Party for Mercer's Adoption Day!!

I know I just blogged yesterday, but I wanted to post this invitation to Mercer's friends and family. Private information (location / phone / email are omitted on purpose because this is on the world wide web!) but we figure that those who should come will know how to get a hold of us! We also found out that a couple of people are sending things to Mercer for "his day"... that is very nice, but we want to stress... that this is just a celebration. Please don't bring anything! We just want to have a party and don't want anyone to feel like they need to bestow anything on the little guy. He is so fortunate with all of the love and the kindness that's been shown to him and to us these past 6 months!

Join us if you can... and - of course - we'll post some pics and stories about his official adoption day close to the end of the week.

New Videos of M... a little update on C

Here are the videos that show Mercer's "new trick." Sounds like he's smacking his lips - but he's doing it with his tongue / roof of his mouth. It's funny.... when he learns something new he does it over and over again (like the babbling). He calmed down a bit from that weekend where he "talked" all weekend. Now - all he's doing is making that smacking noise! So funny. Oh yeah - you can see how he now eats his toes too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJN6vuiwrAU Here's one where he was in a great mood. Heartily laughing and bouncing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omk0O8rS9F4

I have my surgery date: September 16th. It's SO far away!! As mentioned, I was of the mind-set on Wednesday to go ahead & get it done. I don't exactly know what that means... am I on bed rest for the next 2 weeks 'til the surgery? Sometimes I feel fine... but the past 3-4 days, I can tell when I move around too much / pick up baby more than I should. I actually had to take one of the pain pills tonight... and all I did was watched baby for the afternoon while Todd cleaned out the pond. I did EVERYTHING from waist height & up - but it still put a strain on things. oy!

I was pretty down on Wednesday / Thursday / Friday about the surgery being so far away... but talked with a neighbor this morning who works up at the hospital near us (she's a nurse) / who uses the same OB-gyn and felt that he has exceptional judgement. She personally had dealings with the same specialist who I was sent to. She made me feel more confident that this is the right way to go even though it's 2 1/2 weeks away. Supposedly, this guy is very good. Pretty much the best in town. I was contemplating finding another doc potentially - someone who wasn't so booked up... but she told me that he's highly respected in this field and ALL of the OB's send their unique cases to him. She was actually relieved to know that I was going to be in his hands. I suppose that put me at ease a bit, but - honestly - I'm still nervous about the next cycle and the potential pain, though.

Todd took Mercer up to the square this morning. Today was the last day of the farmer's market -- which is crazy. There is still a lot of growing to do this season & we may have to go to other markets further away (downtown?) to get farm-fresh local goods. There's also an art festival on the square. If I'm feeling ok tomorrow, we may drive up to the square (bummer) and walk around the festival a little bit. I won't do too much. Promise!

I should run -- especially before this pain pill kicks in! Goodnight.

a (candice) medical update... skip if you're squemish...

I am learning a lot.
I've learned that what they did / told me at the ER on the 15th... not right. "Oh honey - it was only a cyst that ruptured. You're fine to go home."

I'm pretty sure that the cyst did not rupture. It definitely feels better in general than it did that day I went to the ER, but I have my own opinion as to why (and it is mostly related to a certain time of month). I could feel it a little bit on Sunday and Monday / had a symptom or two that was different than the previous week -- but I knew it hadn't gone away.

I went for another follow-up visit yesterday (Tuesday) and the reaction from that doc was a little scary, quite honestly. They were shocked at the size of it as it has gotten larger. The long dimension went up from 15 cm to 18 cm. The doc gave me two choices: 1 - admit me to the hospital 'til I could have the cyst removed at some point this week.... or 2 - go on bed rest / promise him that I wouldn't do anything / go visit a specialist (an ovarian cancer doctor) on Wednesday.

I opted for going home and for visiting the specialist. Todd came home from Asheville at a fairly decent time thankfully on Tuesday night. I had a couple of neighbors help me with Mercer 'til then. At this point, I was told not even to pick up the baby. Don't go to work. Clear my schedule.

We went this morning to the specialist (and I took an overnight bag thinking I may be admitted at this point?). His attitude -- way different. I guess b/c he does this all the time. He said that my cyst is considered simple (not complex)... it IS large -- and it IS a concern, but he did not see any complexity to the shape or consistency of it so he is 99% sure it is not cancerous. WHEW! It is still a danger of rupturing -- which can cause some major problems, but he's also told me to take things extremely easy. He told me that I could take care of the baby (with caution)... try to only do things that are at waist height or above (don't pick baby up off of the floor).

