.Good news.

My doctor's office called today to let me know that the results are in from my second trimester screening {1st trimester screening looks for abnormalities like down syndrome & trisomy 18 while the second trimester screen looks for neural tube defects such as spina bifida} and everything looks great! She said that my results were "very negative" {meaning negative for abnormalities} and, get the hilarious wording on this one: my numbers are "very very low for someone your age"! Hahahahaha! It's fantastic that the numbers {and therefore odds} are so low but to throw out "for someone your age"? REALLY? Ma'am, I am 29 years old not 60. Ha!


 

.What's going on in there?.

In 8 days we'll know if Amelia will have a little brother or little sister, the wait is actually driving me totally insane. When I was pregnant with Amelia we decided very very early that we didn't want to find out the sex, having made that decision and relishing in the excitement of finding out on the birth day meant that at no point in my pregnancy with her was I chomping at the bit to find out the sex, it was too much fun making guesses.
This time however, since we decided to find out {to better prepare Amelia for the changes in store}, my curiosity is in overdrive. Not knowing when it's your choice to not know is one thing, not knowing because your appointment isn't for another 8 days is quite another. I've never done well with secrets or surprises that I haven't carefully orchestrated myself.
Everyone asks if I have a "feeling" about the gender, since I always always felt that Amelia was a girl you would think that perhaps I might have some kind of spiritual earth mother insight. I do not. First off, "spiritual earth mother" is not an apt description of me. Second, I keep flip flopping. Early early on I had a strong feeling that I would be raising sisters {yay!} but then as my pregnancy progressed and felt so much different than the first time I started thinking that I would have "one of each" {also yay!}. Now I just don't know, when I look up baby things I subconsciously pick out girl stuff, but when I talk about "it" in terms of having an identity I always {not on purpose} use male pronouns. Hmm.
According to the oh so scientific {not} "Chinese lunar gender prediction calendars" Clarking #2 is a girl, it was right with Amelia, but quite frankly when you've got a 50/50 shot you're bound to be right sometimes so I'm not putting a ton of stock into that. When I was pregnant with Amelia my best friend's dad {shout out to Alan Rhoads!} did the "wedding ring test" above my belly at my baby shower to help fuel the "what gender is it?" game. The ring predicted that I would have a boy...Amelia is most certainly not a boy. So, really, I got nothin'. I'll have to just go crazy for the next 8 days until I find out. Grr.
What do you think? Have any gut feelings on baby #2's sex?

"Pregnant and I Know It" MUSIC VIDEO (Parody of "Sexy and I Know It")

No, this isn't me {obviously} but it's one of the funniest things I've seen lately.

.Anniversary.

Ten years ago I could have died. But I didn't. In the past ten years I have gone from mostly focusing on that first statement to focusing on the second statement {most of the time}. It's been a hard journey mentally and emotionally but I'm forcing myself to now close that chapter - a decade has gone by and it's time to leave it where it belongs.
Most people that know me have at some point heard "the story". In late March 2002 I took my best friend {Becky} & baby cousin {Jaquelyn, then 8 years old} to the coast for the day. Becky had spent the night with me the night before and when we woke up to sunshine and birds chirping we knew right away that it was a Coast kind of day. Jaquelyn had recently moved up to Oregon & hadn't yet been to the PNW coast and I thought it would be the cool big cousin thing to do to take her with us for a girls day. We were right, it was the perfect day for girls to go play at the beach - it wasn't cold and there was a good enough breeze that we were able to fly a kite, eat some seafood, and play in the sand dunes. As we were leaving I realized that we were running late, I had promised to be back by a certain time {5:00 or 6:00 I want to say but can't remember} because it was a big weekend, Jaquelyn, her mother, and Easter were all right around this weekend and there were lots of family get togethers to attend to.
We snapped a few last photos of our time at the beach and piled into the car.

 .These two photos were taken right before we got into the car.

