Time for a little update!

Well it has been FOREVER since I have blogged. I have been wanting to for awhile, but I just haven't had time! So I guess I have a lot to write about, it's only been almost 8 months and we've had some pretty huge changes around here! The last time I blogged I was 34 weeks pregnant and very anxious to meet our little man! Well the story of his birth is pretty crazy and eventful, just like our life now! On April 1st I had a doctor appointment with my OB, it was my last one before my scheduled C-section the next Monday. Aiden didn't have school because it was the Monday after Easter so he went with Seth to track practice and I had lunch with my friend Ericka. After lunch I went to my appt. The nurse took my BP and to me it seemed high, but what do I know?! My dr came in and checked babies heartbeat and said everything was good! Before I left I asked my dr. about my BP, he must have felt it was high because he rechecked it. It was still high so he had me lay down and rest for a bit. He came back and rechecked it again and it had gone down, I sat up and he checked it and it went back up. At that point he said that I needed to go to the hospital and be observed and that baby just might be coming that night! I was of course excited, but when I called Seth I suddenly got really emotional and scared and I started crying. The last time a dr told me to go to the hospital I went and left without my baby. I had to get some blood work done before I went to the hospital and by the time I was done Seth and Aiden met me at the clinic and drove me to the hospital. We got checked into labor and delivery and all hooked up to the monitors. We got to sit and listen to baby's heartbeat, it made me feel much better knowing he was ok, we were both ok! My BP stayed high so the nurse called my dr and he scheduled my C-section for that night at 7pm. Let me remind you it was April Fool's day so when I called my mom to tell her that she needed to get to Minot within the next 2 hours she thought I was joking! I reassured her that I wouldn't joke about this and that it was go time! Seth ran home to finish up packing my hospital bag and drop Aiden off at a friends house until my parents got to town. Seth got back to the hospital just as they were wheeling me down to the delivery room. Once I got into the delivery room everything moved pretty fast. Harrison Seth Hoff entered the world at 6:45pm weigh 10lb 9oz and 22 1/4 in. He was a perfect big bundle!! We were all very surprised by his size, he was 2 weeks early and I shutter to think how big he would have been if he would have been full term! We stayed in the hospital until Wednesday and then we decided it was time to take Harrison home. This is when reality really set in!!

Been Awhile

Wow I can't believe its been over a month since I have posted on here! Time sure is flying, well kinda! I'm 34 weeks 3 days pregnant and I have 34 days to go until baby arrives! I am so excited and so beyond ready to meet him. These last couple weeks have been kinda rough, I've been having some dizzy spells that cause me to become faint and my heart starts racing and my pulse increases. The doctors claim its due to the extra blood pumping through my body, but it is crazy scary. So I have been just taking it easy and trying to relax. We had a super exciting delivery a couple weeks ago, we received our Amelia Bear in the mail. She is perfect and such a special gift for our family. I ordered her from Molly Bears, which is such an amazing organization that I look forward to supporting. Our Amelia Bear weighs 11 oz. just like Amelia, and is pink, wearing a tutu and a crown! She is our little princess! I have to admit when the box came I was super nervous to open it, I knew what was inside and wasn't sure how I was going to react. I didn't know what she would look like or how it would feel to hold my 11 oz. bundle again. Once I finally got up the courage to open it, I was so happy to see that she looked exactly how I envisioned her to look, and then I picked her up. I instantly started crying, it felt so good to hold her. Some people might think it sounds weird that a bear can make me feel better or remind me of Amelia, but it truly does. I held the bear in my arms just like I held Amelia in the hospital and just closed my eyes and pretended for a minute that it was her, my sweet baby girl was in my arms again. After not holding her for 14 months, it felt so good to have her in my arms again. I realize that this is a bear and not my actual baby, but it is the closest thing I will ever have and I will take anything I can get. As excited as I am to hold my rainbow baby, he will never replace the ache I have for Amelia. I will forever miss holding her, but I know that a little piece of her will be inside my little guy and for that I am so thankful. It was also super emotional to show Aiden the bear. He never got to meet or hold Amelia, so seeing him hold that bear was another really emotional moment. I had to fight back the tears while he held her and asked about Amelia, and said how much he wishes she was still here with us. When he says stuff like this it gets me every time. I wish so badly that he didn't have to say things like that, that he wasn't so comfortable with the fact that his baby sister is in heaven. Although it makes me so happy that he still talks about her, and asks questions about her. So know I can't wait to have pictures taken of my 3 babies, after baby is born. It makes me so happy that I will have pictures with the 3 of them, I don't have to worry about leaving out Amelia and having the guilt that goes along with taking pictures without her. So this is what's been happening in the Hoff household. I hope that the next time I post I will be posting pictures of our new little baby boy and fingers crossed he will have a name! Daddy is having a hard time commiting to a name, so hopefully he will commit to one soon!

