Life's a beach

I'm still catching up here and am so excited to post these adorable pics from our trip to St. Simons with the Milams. We loved our time there and it was great to be with family with all the drama we were going through. I only wish I would have felt better but being at the beach is a great place to be when you aren't at your best. I love that your biggest decision is whether to go to the beach or the pool and what should we eat for supper.

I also want to say Happy Father's Day to three amazing dads! I am so thankful to have had the best Dad in the world, Big Phil. He is the greatest! Because of the example that he provided, I set my expectations very high and made a very wise choice in marrying Daniel Frank. Dan is such an amazing daddy to our beautiful daughter and I have my wonderful father-in-law to thank for that! We are better parents because of the example and love that we experienced from our mothers and fathers. We are truly blessed and hope to show our children as much love and support as they have. It takes incredibly special men to raise girls and Mary Beth is a very lucky little girl to have Dan as her daddy. Happy Father's Day fellas!

On to the beach photos:

She loved the pool, especially drinking the water

She hated the sand on the first day but I think she warmed up to it

Such a sweet profile

I am going to miss that gummy smile

Posing with Owen, I loved their feet in the air

I love this one with mimi and papa

We had to get a picture of her facing the ocean because this is what her front looked like...

Much happier standing up

One of her first times in the grass

Eleven Months!

I'm several weeks behind with this post so I am doing my best to catch up before Mary Beth turns one in a few weeks. The eleventh month was full of changes for MB. A few quick updates are below.

- She is finally fattening up a little bit and she has gained two pounds in the past two months. This is great news for us since she had only gained 11 ounces in the three months before that. She now weighs 16.11 and we are so proud.
- She is such a sweet baby but is starting to give us a run for our money. She is super independent and stubborn, just like her mom I'm afraid. When we tell her no, she either laughs or cries, depending on her mood.
- Her favorite things to do that we don't want her to do: Play with the night light in the hall, hit the spoon out of our hand when it is full of food, play with the blinds, flip in circles on the changing table, pull on the lamp cords, pull up on the toilet, book shelves. etc.
- She still has two teeth on the bottom but we think her top two are on their way in.
- She is eating pretty much everything except for dairy. Her new obsession is blueberries.
- She is cruising around and pulling up on everything. We keep waiting for her to take her first few steps but she prefers to be carried around. :-)
- She plays really well by herself when Dan is keeping her but if I am around, she wants to be under my feet constantly. She loves to pull up on my pants while I am cooking or washing dishes. - She loves to read any and all books and normally sits surprisingly still while we are reading to her. She isn't really interested in TV but I'm sure that will change at some point.
- She is so easy to make laugh and she has the best laugh ever. It can put a smile on your face when nothing else will!
- She is still bald as a coconut and we love it! She is starting to get some hair in the back so there is hope for hair by the time she starts kindergarten. A friend told us that God gave beautifully-shaped heads to some babies and he gave hair to the rest of them. :-)
- She is still sleeping really well and she goes down about 9:30 at night and sleeps until 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning.
- It has become really difficult to take her monthly lamb photo. For the 11 month photo shoot, it took three of us and two days and we still had a really hard time. The pictures and video below show how active she is now. There is never a dull moment. We love you Mary Beth!

Busy Little Bees

May was a super busy month for us. These pictures show some of the highlights. Beach pictures coming soon!

Pre Warrior Dash

Post Warrior Dash with a little more dirt

You can look but you can't touch

First Braves game

Busy taking a picture while we almost got hit with a foul ball. I could see the ball whiz behind my head in the reflection of Dan's sunglasses. Mary Beth started screaming so everyone thought that she was hit and looked at us like we were the worst parents ever!

Lesson learned, only take pictures between plays.

80's Prom night....my hair looked really awful but it was a fair

representation of how it looked in the eighties! Check out Dan's hair, love it!

Some folks will do anything for a good cause! We caused quite a scene when we went out to dinner before the prom started. So fun!

Looking beautiful on mother's day. We had a great time in Cartersville with family!

Playing with cousin Owen, Mary Beth has started

interacting with other kids and it is so fun to watch.