At this point I would like to address the first questions that I am asked every single time I tell this story {without fail} 1. was I under the influence of drugs or alcohol? No. Absolutely, emphatically not. I was totally and completely stone sober. 2. Were we wearing seat belts? Yes, it was {and still is} a hard rule in my car, seat belts at all times no ifs, ands, or buts. 3. What in the hell was I thinking? Well, the short answer is that I wasn't. The slightly longer answer is that I was just shy of turning 20, nothing truly horrible had happened in my life and I was still basically a kid, in other words it never occurred to me that I was anything short of invincible.
Moving on with the story...To get home on time I was speeding, dangerously so. At roughly mile marker 10 I was going just short of 100 mph. I can feel you re-reading that last fact thinking perhaps you got it wrong. You did not. I did in fact have an 8 year old child in the back of my car as a sped down the Sunset Highway going roughly 100 miles per hour. Yes, I am full of self loathing as I admit to that. I noted that quite a bit ahead of me was a large oil truck, being in a ford escort and at the bottom of an incline I "knew" from experience that if I took my foot off of the accelerator that I would end up at the correct distance from him without ever having to use my breaks as my car would loose most of it's speed with the incline. At this same time I realized that Jaquelyn, who had been a ball of energy the whole day {an 8 year old on a trip with the "big girls" is going to be}, was totally quiet which made me nervous and I couldn't see her in my review mirror. I turned fully around so that I could check on her {turns out she wasn't talking because she was sound asleep} and in what felt like less than a millisecond Becky screamed at the top of her lungs "oh my God, Chole, that truck isn't moving!". I whipped around and realized that the gas truck that should have still been far-ish ahead of me was in fact JUST RIGHT THERE at a full stop waiting to turn onto a side dirt road and I was going way too fast and that our options were 1. slam into the truck, 2. veer into oncoming traffic, or 3. try to go around which I knew that I couldn't make and if that was right then it would mean going over a cliff. I slammed on the breaks as hard as a possibly could and Becky and I screamed and prepared for death. I knew, in that instant I knew that we would die, and it was horrific. The impact was so hard that it felt like nothing I've ever experienced, the airbags punched us hard in the faces and the seat belts left blood welts along our shoulders, throats and chests. I was told later by a police officer that the skid marks indicated that we were going roughly 80 miles per hour at the point of impact at mile marker 14.
Immediately after, all that I could hear was the blood rushing through my ears, thunder loud, and I was in a fog sure that I was dead. A second later sound came back in full force and now all that I could hear was Becky screaming in pain and Jaquelyn crying and I knew that I was the only one of the three of us that get us out of the car. All that I knew of car accidents of this kind I learned from action movies {ha} and all I could think was that we had just hit a giant truck full of flammable gasoline and that if there was any kind of spark from the crash we would all blow up. Yes, I thought that we were all going to be engulfed in a fireball. I opened my door with the intention of grabbing Jaquelyn first and running her over to the side of the road where she would be safe and then going back for Becky if she hadn't gotten her self out by then. But when I went to stand up I crumpled on the ground, My ankle was in pain and I didn't have the strength to stand. I remember screaming to Becky "get out get out get out, what if there's a fire, please get away from the car!" in pure hysteria and Becky kept screaming and crying "I can't move my feet, I can't get out, I can't move my feet!" and Jaquelyn was crying for her mom and it was the most horrible thing imaginable. I kind of army crawled over to the back door and dragged Jaquelyn out onto the street with me so that we wouldn't be in the car and just kept begging Becky to somehow get out.
At this time two police cars, ambulances, and extremely kind strangers were on the scene {though they didn't arrive in that order} and the chaos just seemed to get worse. We were all three in shock and shaking and shivering and I remembered that Jaquelyn suffered from asthma and I was terrified that the trauma or seat belt, or both were going to cause something horrible to happen to her. I was hysterically trying to tell the paramedics that she was only 8 and she had asthma and please please take care of her first. I was strapped onto a gurney with my head in one of those things that they use for people with possible neck injuries and put into an ambulance by myself while I heard my best friend and cousin screaming and crying in the background. We were all rushed to the nearest hospital {which isn't much when you're outside of a tiny coastal town} where xrays were taken and we were all examined. I had a broken hand, lacerations and contusions from the seat belt & airbag, and a mild ankle twist. Becky had basically crushed the bones in her feet when she braced them against the floor boards on impact, and Jaquelyn had broken vertebrata in the lumbar section of her back as well as some internal damage. While the other two were in the exam and xray rooms I was left in the dark behind a curtain alone sobbing harder than I had ever cried before or after that day as everything hit me at once.

.The letterman jacket and child's shoe in the photo next to the crunched hood of the car are the most disturbing details of this image.

