{25} Lately…

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Lately I’ve been…

reading #Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso, founder and CEO of Nasty Gal.  Incredible story and extremely inspirational.  Would recommend to anyone, not just the ladies.

writing  In Nico’s baby book.  I have a few months of catching up to do with all his new milestones!  

listening  “Talk Dirty” by Jason DeRulo.  As a former sax player, I had to give a shout out to the awesome solo work in this song.

thinking  It’s been a bit of a crazy few weeks for me and my family.  We lost my beloved Granny recently, and although she was 93 years old, it was  sudden and a bit of a shock for all of us.  After losing my Uncle earlier this year, it’s been rough for everyone, especially my Mom.  I cannot imagine losing my own mother, and I know this has got to be incredibly difficult for her.  My Granny was the sweetest lady, and I miss her dearly.  I am comforted in the fact that I was able to be by her side in her last week along with the rest of our family, and that she was comfortable and knew we were all with her at the end.  I truly appreciate all of the love, prayers, cards, and support that people have given us during this time.

smelling  The great outdoors.  Spent Zack’s 1st Father’s Day Weekend hiking Bear Mountain on Saturday, and Sunday was spent smelling the sweet salt air at Rockaway Beach.  I would definitely recommend the Perkins Memorial 3.9 mile trail loop.  Amazing views and a challenging, fun hike.  I impressed myself by doing a few rock scrambles with a baby on my back as well, and we were able to introduce Nico to his first ride…the carousel!  Onto the beach…if my fellow New Yorkers make it to Rockaway this summer, you must go to 106th street for arepas at Caracas.  I insist!  P.S. Nico LOVED the beach.  That’s my boy!

watching  Watched the throwback movie Big for the first time with one of my favorite actors of all time, Tom Hanks.  Although the method of getting “bigger” was a tad cheesy, I really enjoyed the movie and would recommend it.

wishing  For the weekend to get here!  We are heading to Cape May for the first time for a family vacation with the hubby’s side.  Looking forward to snuggling that little nephew of ours, and spending time with the entire fam.  Have any of you been to Cape May before?  Would love some suggestions on what to do/where to eat/where to shop, etc.!

hoping  That Nico feels less pain when the rest of his teeth come in…yes, you heard right…Nico got his first tooth this weekend!  My boy is getting big.  

wearing  This new vintage style bathing suit I purchased from Grey Dog Boutique.  Discovered this shop from Bonnie over at Flashes of Style.  Go say hi!

loving  The the line-up of summer travel we have on the horizon.  While driving long distances can sometimes be draining, Zack and I are always up for an adventure, and this summer will be no different even with a little one in tow.  We started off the summer in New Hampshire with good friends, enjoyed upstate NY last weekend, and have Cape May to round out the month of June.  July we will be heading to Rehobeth Beach (DE), North Fork (Long Island), Deep Creek Lake (MD), and celebrating my 30th (eek!).  Ending the summer will be a trip to the Outer Banks (NC) and celebrating Nico’s 1st birthday.  Some may call us crazy, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

laughing  I’m not a cat person, but this kitten jam had me rolling!  

wanting  This shocking coral lip color for the season.

needing  Some more time with girlfriends.  I’ve been loving the family life without a doubt, and I love my boys to death, but sometimes a girl needs some quality time with her girlfriends too!  Hoping to set up a few “girl-dates” while the weather is nice and warm. 

feeling  A second needle injection into my thumb this morning.  OUCH.  My thumb has definitely gotten a lot better since the first shot, but it’s still not completely back to normal, and as the doc said “I am too young to have this problem!”  Not to mention how impossible it is to “rest your thumb.”  I really do hope this one will curb me from having to undergo surgery, but worst case scenario, I have heard it’s a fairly simple procedure.

craving  More time to work on this blog and other personal endeavors/passion projects.  My creativity is bursting at the seams with very little time to act!  I’ve always been great with time management, but juggling work, caring for a baby, and our social/travel calendar have made things a bit more tricky.  I know it’s tough to “have it all,” but I’m determined to come up with a way to make things work without sacrificing my family time.

clicking  Nico is pulling himself up to a standing position, and I think it’s time for some functional shoes for summer.  I’ve been searching around online, but does anyone have any favorites they love for their little one?