I don't know when I'll have the surgery, but it's not going to be this week, unfortunately. I'm pretty sure that he can't work me in that quickly. Honestly, though, I am of the mindset to go ahead and get it done... the longer I wait -- the more chance for it to rupture. I'm waiting on their call (certainly it will come tomorrow?!) for the schedule of pre-op and of the procedure. We've requested to have it done at the hospital near our house -- which we were told by one of his staff members has a likelihood of getting on the schedule sooner.

The procedure will be a high-tech procedure -- a form of laproscopy but with robotics. The recovery time is 2 weeks vs 6 weeks of a traditional procedure. The pain is supposedly less. (The cost is more, but with less pain and quicker recovery -- seems worth it to Todd and to me... it was an easy decision in that regard!) Don't know if this is too personal for you -- I'm ok posting this -- but they're going to remove my left ovary... and I keep my right one. Thank goodness. That means that I won't have to deal with hormone treatments later, as I'll still be producing them naturally.

Ok. That's about all I know now.

Mercer's doing something new and we tried to capture it on video... so the next post, I'll try to get that online and maybe do an update on what we know about my situation. Goodnight.

When Todd wasn't looking...

... I caught him being absolutely adorable!

I've spent a couple of days basically working from home (on the front porch with a nice breeze compliments of the storm). Some of that work time was during the day. Some of that work time was when Todd got home at night. I've been judging a sustainable design contest -- which has actually been pretty cool / pretty energizing... but I digress. I had just finished reviewing a couple of entries and took a short break. I turned around & could see inside the living room through the window. Todd had Mercer and was nestling with him. He would act surprised and make noises and Mercer would giggle and smile. I could actually hear the two of them outside. I watched the two of them for a few minutes.

LOVE that moment -- seeing how they interact with each other when no one's watching. Todd's really great with Mercer!

Here's a couple of shots depicting what I wrote about in the last post. Mercer schootching backwards. Todd had him doing some tummy time -- but over a few minutes, he moved back and back and back 'til he was off the blanket.

The week has been up and down. I had a good week of work (outdoors, at home, doing something cool)... but I found out that the cyst I had was huge. I had a follow-up doctor's appointment Wednesday. They read the report from the ER and told me about what the radiologist found. The cyst was 11cm x 10cm x 15 cm. I pulled out a ruler and drew it on a piece of paper so I could fathom the dimensions: basically 4" x 4" x 6" -- the width of an orange, but the length of a cantaloupe. No wonder it hurt. I don't think there's much they can do about it. I go back next week for more images to see the size again. I'm certain - at this point - it's much smaller. I do hope that it does not come back! It is disappointing to (preliminarily) find out that there's not much that can be done about it.

It's late - but I wanted to share the latest pictures and the moment I caught a glimpse of through the window.

An interesting time....

It's really cool watching Mercer's development. He has pretty much mastered his eye-hand coordination. He's able to look at something he wants to grab and can at least touch it or knock his hand into it. He's doing a good job of sitting up with assistance (a boppy pillow). He's trying to pull himself up from laying down to sitting -- but can't quite get there. You can see him exerting a lot of effort to work on it though. And he's "scooching" around a little bit to the side and back mostly. Todd had Mercer duty all weekend & I didn't get to play with him or hold him too much (b/c of the issue in my side). I think that's why I've been more attuned to what all he's been doing these past few days.

Todd switched out the car seats to a toddler carseat over the weekend. What I'm going to miss about not using the infant car seat anymore: if he falls asleep in the car, we can't just pull out the car seat with him in it and bring him inside or snap it into a stroller... we have to unbuckle him & take him out. My cousin Tracy loaned us a toddler car seat (we're using in Todd's truck) and we bought one for my car. It's huge - as you can see in this picture!

We pulled the mobile down from his crib because he could scooch down to it and batt / start to grab at the fish. They're supposed to be removed around 5 months because they can be a strangulation hazard. But, there are new things moving into the picture. Here's Mercer in an "exersaucer" thing that a neighbor loaned us. (Aren't those cute pj's he's wearing?!)

