13 My Thanksgiving Confession

We had decided a while ago that we were going to tell our families at Thanksgiving about the pregnancy. It being our first pregnancy and being afriad something would happen, we wanted to wait until we were further along before sharing the news. So we waited and waited for the days to pass until we could spill the beans!  We brainstormed cute ways to tell them, would we just pass them the ultrasound picture or should we come up with something more unique? I had seen lots of ideas on websites and blogs, and found the perfect one for me! I worked with a dear friend, who was sworn to secrecy, to help me make it happen. She did awesome!
 
We had Thanksgiving dinner with my family at 4pm on Thursday, so we got all our stuff ready and headed to my uncles house in my hometown.  People slowly started to filter in and we all stood around inside and chatted while some people were getting things out of the oven and moved to the buffet line. 

Grandma was already sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by a few aunts and I looked around, doing a headcount of what aunts were missing and realized they all were in the house. I looked over at my husband, and he nodded like, it's go time!  So I went over and asked the ones who were in the living room if they could come in, saying I wanted to talk to everyone about something.

They all gathered in the kitchen and I walked up to the table and said Grandma I have something I want to show you. And then I took off my sweater and told her to read my shirt.

She kind of looked confused and my aunt that was standing beside her started to read it to her. She said "Expecting a little......erjrtkjhkdj!" The rest kind of came out in a blur of tears and screams and excitement, then Grandma said" What....no you aren't....Mendie, are you pregnant....are you serious?" I nodded my head and said "Yes I am!" and she ran up and hugged me and everyone else started to scream and shout it to the men who were sitting in the other room and in the garage. "Mendie's gonna have a baby!!!" I'm really surprised some of you in the central United States didn't hear them screaming!

Grandma started to scold me for not telling her sooner, but I said "would you have been able to keep this a secret?" and she admitted no and was ok with it. She was just happy our dream finally came true. (ps. She has been calling me Little Mama ever since.)

Then everyone came in and started hugging me and crying happy tears, and I was like, whoa..."Pregnant lady needs some air!" Laughing but kinda being serious, once you get in a hug pile, it's hard to get out of it! But it was great, everyone then took turns coming over and congratulating me and hugging me and then making the way over to congratulate my husband.  It was great!

When my uncle Jim came in, he gave me a hug and said "Congratulations, Debbie would be thrilled!". I teared up and said "I know she would, I got to tell her. She was actually the first to know." He smiled and said you did and asked when, and I told him. He said, "yes she was still opening her eyes at that point, so I know she heard you." Everyone just smiled when they found out that I shared it with her before she passed on. It was important to me to do that, she was like another Mom to be growing up.

So then after everyone hugged and smiled, we ate and people asked questions like how long we had known (umm, the whole 3 months) and what we wanted (a healthy full term baby). Then we ate. It was nice. I then called my relatives that live in St. Louis and Arizona and told them the news.

After we left my families house, we stopped over at my husbands Grandparents and told them. I think they were kinda in shock. But they were happy, but really I think kinda like wow, for real? We then headed over to his Mom's house. She had just gotten out of the hospital from knee replacement that morning, so his family was going to celebrate Thanksgiving on Sunday. But we couldn't wait. So we stopped over there, I took off my sweater again and handed her the ultrasound, and her face brightened up with excitement. She had looked a little pale and in pain when we first got there, but by the time we left, she looked like a brand new woman. Amazing how good news like that can physically change the way you feel! She was thrilled but can't wait 6 more months to hold him/her! She's ready for a little grandbaby!

Asked everyone to keep it hush until my appt yesterday morning. I hadn't been feeling as queasy the last few weeks and I'm a worry wort and just wanted to make sure my bloodwork came back ok and everything was good before telling the world about our news. Went into our appointment, he poked and asked how I was doing squirted some lube on mah belly and brought over a little blue machine. He said, we might not be able to pick anything up today, sometimes it won't be audible on the doppler until 14 wks. But after moving it around a bit and pushing around my belly, we heard the heartbeat. Strong and steady. It was the best sound, calmed my fears and reassured me that everything was fine.

