Offers, offers and more wonderful offers!!!!

So, I never win ANYTHING (save I won the sweetest Vera Bradley bag from Lianna at Be Thou a Knight and was SO excited!!!!) but am always jealous of those luckies who do!! Several awesome, generous and kind offers/giveaways have popped up in the last few days and I'm hoping to share in case someone who reads this may benefit!!!

Stephanie at Carried Through Grief is offering a really great thing. She does beautiful work and is currently pregnant again after the loss of her sweet Amelia earlier this year in March. She, like me, is feeling the conflict of looking forward while remembering what's behind and agreed that these precious new little lives coming into the world ought to be able to have something special for them. What I love is that she's not just included women who are pregnant after loss, but women who have had failed/stalled adoption situations but been able to still bring another precious child into their home. Adoption loss carries its own sense of mourning and grief, trust me.

From Stephanie:

"I am offering 50% off my Fanciful Collection at Beyond Words Designs to all Rainbow parents who wishes to participate. * A rainbow parent is someone who has experienced the death of a baby/child/or failed adoption and is currently expecting or adopting after the loss."

I can't wait until we decide what Luke's nursery theme will be because I fully intend to take Stephanie up on this sweet offer!!

Next is from Franchesca...who is also CRAZY talented and does so many kind and generous things in memory of her sweet Jenna Belle. At Small Bird Studio, she does wonderful things and is offering a giveaway art piece in her sweet Jenna's alphabet. Beautiful stuff, so visit her there and on Facebook!

Last is from sweet, sweet Kelli at Rie's Dialogues...I just heart her! She's launched a new blog and I just love her strength and perseverance! What I love more is that she honors and embraces those very same things in others!! Her giveaway is for a gift certificate from The Vintage Pearl and the jewelry is just lovely! She has all the details there on her blog.


Whew! Lots of links, huh? Amazing women, though, and I'm honored to share some of their goings on.

Went to the doctor today--first to see Dr. Shonekan...just love her. Still sick, so all the office got was the Pillsbury pull-out-of-the-package white chocolate macadamia cookies so I didn't get anyone else sick either. God love her for putting up with me.

Luke's little heart was chugging right along. Easy to find. Of course it was. We think his pattern is sleep during the day and party at night. Although, he is usually pretty wiggly for our ultrasounds with Dr. Sweeney, so maybe he was just taking a moment. All I know is that when we are trying to find his heartbeat at night before bed, he's an acrobatic phenom! When we try to take it mid-morning, it's always very, very easy to get because he's still!

My blood pressure was a bit high, but that's not necessarily uncommon when sick, so not too worried. We'll watch it as I (theoretically) get better over these next few days.

I went to a primary care doctor for this sinus infection. She's a former high risk OB PA and she was sort of not happy with me. She was obviously very curious about my OB history (so much fun to walk down memory lane) and was very put out with me for not taking my allergy and asthma medicines while I've been pregnant. I got the old, "If you aren't getting enough oxygen, neither is the baby," speech, which I had already heard earlier from Dr. Shonekan, only not as good-naturedly delivered. She asked why I wasn't taking them and I told her I didn't need them. (I don't.) She asked who told me I didn't need them and I told her that I didn't need anyone to tell me what my body knew. (She didn't like that.) She said I was stubborn. (She wasn't really mean about it, and in her defense, she's right.) She said I needed to take those medicines because they were class B and should be just fine to take. I found it funny that someone who'd worked with high risk OB patients for so long couldn't understand that "should be just fine" is not something I'm willing to talk about.

Matthew "should" have been just fine too. There are no shoulds. (Written in honor of Dr. Guyer.)

So, after hemming and hawing about how I knew my body, how pregnancy has been WONDERFUL for my allergies and asthma (this spring when everyone was complaining about pollen, I was gardening and singing like I was Snow White!), and in NO WAY, SHAPE or FORM would I do anything to harm poor Luke, she mentioned how I was a doctor's nightmare because how was I to know if I was harming poor Luke?

It was at that point I wanted to tell her, "Good thing you're not a doctor, then, huh, because you'd be aggravated with me, wouldn't you?" but in Christian love, I refrained.

I know what she meant. She was just worried about me making sure I took medicines to keep me from crisis situation. I get that.

But after listening to me for cry and share the last 11 years of my life with her for several minutes, she should have gleaned that I am a fabulous advocate for my health care needs (and have even been called a hypochondriac once or twice!) and would do anything necessary (including medicine up the wazoo) to protect Luke.

If it's just a matter of making me a bit more comfortable, though...I'll pass. Why subject him to it? I do not work, I do not have any major responsibilities around my house, I do not have anything to do but lay around if I want to. I can suck it up a bit and not take medicine if it means that Luke doesn't have to have it either.

That said, I DO believe this is probably a sinus infection. So, if it's not better tomorrow (I'm a bit better today than I was yesterday), then first thing in the morning, I'll hit the Z-pac. Dr. Shonekan told me to quit being stubborn and take a puff of my inhaler, so *maybe* I'll do that before bed to try to get some sleep. (She tells me I'm stubborn but she tells me she loves me anyway!!)

I know that woman was just doing her job, but really...I'm not some 18 year-old girl (don't I know THAT!) who just 'fell' into pregnancy, for Pete's sake. And I've lived with my body for 37 years. I'm pretty familiar with its ins and outs. I have not needed any medicine and Luke has been fine.

For the record, my pulse ox or whatever the thing that measures your oxygen is ROCKED. 100% airflow. Luke and I are doing just fine, madame PA.