Later Becky and I were put into one ambulance while Jaquelyn was put into a second and we were rushed to Emmanuel Hospital here in Portland where they would go on to have surgeries and lengthy stays and I went from one girls room to the other in a zombie state with the only the thought "I did this to them, they are here and in pain because I was a careless asshole".
The first year was the worst {isn't it always, no matter what the case may be} with Becky being in a wheelchair for months, and Jaquelyn in a back brace for months. My birthday was a few weeks later, in the photos you don't see Becky because she didn't want to be photographed in her wheel chair, you don't see Jaquelyn because she was still bedridden, you only healing seat belt burns and forced smiles on my face as my friends try desperately to make me happy again.

I haven't been behind the wheel of a car since that day. At first it was do to legal reasons {I received a laundry list of citations}, then it was fear, then it was guilt, then it was self punishment, and then fear again...over a ten year period. It took years for me to be able to be in a car without having an anxiety attack of some kind, to this day I have an episode if I see break lights suddenly slam, or if a gas truck is in the next lane. But I'm working on it, I no longer hear those screams when I'm in a quiet room and I no longer see us as I lay on the road when I close my eyes.
Since that year we've all three moved on, Becky has a job she loves and just finished a snowshoe race on Mt Bachelor for charity. She's had numerous surgeries to try and heal her feet and has been going through pain management for most of the last ten years - it's not an easy journey but she's getting through it. Jaquelyn and her family moved away and I'm sad to say that I haven't seen her in person in about 8 or 9 years though thanks to Facebook I can share with you that she's a happy healthy teenager and an accomplished cheerleader.
There are more details to their stories but they are not mine to share and I cannot speak for them other than to say, we're all dealing with it and moving on as best as we can.
I had planned on sharing this story with my blog readers with the intent of it being a cautionary tale. Which, it is. If you have teenagers and they're soon to be behind the wheel of a car please make sure that they know how vitally important seat belts are, that even if you haven't been drinking you can still get in an accident, that the piece of machinery they have been intrusted with can take their own life or the lives of others. Talk with them about it until you're blue in the face and then talk some more. But, after typing it all out and seeing the pictures that I've spent ten years avoiding, I realize that this post is more for myself, a requiem for the emotional pain that lasted well after the physical scars had healed. I've given this story a decade of my life and now it's time to leave it in the past. It's time to forgive myself. That is my 30th birthday gift to me.

.The obsession continues.

I think a desire for specific foods moves from "craving" to "obsession" when you simply can't get over that desire even after indulging in it for months. This pregnancy that means red meat and all things lemon. Sadly, as with my first pregnancy, I have terrible acid reflux so the latter half of that craving combo comes at a stiff price {not that it stops me}. Newman's Own lemonade is a staple with Three Twins lemon cookie ice cream as a close second {I find it at Whole Foods}. And of course, if I could have a giant very blood very rare steak along with all of this lemony goodness then I would be in total heaven. Every single day that sounds amazing.
I wonder what this says about my little one? Will it grow up predisposed to lemons & red meat or will it decide that it got more than enough while in utero and become a vegetarian that hates all things tart?

.A month of girls.

Just a short while ago I announced that Cheyenne's cousin welcomed a happy healthy baby girl this month {Baby Mila}. Well, I'm also happy to say that my good friend Rosie had a baby girl of her own on March 16th! Corrin Kathleen Wood is beautiful and I'm so happy for my friend. Congratulations to Rosie, her husband Luke, & Corrin's new big brother Rhett!

.St. Paddy's Day & Dad's birthday.

My dad's birthday is on St. Patrick's day & every year we have him over for an Irish dinner {corned beef, cabbage, champ, & Irish soda bread} & dessert {Boston cream pie this year}. Amelia had a wonderful time with her Papa {like always}.

.Showing Papa how to play Angry Birds aka "Mad Chichens".

."Helping" Papa eat his birthday cake".

.I'm not sure that he got any of his own birthday cake.

.However, he doesn't seem to mind.

.Sir, that is not a glow.

.The author of this blog in action.