Time

Time it's a funny thing, sometimes it goes so fast you wish it would just slow down and then sometimes it seems like it goes so slow you would give anything to speed it up. Another month has passed so now it has been 13 months since we said goodbye to our baby girl. I didn't feel sad on the 24th for me it was really just another day, I don't miss Amelia more on the 24th then I do on anyother day of the week. I wonder if a day will come when I stop keeping track of how many months have passed, when I would have to stop and figure it out. I imagine that day will come at some point and yet that scares me too. I am scared that my life will get busy and I will get consumed with other parts of my life that I will forget about how many months or years have passed. Right now I don't have a whole lot to focus on other then growing this rainbow baby. It leaves me a lot of time to get lost in thought and time to just think. I know in about 2 months that will all change and my mind will be much busier with diapers, feedings and just adjusting to having a baby in the house again. Will I start to forget about Amelia? Will I not think about her as much as I do now? Will I stop imagining what she would be like or what she would look like? Will I be so busy with her brothers that I just don't have the time to feel sad? I guess these are all things that I will not know until the day arrives, but these are questions that I think about and wonder about. Will I still be able to be a good mommy to her while trying to be a good mommy to my boys? Ugh, sometimes this whole journey can get so confusing, I wish there was an easy answer to my questions but I think it's a wait and see anwser. I imagine what life will be like once the baby is here and I imagine it will be wonderful and I know that Amelia would not want me to feel sad about her not being her, but to be happy that her brother is here. Her baby brother looks a lot like her, the 3D ultrasound we had done we could see the similarities in their facial features, which was really amazing. I know he will look like his big brother Aiden when he's born, they already have the same little nose and lips. I imagine Amelia would have looked just like Aiden to, had she been born full term. So that is what I have been thinking about these past few weeks, while I anxiously await baby's arrival. The month of January has gone so slowly I am looking forward to saying goodbye to it tomorrow and hello to February. April 8th can't come soon enough for me, I just want to be able to hold this baby in my arms and know that he's ok. I am so paranoid about something going wrong, I know he has his big sister watching out for him, but I am still so nervous. The one very exciting thing that did happen this month was I was able to order an Amelia Bear from the organization Molly Bears. The make teddy bears that weigh the same as your angel and then personalize them and you have something tangible to hold onto. The waiting list was 12-16 months and last Saturday I was able to make a $100 donation and bump my bear to the head of the line. I should receive her the end of February, and I am so excited. I also feel so fortunate that I heard about this organization and that I was able to afford to make the donation to get my bear sooner. The bears cost about $45 so I basically purchased my bear and sponsored a bear for another family. I can't wait to have her home so Aiden can hold her and even more exciting when we take newborn pictures I can have the bear there so all 3 of my babes can be in the picture together. Hopefully I will get a picture posted of our Amelia Bear when we get her, I am so excited to see it and hold my 11oz. bundle again!

Made it!

