We are so happy to say that we are having a "heart-healthy" girl! We couldn't be more excited. I was very surprised. I thought for sure we were having a boy! As my friend Angel says, I must be missing that instinct gene. I have been wrong on all three. There is no disappointment in my tone, however, I'm happy to be back shopping in the cute clothes section.
They got a great picture of her heart and could not see any defects. They even got a great shot of her aortic arch and could see no narrowing. Needless to say we are very much relieved. Apparently, I was more worried about it than I thought, because as soon as they confirmed there were 4 chambers and that everything looked great I started to cry...a happy cry. Ashley is beyond thrilled to be getting a sister. She has been talking about it all day. Here are some early photos of our beautiful, healthy baby girl.
However, the perinatologist still felt that we should get a fetal echocardiogram. I am scheduled up at Primary's for the 4th of August. He did say, contrary to what Dr. Ponder said, that my chances of having another child with a heart defect don't really increase. Basically the general population has a 2-3% chance of having one, which is where I fall as well.
Sweet Ashley made a picture for me and picked some of the neighbors flowers. They were on my nightstand when I got home from work. Sorry Katie-I hope you don't notice them missing :)
"Don't move or I'll squirt ya mom! Will you pump it up for me?"
Ashley has learned to ride her bike without training wheels! Hopefully we can get a video of it soon. She needed to take a break the other day because she got "too sweaty and reheated."
Smile Andrew!
Steve received a pedicure for Father's Day. Courtesy of Ashley.
I said "Please don't open the umbrella in the car." This is how it looked in the back when we got home. In this case, it brought us luck.
I slammed Andrew's finger in the back door. He cried and I cried. So so sorry.
Ashley has been carrying around this 8 lb. car seat with her baby Annabelle in it for a couple days. She says she is getting ready for when the real baby comes. (I'm so glad I had a girl first.) I'm sure people are going to report me when they see me open the hatch on the back of the car and put it in the very back.
Ashley had a great time in Texas. Her favorite part in her words was "swimming!" She had fun playing with Katie, Lindsey, Rocky, and Crocket. She said the airplane was "loud, but not scary." Nights were a little tough for her missing mom, but all in all she had a great time with Grandma! Here are a few pictures of her trip.
My little avocado. As of Wednesday, this past week, the baby turned 16 weeks. My doctors appointment did not consist of much. I peed in a cup, stepped on the scale, and had my blood pressure checked. Everything looked great. I did hear the baby's heart beat, which is always a good thing. Scheduled my ultrasound for July 7th. Can't wait to find out what we're having!! I did make a trip to the ER last weekend, but I would prefer not to go into too much detail here. A little startling, but nothing to be worried about. Everything turned out to be fine.
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I am missing my little girl. She is on her first trip away from home without us. She and my mom flew to Texas yesterday to visit my mom's brother and his family in The Woodlands. It was also her first time on an airplane. She loved it. They have a pool and from what I heard yesterday she spent almost the entire day in it. She called me this morning at 8:34am our time and said she had already been in the pool and went under water. Today they are headed to Lake Conroe to go boating. She is having a great time. But, I still miss her. She will be back Monday night.
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Joel McHale. What can I say? He is hilarious. If you have never seen his show, you are missing out. It comes on E! every Friday night. He makes fun of celebrities and TV in the best way. He came to town last night and my sister had tickets. I suggested that she take me for my birthday. It was so much fun! Thanks Mikelle!
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Yes, my friends. Today is my birthday. June 13th. I am 29 years old, today. 29!! You could practically call me 30. Officially an adult, in my book. I am plucking gray hairs on a daily basis. I have heard that if you pull one, two grow back in it's place. Maybe that's why I am pulling so many? I'm not ready to visit the salon every 6 weeks to take care of them. Andrew has been singing 'happy birthday' to me all morning. I love it. Ashley even sang the repetitive song to me on the phone this morning. What a beautiful singer she is. Thanks to everyone who has already called or texted me this morning. If you haven't, don't worry, you still have until midnight. I have to work until 11pm so I will probably be up until the night turns into tomorrow. Have a happy one!
