A Chicago Wedding Weekend

So, my cousin Holly (really Chad's cousin, but I love her like my own, so I've totally adopted her) is getting married in October.  I'm really excited because it's promising to be quite the affair.  However, my mother-in-law brought up a good point - won't we want to have some kind of babysitter there to watch Wylie so we (and by we, I mean me, not Chad, since he's not truly the primary caregiver, you know, since he just left to spend 6 months overseas, courtesy of the army) can have a good time??  And the answer?  A resounding, "YES!"  So my MIL started throwing out possibilities.  Her niece's daughter could bring a friend to hang out with during the day and the friend could watch Wylie during the evening activities and during the wedding.  Okay, yes, that would work.  But honestly?  The only people who have taken care of my baby without me anywhere around in the vicinity, outside of Chad of course, are my mother and his mother.  And I'm sure that my MIL's niece's daughter (who is 17) wouldn't bring a complete moron.  But I'm not totally comfortable with the idea of someone who I do not know AT ALL taking care of my baby.  So I was really hoping my mom would come to Chicago (with my dad, por supuesto) and take care of the baby during the evenings and during the ceremony.  After all, I know that she's a reliable caregiver (hello, I'm walking proof) and she's already taken care of him before.  Plus, what grandparent doesn't want to spend some quality time with their adorable infant grandchild?  So, after a very heartfelt and pleading email, my parents agreed to come to Chicago and take care of the baby.  But Internet, you don't truly understand this triumph of a parent-looking-for-a-reliable-and-trustworthy babysitter if you don't understand that my father HATES Chicago traffic.  And, since my mother has to ride through Chicago traffic with my father (who is not a good heavy traffic driver in a mostly unfamiliar city), she hates navigating through Chicago as well.  But they still agreed to come!  Yay!!

I'm hoping that during the day we can head to some of the attractions with Wylie, who will be almost one year old (!).  Places like Navy Pier and the Children's Museum or Shedd Aquarium.  I think the aquarium would be awesome as a little guy - it's definitely one of my favorite places, so I'm really excited to take him there.  It should be awesome.  It promises to be a great, new experience, for him, and for me.  I wonder what it will feel like to watch him explore the aquarium, to see the look on his face.

And, speaking of new experiences, Holly is going to be having a Hindu blessing on the Sunday after the wedding, which will be awesome to see.  I've never seen any Hindu ceremonies, so I'm really interested to take part in this blessing.  It's called a Satyanarayan Puja.  So hopefully I will have some great new experiences to blog about after that weekend.

Day One

Wow. Okay, so this is my first blog, so you may need to bear with me as I find my rhythm and voice.

Lots going on right now with the baby (28 weeks pregnant). He does have a CCAM (congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation); this condition can go several different ways - luckily for us, ours isn't as serious as it could be. For now, we're on a wait-and-see regimen. I'm in the process of having the remainder of the care for this pregnancy transferred from Evans U.S. Army Community Hospital on Fort Carson to Memorial Central Hospital's department of Maternal Fetal Medicine. I'll be updating more on that as days go by.

For now, most days, things are pretty easy and I don't really think about the CCAM. Rarely, I'll find myself in a funk where I worry that things will take a turn for the worse. It's hard; no one wants to hear that their child isn't going to be born healthy. Then, of course, I wonder what I could've done differently. Unfortunately, there is no known cause of CCAMs. It's not like I've been drinking this whole time and now I'm being told that my child has fetal alcohol syndrome. Basically, there's no known cause, and just because this child has a CCAM doesn't mean that his children will or that his future sibling(s) will. It's just so nebulous. Like our picture was placed on a dartboard and some @$$hole threw a dart and BAM, our child develops a CCAM. Then I feel a little guilty, too. Like I'm a terrible woman and wife because I'm not giving Chad a 100% healthy baby boy. I know that's unreasonable, especially since there's no known cause. But I feel bad about something that's not my fault. Like I said, those are the very rare days. Most days, the most I do in regard to thinking about the CCAM is cross my fingers and hope that everything will come right in the end.

I am relieved that they are going to be transferring my healthcare for the remainder of the pregnancy to MFM at MCH. I know someone who's delivered there and she delivered very prematurely - her son is wonderfully healthy. I've heard nothing but positive things about the MFM center. Also, the labor and delivery department at MCH isn't as crowded as the one at Evans, so that's a relief as well. At Evans, the keep you in Triage until you are in active labor because their facility is so overwhelmed while they are under construction on the new mother/child "wing".

Anyway, recently, Chad and I have been talking about possibilities for when he is done in the Army in three years. Jonathan, one of our friends in Chicago who has finished law school, planted the seed in Chad's mind about the possibility of going into law. Chad's batted around a lot of ideas for when he gets out without any really discernible interest in one particular area, but law school seems like it would be a really good option. There are several avenues within this route that he could take. I'm glad that he's got another positive option to consider, and we keep talking about it. So far, he's started looking into studying for and taking the LSATs.

We've also talked about where we want to live when he's out of the Army; we're still discussing moving back to the Chicago area. We love it there, and we'd be pretty centrally located to the people who are important to us, not to mention that we'd be a lot closer to universities that have master's and Ph.D. programs that I'd actually like to pursue (as opposed to program options here in the Colorado Springs area). So today I looked at some graduate programs and found one that looks pretty promising.

Okay, I guess that I've rambled through a couple of subjects today. It should be enough of a start for you to get some insight into what I'm thinking/feeling and enough for me to start somewhere!