*

What have you been up to lately?

Happy Hump Day!

Love,

Gina

***I was inspired by Tina of Like Ordinary Life to create this post, and she was inspired by Lauren of siddathornton, who started The Sunday Currently.

Women Should Talk About It

Now, my blog is usually a place of happiness, fun, fashion, & adventure…and I don’t intend on changing that.  But my blog is also about life.  And life is not always rainbows and butterflies.  As much as I would like it to be sometimes, that is just not the case.  So if I sat here and only talked about happy things all the time, then this blog would just not be real.  And I think sometimes we need a dose of reality.  It may be tough for some of you to read this.  It has been a struggle for me to sit down and write this and go back to this place.  But this is a topic that most women don’t openly talk about, and I honestly think that they should.  There is no reason to hide it.  It happens more often than we think.  We just don’t realize it, because no one talks about it.  You’re probably now thinking “just go ahead and say what you are talking about!”  So here we go…

At this point, most of you now know that we have a Little Monkey on the way.  And we are SOOOOO incredibly excited!  What you may not know is that before there was a Little Monkey…there was a Peanut.  My sweet, sweet little Peanut.  My husband and I found out in September that we were expecting a child.  I had a feeling that maybe I should take a pregnancy test.  And let me tell you, I am not one of those people that freaks out and takes pregnancy tests often.  I actually had NEVER taken one in my entire life until that day…when we got those two lines.  It was actually quite surprising, because it pretty much happened “right away.”  We were shocked and ecstatic at the same time.  We said we wouldn’t tell anyone for awhile since it was so early…but then the next day, we just got too excited and told everyone.  Well, not everyone.  But all of our family, close friends, etc.  Let’s just say it was quite a few people.

The day after we found out, we were on Cloud 9.  We went to lay out in Prospect Park, pretty much skipping the whole way there.  We hung out on a blanket under the sunshine and just daydreamed of what our life would be like when our little Peanut arrived in May.  Right in time for our 2 year wedding anniversary.  We daydreamed about Peanut coming to his/her first Outer Banks vacation with the family, the 1st Christmas, taking the stroller around the city in the summertime.  It was pretty much the best day ever.  To think that we would be bringing this beautiful little life into the world.  We named the baby Peanut, because “it” just sounded awful, and we didn’t know the sex of the baby yet to say “he” or “she.”  My husband and I are both kind of small, so we figured Peanut was a perfect name for our little one.

I immediately went into “Mom” mode.  The smell of cigarette smoke at a party made me flee the scene immediately.  Alcohol was not even missed on a Saturday night.  I started reading up on all the websites and blogs for the right things to eat/not eat, pregnancy tips, etc.  I was completely protective of my little Peanut, and felt like I was already a Mom.  Although it had only been a short time, it felt like I had been carrying Peanut for much longer.

A week and a half or so after we got the good news of being pregnant, I started to have some complications.  I wasn’t sure if anything was really wrong at first, because sometimes these symptoms can happen, and everything can be just fine.  I called my mother-in-law (a midwife herself) constantly asking questions.  But as the week progressed, my complications started to get worse, and I started to get worried.  I didn’t have a doctor in NY yet, since prior to getting pregnant, I only needed to go to my OB/GYN once a year.  I had just scheduled my appointments to go when I was in Maryland during the holidays or family vacation.  Luckily, I had done some research in the NY area, and found two options that I was going to try out.  When the complications started happening, I called them both immediately.  Because, I was not already a patient, the first office I called pretty much told me there was “nothing they could do.”  If I was going to miscarry, I was going to miscarry.  That if things started to get “really bad,” then I should go to the ER.  I was kind of shocked, but I didn’t accept that for answer.  I called the other office, and luckily they brought me in for a sonogram the following day.

That day was very promising.  We saw our little Peanut on the monitor.  And there was a heartbeat!  It was the most amazing feeling, and it was extremely encouraging.  We left that day feeling very optimistic into the weekend, and overall happy that someone cared enough to help us and make us feel comfortable during this scary and terrifying time.

Unfortunately, my complications didn’t get any better, and they started to get worse throughout the weekend.  I had severe pains that weekend, and I started to get extremely worried.  I cried.  And cried.  I thought the worst.  My husband consoled me.  He was still optimistic.  We scheduled an appointment for another sonogram that Monday.