Since the "sickness" took over, I have been so unmotivated to do any housework. Today, I am feeling good. This was my project of the day...
before-
(I think there might be a little girl under all those clothes.)
after-
Keep in mind there are still 5 loads, at least, waiting for their turn in the washer and dryer. This is the worst it has ever been. This is the job that never ends...another day. Thinking about having a folding clothes party and you are ALL invited!!
If you couldn't quite figure out that the last post was a baby instead of tumor, here it is. I'm pregnant!! We will be expecting number three at the end of November. It was very much a surprise to us. It took 2 positive pregnancy tests and one positive blood test to convince me this was going to happen. I am 12 weeks along, today. "Morning sickness" should be called "all-day sickness." Who decided to call it that in the first place? My pants are getting tighter, daily, but no visible bump has appeared. I am wearing stretchy-top pants at home, way more comfy, and using the elastic-through-the-button-hole trick when I go out. Thank goodness long shirts are still in fashion.
Ashley is beyond thrilled. She keeps talking about how small the babies feet are going to be and how she can't wait to show the new baby her babies. Andrew is oblivious.
No big deal, but probably worth mentioning. Since Andrew was born with a heart defect, my chances of having another baby with one increase by 5 %. We are staying confident that this one will be heart healthy. In addition to my normal 20 week ultrasound, there will be a fetal echo performed around 24 weeks, just to make sure.
There is a quote I keep on the wall in my office from Napoleon; "Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide." I can't think of any better example of those words in action than your care of our son Andrew. Time after time he came up with new challenges, new demands for decisions. Time after time, you delivered. Not only the decision, but more importantly the faith to back it. I will never forget your steadiness in the face of adversity. I personally learned a great many life lessons during our time at Primary Children's. By far the two biggest stemmed from seeing Andrew's willingness to fight, and your direction in putting him in a position to be able to. Far more than your surgical ability touched his life, and ours. There were many times throughout those weeks where my struggling hope held on primarily because of faith in your ability to lead his care. Words really can't express my feelings of gratitude and those of our family. Andrew is the coolest two and a half year old little kid I know. He loves riding scooters, watching or playing anything involving a ball, and considers the house his personal climbing gym. He blesses our lives every single day. Not a day goes by that we don't think about how lucky we are to have him. From the bottom of my heart, and those of our family and friends, thank you.
Coloring eggs on Saturday. Couldn't figure out how to turn the black/white feature off the camera.
Ashley showing off her basket from Grandma.
Post egg hunt.
Yummy turkey sandwich.
It turned out to be a wonderful day. The bunny visitied but either forgot to hide the colored eggs or Lady wouldn't let him in the kitchen to get them from the fridge. We had an awesome brunch at Grandma Carolyn's after a plastic egg hunt consisting of about 500 eggs. Some were filled with cash, others were filled with sugar. Then we went to the park and watched the older kids play volleyball. After too much sun exposure, resulting in red faces, necks and ears, it was off to Grandma Cookies for dinner. All in all it was a great day.
Obviously I have not blogged in almost a month. My problem? What do I blog about? We have been leading a fairly easygoing, problem free life. It seems that I don't have much that requires a post. Here are a few of the things that we have been up to...
*We got to have lunch with my Texas family. Where did we go? Training Table, of course. A Cook family favorite. Gotta love those greasy cheese fries and dipping sauce.
*Both Ashley and Andrew had a bout with some kind of stomach bug. Details...diarrhea and fever. For about 3 days each. It was miserable. I guess the only plus side was that it didn't last very long. I talked to Ashley's new pediatrician about it and he said there was definitely something going on, but it also included vomitting. So there's another plus for us. No puke. (Steve just pointed out how interesting it was that the stomach bug followed in the days shortly after the intake of the greasy fries. I think he is superstitious.)
