) drained from the fertility process but I thought I would regret not trying "one more time". We had so much bad news and heartbreak in 2013, I just knew God was preparing us for a happy ending. That cycle I didn't listen to the doctor's timing recommendations. I listened to my body and my instincts and we had the procedure when I thought we should. I still can't believe it worked. We have found out about all of our other pregnancies together. This time Chris was at work and I called and told him. Instead of a celebration, it was more like a "here we go again" feeling. And in a sick twist of fate, my due date is the exact same as the last pregnancy we lost at 16 weeks in March...September 7th...my Dad's birthday. All of that sounds very glum, but we are beyond excited. It truly is the miracle we have been waiting for and I am starting to slowly breathe again. I have been blessed with an easy, problem-free pregnancy so far and I pray that continues.
In the next few days I hope to get the blog caught up. I am going to leave this post at the top and the other posts should drop below in order. Thanks for caring about our little family. We love you all!
April 18th
April 18th has been marked in red on our calendars since January. Since Zach was born with a congenital birth defect (I hate that word), we qualified for a Level 2 anatomy ultrasound at the Perinatal Center downtown. I wasn't worried if it was a boy or a girl and I wasn't worried about another diaphragmatic hernia...I was worried about EVERYTHING else!
About 20 minutes into the ultrasound, I started to relax when we saw all of the parts in all of the right places. Our baby had its knees tightly clenched together and feet tucked under as to not show off the "goods". About 5 minutes later she finally moved and it was announced it was a girl. I will never forget the look of happiness (and pure shock) on Chris' face. He was so excited (as was I). Zach has been telling us it was a girl since we told him we were pregnant but Palmers only have boys so we didn't believe him. He even told us Grandma Palmer (who passed away last year) told him it was girl. Spooky!
At the end of the ultrasound a doctor came in to talk to us. They saw what they think might be a small VSD (ventricular septal defect). Basically it is a hole in the heart between the ventricles. They said it is really small and wouldn't require surgery and not to worry, but they want to check again in 6 weeks. After talking with our OB, it is very common and "most" times corrects itself en utereo. She said if we had just had a normal ultrasound, they wouldn't have even detected it and they are seeing more and more of these as technology gets better. The tissue in the heart isn't done developing so most likely it will close on its on. We go back May 29th for another check and a fetal echocardiagram. After all of the worry I have done about this pregnancy, surprisingly I am not worried about this VSD. It does help that I get to distract myself by buying lots and lots of pink things!
About 20 minutes into the ultrasound, I started to relax when we saw all of the parts in all of the right places. Our baby had its knees tightly clenched together and feet tucked under as to not show off the "goods". About 5 minutes later she finally moved and it was announced it was a girl. I will never forget the look of happiness (and pure shock) on Chris' face. He was so excited (as was I). Zach has been telling us it was a girl since we told him we were pregnant but Palmers only have boys so we didn't believe him. He even told us Grandma Palmer (who passed away last year) told him it was girl. Spooky!
At the end of the ultrasound a doctor came in to talk to us. They saw what they think might be a small VSD (ventricular septal defect). Basically it is a hole in the heart between the ventricles. They said it is really small and wouldn't require surgery and not to worry, but they want to check again in 6 weeks. After talking with our OB, it is very common and "most" times corrects itself en utereo. She said if we had just had a normal ultrasound, they wouldn't have even detected it and they are seeing more and more of these as technology gets better. The tissue in the heart isn't done developing so most likely it will close on its on. We go back May 29th for another check and a fetal echocardiagram. After all of the worry I have done about this pregnancy, surprisingly I am not worried about this VSD. It does help that I get to distract myself by buying lots and lots of pink things!
April 17th
On Thursday Zach got to participate in a Special Olympics Everyone Plays Day at the Ankeny High School. All of the preschool kids & special education kids were there and it was a great day of fun! He got a really cool ribbon at the end too!
April 12th - Evening
My boss, Layne, has season tickets to the Barnstormers. His seats are in the 3rd row behind the end zone. He couldn't go Saturday night so he offered us the tickets. It was a great time and amazing to be so close. Directly to our right were the cheerleaders. It was fun to tease Zach (and Chris) about that. They gave away thunder sticks to add excitement (and annoyance)! Watching our second football game of the day in April seemed quite odd!
April 12th
Saturday we had planned to head to Ames for VEISHEA. Since that got cancelled, we still decided to have lunch at Hickory Park & watch the Cyclones Spring Game. It was a beautiful day and we had fun running around central campus and had to get a picture of a family kiss under the Campanile. Go State!
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