The Shock and the After Shocks

The past few weeks have been a roller coaster for us and I am going to do my best to share what has been going on. We found out four weeks ago on a Wednesday that we were pregnant again. This was a major SHOCK since I was on birth control and still nursing at the time. When we went to the doctor a week later, they didn't see anything in the ultrasound but they thought that we were too early to see anything since we didn't know how far along I was. They didn't seem concerned and told us to come back in two weeks when we were further along. We left the office excited about the idea of having another little one but still processing the big news!

They then called back the following Monday and wanted me to come in for another blood test. My hormone levels were a little low and they wanted to check them again but they weren't worried because I wasn't that far along. They thought that they may need to prescribe progesterone to increase my levels. When they checked my levels they were extremely low again. What my doctor then proceeded to tell me was a huge SHOCK. He told me that this wasn't a normal pregnancy and that he was worried this may be a tubal pregnancy. He said that I would need to decide if I wanted a D&C (which wouldn't immediately tell us if it was a tubal) or if I wanted to take a shot that would force me into a miscarriage. Neither option was acceptable and I was devastated to say the least.

Since I had such a healthy pregnancy with MB, it never crossed my mind that we would be faced with this. I asked the doctor if I could have my levels tested again because we were hoping that the test results were wrong. And since I wasn't having any issues and I felt fine I didn't want to make any decisions before we were 100% certain what was going on. They took my blood again the next day and the numbers actually went up some so they decided to do another ultra sound on Friday. Dan was out of town for all of this so I was going through all of this alone, it was awful. So then I went in for the ultra sound and the best case scenario at this point was that there would be sack in the uterus as this would confirm that we didn't have a tubal pregnancy which is extremely dangerous.

The first thing we saw was a sack in the uterus and my doctor and I were relieved. Then, I saw this little flutter and I yelled out "is that a heartbeat?" We were shocked and amazed that there was a heart beat!!! My doctor couldn't believe it and I told him about all the prayers that have been going up for this baby. We were so excited and just in awe at the little fighter! That day, Dan was flying back in town and we were going to the mountains for the Warrior Dash. We were staying in a cabin with some of our closest friends and filled them in with what was going on since they needed to have a heads up that I may burst into tears at any moment. I started bleeding Friday morning and it got really bad over the weekend. I cried on Saturday and told Dan that I knew it was over, I was so sad but it was great to be around our buddies to help distract me with all that was going on.

I called my doctor first thing after the weekend and he brought me in and told me not to get my hopes up. He did another ultrasound and amazingly enough there was still a heart beat! I couldn't believe it! SHOCKing! This was way more than we expected at this point, we were thrilled!

My doctor wanted to see me again last Wednesday since I was leaving to go out of town for Memorial Day weekend. I went into that appointment extremely hopeful since the bleeding had slowed down and we had seen a heart beat two days before. Well, when he did the ultra sound, we couldn't see anything. There was no heart beat and the sack completely disappeared. We were SHOCKed again because I was not expecting this news. I was actually feeling confident that we would see a heart beat for the first time during this pregnancy. There were some shadows on the screen so he wanted to draw my blood again to have my hormone levels checked to confirm. We left that afternoon for St. Simons to go to the beach with Dan's family. They called me with my results on Friday and my levels had dropped to almost nothing. The doctor told me that she was convinced that I miscarried. I went to the doctor again this Tuesday to confirm. After nine trips to the doctor's office and having my blood drawn six times, they were able to officially confirm what we were dreading for the past two weeks. To add insult to injury I was sick most of the time we were at the beach and they said it was as a result of the miscarriage.

To say these past few weeks have been hard for us would be an understatement. It has been a roller coaster. We have been so high and so low and it's hard to believe that something came and went so fast. I am doing okay but am sad. We already loved that baby so much and my heart is broken. I keep telling myself that God is in control and that is really helping. There wasn't anything that we could have done to prevent this, and I may never understand it but I am doing my best to make peace with it.

I know many of you will think that it is uncharacteristic for me to post such personal info. Please understand that I am communicating this way in an effort to tell all of you what has been going on with us and to keep from having to repeat this story over and over. We would appreciate your prayers as we keep moving on and dealing with this the best way we know how. I am truly grateful to have such amazing friends and family who have been so supportive and have loved us so much. I feel blessed to know this kind of love and want to you to know how thankful we are. We have tons of other things to post about over the past few weeks so I look forward to sharing that with you as well.