I had a pretty good day. I feel much better than I have the past few days, I've been enjoying Mercer's development, and I had a good day at work. I spent the better part of the day by the pond doing research -- learning about a topic that I think is interesting. I went to a meeting, then came back and continued to research and learn stuff. I will put this knowledge to use over the next two days -- judging a contest that architects and architecture students entered. That's one thing I like about the job: being able to do different things than I would get to do in any other job!

Oh yeah one other good thing today -- I saw a really intense yellow & black bird in the back yard. It landed on a coneflower that the petals had fallen off of and he was pecking at the flower... eating seed? (I guess it wouldn't be that unlike sunflower seeds.)

It's the small things!

The other day, Mercer came home from daycare in an outfit I had forgotten about -- guess it's been there for awhile and they changed him into it b/c he messed up his other outfit? It was the inspiration for this photo. He's wearing a farm outfit (tractors, cows, barns, and frogs. frogs? yup - they're on there.) We thought it was fitting to take his picture in our little garden. We have been watching this HUGE tomato grow over the past month. It's been sitting on the vine completely green for several weeks, but finally turned red. It's almost the size of Mercer's head!! We've already "harvested" a number of the cute little yellow & red striped ones too.

We love this time of year - we go through a lot of Boboli whole wheat crusts and make all sorts of tomato tarts and pizzas. This one was mighty tasty... some yellow pear shaped tomatoes from a neighbor's garden magically appeared on our doorstep. We slathered pesto on a crust, combined the yellow tomatoes with some of our little yellow & red ones for color... and voila! yum!

Life seemed to be slowing down and getting a little more simplified this week (compared to last week) - however - we were thrown a curve ball this morning. I had HORRIBLE cramps, fever, chills, and vomiting. Thank goodness all of this happened before Todd left for work -- so he took over Mercer duties and we made the decision to go to the hospital because something was definitely wrong. We were there for 6 1/2 hours (ugh) and I got a morphine drip for the pain and fluids through an IV b/c I was really dehydrated. I had a number of sonograms done and they found something -- but didn't tell me 'til 3 hours later what it was. That was torture. Luckily, all it was -- a cyst that had ruptured. I was SO relieved. But - upon reading the discharge papers / learning a little more about cysts - it could've been very serious & caused a lot of damage internally. I was lucky that it didn't. I have a follow-up appointment next week to investigate (hopefully) "why" this happened. Think it has something to do with hormones.... super strong ones (yes - my hormones have been very strong since Mercer's been home with us. crazy, huh?)

I took a 3 hour nap when we got home this afternoon (guess the morphine was wearing off?) ... and am still letting Todd deal with little M. I hope to feel up to hanging out with him & holding him tomorrow.

A family affair....

I got home on Tuesday from the family reunion & visit to NC (see video of Mercer's visit with Grandma Moore on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elineh2HKZ8 and a couple more shots of my mom's parents that I like - at left).... THEN we had a visit from Todd's mom, Rose Marie, starting on Thursday.

We didn't do a lot when Rose Marie was in town, but hung out, ate & played with baby.
Thursday night we went out, then she & Todd came home to feed Mercer. I went to a consignment sale & racked-up on winter clothes (and some nice wood toys for later). Friday, I had a company retreat up in the mountains of North Georgia. Rose Marie went up there with us (instead of hanging out at our house alone). I'm not sure if she had a good time, but there were some other people's kids there (spouses of my co-workers) so she had some people to hang with while we worked. Todd ended up joining us at the end of the day for socializing with the team. (A co-worker took several pictures of father and son... at right) We came home late & watched some of the Olympics opening ceremony -- wow.

Saturday we went to breakfast and the farmer's market and a little shopping then hung out. Todd's mom also babysat while we went to dinner that night with some friends.

Sunday - we all hung out some more, then off to the airport. It was such a quick trip and I don't know how much we really did, but I suppose the trip wasn't to go anywhere or do anything... rather for Mercer and his grandma to hang out! Here's a nice shot taken before she left.

Home sweet Home

Mercer and I had a good trip -- but it's so nice to be back at home.... I think Todd missed us - although I know he enjoyed a relaxing weekend with the house to himself.

I snuck little M out of the house at 5:30 am on Saturday morning & drove to a family reunion in NC (for a luncheon). We pulled up at 11:57 amazingly. Mercer was awake for the first 1/2 hour of the drive, then fell asleep. He slept 'til 8 / I fed & changed him / he played and slept most of the way to NC. He only had a melt-down about 15 minutes before I arrived at the reunion. I was SO thankful the meltdown didn't occur earlier! The reunion went well. A lot of people knew Mercer from the blog. (It was kinda like cheers where everyone yelled "Norm" when walking in. It seemed like he got a similar reception when we arrived!)