*Steve's sister, Hadley, had her 7th child!! He had a fairly traumatic first couple of days but is doing much better now. Michael Kenneth Schneemann will be making his first trip to Salt Lake sometime next week. We are so very excited to get to meet the little guy.
*My sister sort of got a promotion at her daytime job. She is now a prosecuting attorney on the domestic violence/special victims team. A step-up from the juvenile prosecuting team. She is the only attorney that I know that still works at Hot Dog on a Stick for fun on the weekends.
*We enjoyed the warm weather the week it was here. We used up the last of our zoo pass. Unfortunately it expired on the 31st of March and it was too cold to go. What is up crazy weather?
*The Disney Ice Show came to town. My mom gets promotional emails about it so she got tickets before they went on sale. The kids had so much fun. Andrew was very excited to see Mickey and Minnie and Ashley was more excited to see Ariel. We left with a plethora of souvenirs. Andrew loves his new "hord." That would be sword in non two year old language.
*The girl scouts have delivered their goods. Steve and I are huge fans of these girls dressed in brown and green. At least that's what I had to wear. I haven't actually seen a modern day girl scout. Thanks to my mom, she ordered us 6 boxes of Samoas and 6 boxes of Thin Mints. How many boxes remain do you ask? 1 opened box of Thin Mints in the fridge and 1 box of Samoas in the cupboard. And I wonder why my pants aren't fitting very well.
*American Idol has been on. I am not embarrassed by any means that I watch this show on a regular basis. I love it. Now I usually like to call the winner before they get to the final 12. This year I called Danny Gokey, but now I'm not so sure. I have really really liked Kris Allen. And that Adam Lambert guy is to scream-ie to me. Now I don't usually call in and vote unless I feel like I need to, like last year. Although I liked David Archuleta and my grandma loved him, I did not want him to win. So I had to counter vote my grandmas 10 votes a week towards the other David. I think it will definitely be another guy this year.
*My brother's birthday is tomorrow. My baby bro will be 22 years old. He is ditching us and going to Las Vegas with friends. We all got together for lunch today since he is going to be gone. Training Table? No, we went to The Park. This place was fab! It is right across the street from the south entrance to Liberty park. They serve breakfast all day. Half of us had breakfast and half had lunch. The best bacon I have ever ever had.
*Also today we walked the streets and put Highland Park Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt flyers on peoples doors. Let me tell you how it went down. I anticipated having Ashley do most of the work, but she had other plans. We took the jogging stroller because it has room for two and it is super light to push, especially in the tornado style wind. Andrew was in, out, in, out, in, out. That was a pain. And then he continued to dilly dally from house to house. He is currently expressing his independence by having to do everything by himself, so don't even try to help him down the stairs. Then I dropped the stack of about 100 flyers on the sidewalk between gusts of wind. "Hurray Ashley grab them!" We saved them all. We finally made it home. I turned Dora the Explorer on to babysit so I could rest after such vigorous activity.
I hope my recollection of a month's gone by has entertained some. If anything it is for my record of what the Mathis fam has been up to. I love reading everyone else's blogs so keep it up fellow bloggers. I have some interesting pictures of the ice show, but none worthy to make it to the blog. So here is a video of Ariel and Flounder (very blurry).
Andrew is lucky enough to have lots of people care about him. If you are here, you are one of them. THANK YOU. He was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect at 9 days old. Diagnosis, coarc of the aorta, ASD and VSD. He suffered a major setback after open heart surgery on November 21, 2006. A pleural effusion. We continue posting to our blog because it has turned into our family journal.
Updates will be posted as often as possible.
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Ashley has been carrying around this 8 lb. car seat with her baby Annabelle in it for a couple days. She says she is getting ready for when the real baby comes. (I'm so glad I had a girl first.) I'm sure people are going to report me when they see me open the hatch on the back of the car and put it in the very back. 