Being pregnant, for me, comes with a slew of side effects that I certainly could do without. I'm hormonal but not in the emotional sense, more in the "constantly way too hot & sweaty with breakouts that would do a teenager proud" sense.
Both of those are total opposites of the norm. In my non-pregnant state I'm almost always cold & have poor circulation {thank you low blood pressure & anemia} and I'm meticulous in my skincare and have generally flawless skin {minus hormonal breakouts around "the lady time"}. Basically, these days I spend my time feeling gross, sweaty, and pimply...aka self esteem nightmare.
My dear husband did not receive the memo and is unaware that I'm pretty much a troll. Instead he genuinely thinks I'm the prettiest ever when I'm pregnant. And it's not just b.s. that he's saying so that I don't spend his entire paycheck at Sephora looking for the cures to my beauty ailments...I know when he's blowin' b.s. my way {even when it's for my own good} and no, he just honestly thinks I'm pretty and glowing right now...and doesn't seem to care the the "glow" is actually just a sheen of sweat & Proactive.
Now that is love. 

.Easter time is almost here.

It's really starting to feel like spring {despite the torrential rains yesterday} and one of the fun things about that is getting Amelia's basket & dress. This is her 2012 Easter dress...

.from Gymboree.

 

We got her basket & liner from Pottery Barn Kids {I got last years from there as well, I really like both the look and quality of the PBK baskets long after Easter is over}...

.This is the image from the PBK website but I customized it a bit making the basket a spring green and the name embroidered in pink.

As I mentioned last year I'm not big on Easter baskets being an excuse for little ones to eat 100 pounds of candy so I've gotten some books and toys to go inside this year. I might add a pretty lollipop for looks and as a one time special treat.

As for the meal itself I'm a bit torn this year. I always make a big lamb dinner and it's always so delicious but this year I'm thinking of mixing things up a bit and doing a brunch instead, that way I have the rest of the day to take it easy....which sounds pretty nice to this prego-saurus rex!

.Looks.

You know what I wonder about the most with this pregnancy? Not whether or not it's a girl or boy {I couldn't care less which one it is} but what level of resemblance this baby will have to Amelia, or me or Cheyenne. Not having a sibling my main point of reference most of my life was my extended family: my paternal side all look EXACTLY the same, you can tell a Shalz from a mile away. The same can be said for my maternal side, my mother and her siblings all look the same.
However, now that I'm pregnant I've been paying more attention to friends that have more than one child and I've been naively noticing for the first time that almost as often as siblings looking just the same they can/do look totally different and almost not related at all. For example, one of Cheyenne's friends from college has two daughters, both of whom are adorable, and they look NOTHING alike - one daughter looks just like her mother and the other looks exactly like her father. And it makes me wonder what I've got brewing in my my womb. Will I get someone that looks just like his/her big sister or totally different?
Amelia, it has been said millions of times, is very close to being my clone at the same age with very few and very slight differences {lighter hair and eyes and taller}. This is not to suggest that my genes are significantly more dominant than my husbands, all of the Clarks look the same and all of the Whiteheads looks the same so really Amelia's super close resemblance to me is more of a genetic roll of the dice verses a matter of dominant and recessive genes. So perhaps #2 will look identical to Cheyenne and then we'll each have our own little mini-me that will forever have to say things like "yes, that's really my sister, I know we don't look alike".
So the waiting game goes, and it's not like I'll really have my answer on August 21st because it takes a couple of months for babies to shake of that "newborn look" and grow into the looks that they'll have later in life. It's an interesting though indeed. 

.Family.

Relationships with in-laws can be weird and tricky, after-all you're getting a whole family but they do things differently than yours and it can seem foreign at times.
I have been very lucky on that front, I love the Clarks. Like, a lot. I have friends who have just awful awful in-laws and stories that would make your toes curl. However, for no reason really, I find myself sitting here today really missing my Reno family and wishing that I had a teleportation device so that I could spend the afternoon with people that I love {a good laugh with Renee, Darleen & Vicki. Gossiping with Grandma. Watching little cousins playing together, & meeting new babies all sounds really really perfect right now}. I think that's how you know when those people go from being "the in-laws" to "family", when you just want to spend the day with them for no other reason than you love and miss them.

.Mad Chichens.

A conversation in my house {side note: Amelia pronounces "chicken" as "chichen"}

Amelia: "Daddy, mad chichens!"

Cheyenne: "What honey?"

Amelia: "Mad chichens, please."

Me: "She wants to play Angry Birds on the Kindle."

Cheyenne: "She calls Angry Birds 'Mad Chickens'"?