It was nice seeing family members who we haven't seen in awhile and catch up on what extended family is up to. Aunts / Uncles / and my grandmother (Mercer's great-grandmother). It may take us awhile (for those family members checking the blog who weren't able to make the reunion) for us to get some of the videos posted. (Todd downloads them from the camera / edits them / adds graphics / uploads them to YouTube.) I'll add links to some clips once that process happens.

Sunday - my mom had family over. Cousins / an aunt / an uncle / my grandma & grandpa (Mercer's great-grandma & great-grandpa) came over. My grandma was in a rehabilitation center last month for a broken leg and recently came home. SO GOOD to see her!! Here's a shot of Mercer playing with my grandpa's beard. He was fascinated with it. Lots and lots of people held Mercer and played with him over the two days. He did great during the day, but poor little guy got tired each afternoon. Don't know if he was tired from the handling or from teething & not sleeping at night. (Mercer's been sleeping through the night pretty well for awhile... but not for the past week.) Although, he did put himself to sleep one night by watching a light show / listening to lullabies from this little music box that someone sent him. That was pretty cool. We WILL be trying this again.

We finished our trip with a visit to the great-grandparents again on Monday, then headed home today. We left at a reasonable time today - and Mercer was perfect. He talked and played and slept 'til we got to Greenville. We had lunch with my friend Cindy, her son Daniel, and youngest son Trevor. Mercer was good enough to get back in the car seat... play / talk / sleep 'til we got home. I was so glad it went as well as it did! (Doesn't he look comfortable here?)

We'll have some video of various events of the long weekend on here soon. Check back later!

I wanted to blog about stuff before the trip to NC...

I'm still on my trip to NC - so I will wrap up the trip and then blog once home. One thing I meant to blog about before leaving for NC, though, was about our night without power. Don't know why - but about a dozen streets around us (according to the recording on the power company's emergency line) were without power. Maybe something happened at the sub-station? Todd & I were about to cook dinner when the power went out on Wednesday night. Had to modify / but was able to cook on the stove-top with the assistance of a lighter to ignite the gas flame. Then, we fed Mercer (outside as we sometimes do) because the light was better outside than in the house. We ended up on our front porch for quite awhile talking to our neighbor, Les, whose wife just had a baby boy. Yep - another boy on our street. That's 4 born this year (and one girl so far). It is definitely going to be a bustling place in a few years.

We're just getting to know he / his wife / and two little girls - and spent several hours at their house a couple of weekends ago when going for a walk around the block (1 mile - took us 3 hours b/c of the socializing). Their two daughters are really shy but LOVE to touch Mercer's head and then run back and stand behind their dad. Then they'll come out and touch his foot and run back. It's so sweet!

We didn't have anything else to do, so we went for a walk around the hood (that 1 mile "trek" again) which took us maybe 2 hours this time... Took us awhile because a lot of people on our street were out on their porches. It was so cool to see families out talking to other families... a mom & son playing card games by a camp-light... couples socializing by candle light... one couple invited us up to help them finish some wine that was in the 'fridge b/c they didn't want to get warm. It was just so nice to see folks out. Les talked about how their family went without power for the Earth Hour and how the little girls LOVED running around the house by candle light. Reminds me of a story of my cousins & family who were at my grandparents one Christmas: the power went out & they had to cook by the fire in the fire place. They say it was one of their favorite holidays.

Just thought I'd mention that b/c I think it's exciting for the kids -- and for the adults gets them closer to the other adults in the neighborhood. It felt like an adventure for us that night -- exploring a little bit and sharing this common "event" with others. I think we all should do this occasionally. Use no power -- instead -- talk / play games / go for a walk / hang with neighbors / etc.

We came home, scrounged around for flashlights and candles (we should've done that before the walk -- before it got dark!). We had one injury in our household due to the outage. Our cat, Pigg, was standing too close to a candle and singed the hair off of his tail. He had no idea (must not have hit a nerve or anything) but boy did it stink up the living room!

I'm going to run... but I wanted to let you know that there are the "sitting" videos of Mercer on You Tube now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXAmuw2cL7Q and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEwEwRfaT1Y Enjoy! C