Well Christmas and New Years Eve have come and gone and we survived....yay!! I realize Christmas was 2 weeks ago and New Years a week ago, but I think I'm finally winding down from all of it! There is always so much hype and excitement leading up to Christmas and this year was no different, but instead of excitement it was more anxiety for me. I missed out on Christmas Eve last year with Aiden so I wanted to make this year special for him, but also incorporate Amelia's 1st birthday in heaven into the day, something I never dreamed I would ever have to do. I was up early on Christmas Eve, I had way too much on my mind to sleep in so I got up and started the day. I received so many facebook messages, text messages, and calls that day that I was completely overwhelmed by how many people were thinking of us and more importantly Amelia. I sat on the couch and just cried because I was so afraid that the day was going to just continue on normally for everyone else and nobody would remember that is was Amelia's birthday, and it was only 7am. Throughout the day I kept receiving more text and messages and I can't even put into words how much it meant to me. Christmas Eve is always such a busy day for everyone and the fact that so many took the time to think of us was amazing, I feel so blessed to have so many people in our lives that thought of us. We also received some cards and our friends Anne and Nathan brought over flowers for us, so sweet! So after my first crying fit I felt pretty good, by that time Seth was up and we started our day, officially! I made Amelia cupcakes, cherry chip with pink frosting and sprinkles. We let Aiden and Bronx open one present early, which made both of them very happy! Aiden got a movie and an ornament, and Bronx got new tennis balls and some cookies. We decided to go to church at 3:30, which I was nervous about since Amelia was born at 4pm and I wasn't sure how I was going to feel when that time rolled around, but then I decided that I will feel the same whether I'm at church or at home. When we got to church we saw pastor John and Nathan right away and both of them gave us hugs and told us they were happy we were there. I could feel the tears welling up, but I fought them back, I didn't want to cry. I was just nice to see them on her birthday, since they are the only other people other then the hospital staff that saw or held Amelia. They were both there during our worst moments and for some reason it was comforting to see them. Once church started I felt pretty good until I saw a super cute little baby girl all dressed up in a cute Christmas dress, once again tears welled up and I fought them back. I didn't want to cry. I just remember being so excited to buy a super cute Christmas dress for Amelia when I knew we were having a girl. So then the music started and once again tears welled up and I didn't want to cry, so at this point I asked Amelia to please give the strength to get through church without crying and feeling sad and she answered. I felt ok the rest of church, I felt like she was with me and telling me that it was ok to feel sad, but that she was there and I shouldn't feel sad. We got home from church and made dinner, steaks and shrimp, and then we opened presents. Aiden had all his presents opened in about 5 minutes and Seth surprised me with a new pandora charm bracelet. I didn't think I would be opening anything because he had put a car starter in my car a week before and he told me that was my present, he's so sweet! He said that he couldn't let me not have anything to open on Christmas. Once present opening was done Aiden wanted to go play his new playstation game so him and Seth headed downstairs to play and I tagged along and ended up falling asleep on the couch for a couple hours. Once I woke up the boys were ready to play one of Aiden's new board games he received, but before that I wanted to sing Amelia Happy Birthday and blow out the candles on her 9 cupcakes, one for each minute that she was with us. I lit all the candles and we sang to her and then Aiden blew out the candles, it was perfect and just the way I wanted it to be! We played the game and ate cupcakes and then it was about time to go to bed! I slept good that night, I felt like we did a good job of incorporating Amelia's birthday into Christmas and I know she was there with us. Christmas Day we spent in Bismarck with Seth's parents, and then a couple days after that we went to my parent's house and had Christmas with them. Nothing like having 3 Christmases! New Years Eve was pretty boring, Seth ended up having to drive someone back to Williston from Minot and didn't get home until late, not sure when I was sleeping by 9:30 I know party animal! I wasn't very happy with Seth, I thought he was going to be home earlier and I think I was just really hormonal so the next morning we hugged it out and I cried and all was well again! Gotta love hormones, thank goodness Seth is patient! New Years Day we drove and had lunch with Seth's best friend from high school and his wife and then we drove home, again pretty exciting I know! Once we got home it was time to get Aiden ready to go back to school the next day, the holiday season was officially coming to a close and we survived it! This Christmas was filled with lots of emotions, but I have to say that my favorite emotion was relief that it was over and we made it!