Me: "Yep."


Cheyenne: "She's awesome."

.Spring is on the way.

It's been so pretty the last few days {though the forecast calls for rain all weekend} that it certainly feels like winter is officially over. Today I remembered to take the camera with me to the park...

After we got back from the park a yogurt break on the front stoop was demanded.

.Who is this big girl and where did my baby go?.

As I'm sure you've noticed I am painfully behind on posting photos of both Amelia and the baby bump and well...our life. I'm sorry folks, I got a new camera for my birthday {yes, I got my birthday gift early} and my favorite photo editing program {Picnik} is going away so I've been having to learn a new camera & Photoshop and I've been lazy so yeah. Sorry.
However, yesterday Amelia was eating her breakfast and when I looked over at her she just looked so grown up that it took my breath away and I grabbed the camera as fast as I could to capture the moment when I officially accepted that she's not a baby at all any more. Sniff sniff.

.Baby news that isn't mine.

I'm very happy to announce that Amelia has a new baby girl cousin! Cheyenne's cousin Greg & his wife Ivy had their daughter Mila on March 6th and she's perfect. We can't wait to get down to Nevada and snuggle up with her!

Also making baby news today: our friends Joe & Katie from our prenatal classes {when we were expecting Amelia} are expecting their second baby just 2 weeks before we welcome ours. Today they found out that their son Zeb will have a new baby brother in August! Congrats to everyone!

.Good God Lord that's delicious.

We're yogurt eaters in the Clark household with all three of us dedicated to our particular brands. Cheyenne likes Yoplait - which I wont touch with a 10 foot pole - I am dedicated to Fage's honey blend, and we tend to give Amelia Nancy's whole milk yogurt. The thing with Amelia though, is that because of her height {freakishly tall} and weight {freakishly thin} her doctor is very adamant that we make sure that she gets WHOLE MILK yogurt and not skim or low fat since we need to maximize opportunities of getting healthy fats into her.
Sounds easy enough. Only it's not, yogurt gets lumped into the health food category and it is nearly impossible to find whole milk yogurt and even harder to find whole milk yogurt that isn't full of crap {high fructose corn syrup & artificial dyes for instance}. The Nancy's has worked out for the most part because it's amazingly healthy and super easy to find {it's in every grocery store that I use} but I've only ever been able to find it in "plain" flavor and try as I might to give it some pizazz {bananas mashed in, peanut butter, berries, agave, etc} Amelia doesn't like it nearly as much as she likes Cheyenne's {nasty} Yoplait or my {delicious} Fage and it frustrates her to no end to ask for yogurt {or as she says "e-gert"} and get something that's boring tasting.
Enter from stage left my delight in finding the 6-pack fruit & cream whole milk yogurts from Trader Joe's...did you just hear angels sing? I'm sure you did, because I'm telling you, they're effing AMAZING. First off, they're a reasonable size for toddlers which I like. They're also devoid of high fructose corn syrup, and artificial dyes while being packed with live cultures. AND THEY ARE SO DANG TASTY! Amelia has eaten 3 today alone and I'm not going to lie...when she leaves a little bit in the container I total swoop in and eat it when she's not looking. Her favorite is the strawberry & cream whereas mine is the banana & cream {which is a bit odd since banana flavored things are not usually my top favorite in anything}.
I personally wont be replacing my Fage with them because, unlike Little Miss, I do not have a doctor asking me to gain weight, but you can bet your sweet bippy {that's right, I said it} that they're on the permanent grocery list for Peanut. If you have a kiddo I highly recommend them...just try not to become addicted yourself!

.Gross tidbit for the record.

picture from www.theoatmeal.com

If you'll recall when I was pregnant with Amelia I threw up 10 times a day for 3 months and documented it in gory detail for my "lucky" readers. This time around things are a bit easier, i certainly don't throw up anywhere near as much as I did the first time around but I do spend a good deal of my waking hours nauseous.
Today proved that just because I'm not throwing up as often as I did with my first child, my second one will not be outshone and made sure to make the once in a great while vomit really count as far as the gross factor goes.
Today I threw up Sriracha & Tums {in "assorted berry" flavor}...together, like the worlds most effed up milkshake. There are certainly no words to describe what an awful AWFUL situation that was. Touche New Baby, touche.