We looked up at the screen for our little Peanut…and there was nothing there.  Blank.  Just an empty uterus.  My husband was in denial.  He thought maybe we needed to do the internal sonogram again, because the baby was just too small and we couldn’t see Peanut.  But they tried that too.  And still blank.  Gone.  Just completely gone.  We both broke down at that point.  It was the first time I ever saw my husband cry in my life.  And we have been together for over 8 years.  It was my turn to console him, yet it was almost impossible as I was pretty inconsolable myself.

It felt like Peanut had just been ripped away from us.  Stolen.  The day before I had been a Mom.  And now I wasn’t.  I had been planning a baby nursery and summer plans…and now I was sitting here empty-wombed and broken.  Like I had never even been pregnant.  Like everything should just go back to normal life.  It was horrible.  I do not wish miscarriage on anyone.  We tried to be optimistic.  We said we would try again.  But we also acknowledged that the next baby would still not be our little Peanut.  We would always feel that we should have had Peanut as our first child.

Fast forward to becoming pregnant with Little Monkey.  Because we had lost Peanut, we really, really, really wanted Little Monkey.  We were lucky it did not take long.  Not that Little Monkey will ever replace Peanut.  There is no way that would ever be possible.  But maybe…just maybe there was a reason for all of this.  If we hadn’t lost Peanut, there would also be no Little Monkey on the way.  Now, I could never choose one child over another.  But maybe something was wrong with Peanut in the womb.  Maybe he/she wasn’t healthy or wasn’t developing properly.  And maybe Peanut took the sacrifice by allowing Little Monkey a shot at this big, bad world instead.  We’ll never really know, but I do hope that one day we can see our little Peanut in Heaven.

I have to say it was difficult to get excited about Little Monkey at first.  I wanted to be.  I felt like a bad Mom because I felt like I was forcing my excitement, and it wasn’t as real as my excitement with Peanut.  “I should be more excited,” I thought.  “Why can’t I be?”  Well, the reason was because I was so damn nervous.  I was terrified actually.  I couldn’t get excited, because I couldn’t deal with the loss if another child was torn away from me.  If I got excited, then it got real.  I might jinx it.  I couldn’t bear being in that dark place of unhappiness and sadness again, and so I just tried to get through day by day as if things were normal.  If I didn’t think about it too much, then the time would pass by, and before I knew it, BOOM I would be in the “safe zone.”

Well, it didn’t exactly zoom past, but it did get easier and easier with time to get excited and be less nervous.  We passed our 7 1/2 week point where we lost Peanut and that was helpful.  Then, every week after that, we got more and more excited and confident that this time things were going to work out for us.  When we went to hear Little Monkey’s heartbeat for the first time, I was extremely nervous.  After it was confirmed that there was a little one inside me, I said “OH THANK GOD,” in the office.  The midwife said, “What, were you nervous?”  And I explained what had happened the first time.  She then told me, “Well, just get ready, because this is the beginning of being nervous for the rest of your life.”

She makes a good point.  I’m sure I won’t stop worrying just a little bit throughout my entire pregnancy.  And I’m sure I will worry the first time Little Monkey gets sick, or something goes wrong, get his/her first injury, grows up and gets his/her drivers license, goes off to college, etc. etc.  That’s just what motherhood is.  Constant worrying and nervousness.

But it’s important to also ENJOY it.  I don’t want to live life saying that I was a nervous wreck and didn’t enjoy my pregnancy at all.  I want to enjoy as much of life as humanly possible.  I accept that we are presented with challenges and complications in life.  Nothing turns out perfectly.  And things don’t always turn out the way you would expect them to.  But I think it’s important to enjoy what you can.

So far my pregnancy with Little Monkey is going really well, and I am determined to relish in these moments while I have them.  So farewell to any negative thoughts.  I am staying positive from here on out.  I am back to my typical self of planning and daydreaming about what lies ahead for our little family.  Zack and I are really excited for the arrival of our Little Monkey, and we are ready to take on whatever challenges we were meant to face.  We are strong and we can overcome, and we hope to teach our Little Monkey these same life lessons come September. 🙂

XO,

Gina

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