Ten Months!

This month has been filled with new things!

- Table food - She has been eating like a champ. Her first meal off the table was salmon, bread and mixed vegetables. She loved all of it! Since then she has tried all kinds of things and in a moment of weakness, we let her consume 2.5 hush puppies and a piece of fried okra. This clearly was before the get healthy campaign started. We were in Huntsville at the time so we told her it was a special treat. We are avoiding anything dairy since she seems to be allergic. We are hoping that she will grow out of that soon or else she will be drinking soy milk when she turns one. She eats soy yogurt every day and loves it! We have to hide it from her until she has eaten everything else. As of now, we don't know of a food that she doesn't like so I hope that she stays that way.

- Crawling like a crazy woman - She was off to a slow start but now she is all over the place. I will never forget the expression on her face when she crawled from the living room to the kitchen for the first time, she was so proud of herself. We left her in the living room to play and were cleaning up after supper and we looked up and saw the biggest smile on her face as she was headed straight towards us.

- Pulling up on everything - She pulled up for the first time when we were in the hotel in Huntsville. We forgot the pac-n-play so we rented this tiny little wrought iron crib and she pulled up within a few minutes of her nap time. We were amazed! Since that time, she is pulling up on everything, our clothes, the coffee table, doors, you name it. She also is very proud that she has accomplished this. I have heard horror stories of babies standing up in their cribs and crying because they didn't know how to get back down. Fortunately, this hasn't been a problem and she falls on her butt when she is ready to get down. We have had some face bumps and big tears but nothing too serious.

- Center of attention - Mary Beth really enjoys being the center of attention. She really comes alive when people are around and paying attention to her. We recently were at Lindsey Fifield's baby shower and she had the most fun with everyone. I am relieved to see that she loves people as I worry a little bit about her lack of social interaction since she is not in day care. It looks like she is going to avoid being socially awkward after all! People in stores are especially fond of her and she puts a smile on everyone's face.

- Coming up with new tricks - She has started making up her own tricks. One of my favorites is she will pull her arm out of the sleeve of her pajamas and grin so big when you ask her where her arm is. She then shoots her arm into the sleeve and laughs. it's very cute. I have been trying to capture this on camera but no luck yet. She tends to freeze up when I pull out the camera.


- Personality - Mary Beth's personalty is getting stronger every month. She is independent, creative, hilarious, sweet, happy go lucky and so much fun.


- Weaning - About a month ago Mary Beth started getting really distracted when nursing and she was really hard to feed. Over the past week, she has quit nursing pretty much all together. This has caused much panic on my part because she hasn't had any formula since her first few days in the hospital and she is allergic to milk. I called the pediatrician and they gave us a few samples of soy formula. We have been giving it to her mixed with breast milk and she seems to like it fine. I really thought that I was going to have to work on weaning her but she is no longer interested. I was hoping to make it though the first year but ten months isn't all bad. I am regretting using an ounce of breast milk in her rice cereal every day. I am wishing I had all of that milk now. Oh well, I am going to try to make the 50 ounces that I have left last for a while.

There seems to be so much more but I can't think of it now. I feel like she has changed so much this month and has grown out of the baby stage. I am in no rush for her to walk but I'm sure it will be soon. We love this little girl so much and are having the time of our lives!

I'm ten months!

Chillin with her buddy the lamb

So excited to meet all of the Saunders' family at the reunion

Full as a tick after eating ham, peas and corn pudding.

Cousin Owen turned two this month. Happy Birthday cousin Owen!

Feeling like a grown up with her own plate of big people food.

Don't even try to leave me behind!

Tiny crib at the hotel in Huntsville and first time standing.

We promised her a funnel cake but the fair was rained out. It's just as well as she really didn't need three fried items in the same weekend.

About to do a split while enjoying her music table.

She has her eye on the prize

So proud to be standing up!

The pacifiers are the reason she started standing up. She likes to toss them out of her crib and then gaze longingly in their direction which usually leads to screaming.