So the news was spread yesterday on here, on facebook and to the rest of my coworkers. All the love and happiness that we have received is overwhelming! I am so thankful to have so many people loving this baby already! I can't wait to share my journey with all of you. Thank you for wanting to experience it with me!

26 I've been keeping a secret

Happy Monday everyone! Have a good holiday?
I'm afraid that I have been keeping a secret. Forgive me?
But I wanted to wait until the time was right, and that time my friends is now.
Someone wants to say hello.

We are having a baby! See up there....that was my bean 4 weeks ago.
Its amazing-you can almost make out the little eye and nose! God bless technology!
I am 12 1/2 weeks along now and we couldn't be more thrilled that our family
is growing right under our noses, err bosom actually.
I was pretty queasy and felt like constantly yacking and was T-I-R-E-D for the first few months,
but the queasiness went away about a week ago, and now I'm just mostly tired.

Went to the dr this morning and got to hear the hearbeat again, such an amazing sound to my soul!
Thank you for all the prayers, even if you didn't know what you were praying for.
It worked, so I appreciate all of them!

I'll share how we told our families at Thanksgiving tomorrow.
It was awesome to give them some happy.
We needed some happy.
And the bean....the bean makes me so happy!

4 Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving. Time to reflect back on everything that you are thankful for. While it has been a difficult past few months, I still have so so much to be thankful for.

I have a wonderful husband who I am lucky to call my best friend. I have an amazing family that I am lucky almost all live within an hour of me and are huggers. Hugs mean alot when you don't know what to say. I have a handful of close friends that I know would do anything for me and I would so the same for them. I have a job making good money doing something that I love and keeps me close to home.

There are a few other personal things that I am giving thanks for this year, and those things are what has kept me going thru these difficult months. I know that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes we just have to look for them in a new way.

Have a wonderful holiday my friends, I am so thankful for all of you that I have gotten to know thru blogging. Thank you for being you!

6 True Confessions

Hello friends, it has been a heavy week so I figured it was the perfect time to get a few things off my chest!

• We celebrated the life of my aunt on Saturday, and laid her to rest in my hometown. Saturday just happened to be our 6th wedding anniversary. During the funeral, they played a slideshow of pictures that my husband and I put together of her life. I cried extra hard when pictures of me and Deb popped up from my wedding day. I am so glad she got to experience that with me, but it made it extra sad that she was no longer going to be around.

• I am truely blessed by those of you that have sent me messages and emails over the last few weeks. You have no idea how much a random *hug* means-so thank you. I appreciate you continuing to stop by my blog even when I haven't been around much lately. That will soon change, got some big things planned for this blog!

• I am a worrier by nature, those of you who know me are aware of this.  I always have been a what if this kind of person. I am trying to remember to breath and let things happen as they naturally will. But its so hard to wait for things sometimes, especially when you know they are wonderful amazing things! Patience is a virtue that I wish I had more of.

• I ate a piece of Pecan Pie yesterday....and it was fabulous. 

• I still have baskets of laundry from last week piled on the bedroom floor, those will be out away before today is over. Promise. Well I will promise I will try to.

• I am starting to get a cough and touch of a sore throat. I am not a fan of being sick, but I think my body is just exhausted from all the emotional drain of the past few weeks. Just hope it passes on its own quickly.

• I am looking forward to Thanksgiving more this year then ever!  What a wonderful time to count our blessings and be with family!

Anything you want to share? It lightens the load to talk with others...go ahead...I'm listening.

2 Memories of a Roadtrip

I spent last evening scanning over a hundred photos to use in a slideshow for the memorial service tomorrow. I came upon this one of us when we went to the North American Christian Convention in California. We took the next week and drove over to Arizona to visit my Aunt Carol and then headed up to Nevada to visit friends in North Las Vegas.

What a beautiful memory.

(Uncle Jim, Annie, Aunt Debbie, me and Aunt Carol)

Grand Canyon 1992

11 Heaven has a new angel

 

Deborah Jean Dolen Bryan

9.27.55 to 11.16.10

Heaven welcomed a beautiful angel yesterday.

Aunt Debbie passed away at 7:10 A.M. at hospice with her loving husband and daughter by her side.  

She was one of the purest  people I knew, 

and I know that she is now wrapped in Gods loving arms and no longer sick.

She once again is walking, singing and laughing. 

Her spirit is no longer held back by her weakened body.

We are all blessed to have had her in our life, and I am so thankful 

that we got an extra four years with her after her diagnosis. 

The way she lived with brain cancer was an inspiration to so many. 

I know you are now smiling from above, 

and I'm happy that you are with the maker that you have worshiped for your entire life. 

God so proud of all of the work you did with your time here.

I will miss you Deb, you taught me so many things. 

I have peace knowing that you are no longer in pain and are not silenced by your sickness.

I am glad I got to tell you goodbye and share the things that were in my heart.

Rest in Peace dear one, I will see you again one day.

12 Her final journey home

The tests have come back  and there is nothing else that can be done to help my dear Aunt Debbie to wake up.  Her brain isn't communicating with the rest of her body.  We are so thankful that she is not feeling any pain, but am saddened that the lines connecting her mind to her loving heart and body have disappeared.

My uncle and cousin had to make the heartbreaking decision today to follow my aunts wishes and take her off of life support.  She has been off the ventilator since this afternoon and is breathing on her own. Debbie didn't want to be kept alive by a machine and didn't want to be forced food thru a tube, so as hard as it is for us all to take away the things that are helping her stay alive, we have to do what she would want. She was transported back to our hometown this evening to Hospice where her family can be with her 24/7 as she continues her journey home.

Debbie has always been such an independent woman and always took care of others. She is a go getter and would often take charge of the situation.  She would tell you what you thought, even if it might not be what you wanted to hear.  She was a leader and took the lead respectfully, without hurting anyone or stepping on anyone's toes.

Aunt Debbie had a living will and had thought about the way that she would want to continue living if her cancer were to become debilitating, she made her decision and choose to live the last few days of her life on her own strength.  She is a strong woman of faith and I am finding comfort in the idea that she isn't afraid of dying and is ready to meet her heavenly father.  She has put up a hard fight over the past four years and is ready to let God lead her down the final path of this journey. I do not remember ever hearing her complain during her battle, and that speaks volumes about the kind of person that she was, she didn't want to burden us with it. Instead you may just see the occasional tear slip down her cheek. What an amazing example of inner strength she is!

So my friends, I ask you this one last time for a few final prayers.
Please pray for my Uncle Jim who hasn't left Debbie's side and having to say goodbye to his best friend and wife of 35 years . He has been an amazing husband and has held her hand thru this difficult journey and never let go.

(Taken at their daughters wedding July 2009)

Please pray for my cousin Annie who is losing her Momma at the tender age of 21 years old.  There are so many things that I hope she learned from the way her mother lived her life and fought this disease, even if she doesn't realize some of them yet.

 (Taken at the Light the Night Walk September 2010)

Please pray for her mother, her brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews and all the friends and church family that loves her and is so proud of her for staring brain cancer right in the face for so long and staying strong.  And she did it all with grace and poise we all wish we could possess.

We love you Debbie and miss you already...have a peaceful trip home.

10 I hope she liked her balloons...

I went down to see Aunt Debbie at the nursing home on Tuesday evening.  She had been in there since last Monday.  We stopped in and she was sleeping in her wheelchair with her daughter by her side.  She had been sleeping alot during the day and the staff thought she might have her days and nights confused.  The night before when my uncle came in after working 2nd shift, she was talking his ear off.  So I just rubbed her hair and told her we were there and to open her eyes and say hello.  She was out cold, sleeping like a log.  She would take some deep breathes in and kinda move her lips like she was trying to mumble but then just went back to the peaceful sleep.  Grandma said the last few days she occasionally would wake up and mumble a few things in a really soft voice and told her that her head hurt. So it didn't startle me when she kept sleeping, it has to be tiring fighting cancer everyday.

I wanted to make sure it was ok to bring in balloons in to the nursing home and her daughter said yes, so we ran out and picked up some mylar balloons, I thought when she opened her eyes that might give her something shiny to focus on.  We were gone about 20 minutes picking them up and when we got back, they had moved her into her bed and she was still asleep.  Annie, her daughter, said that she was able to get a few spoonfuls of juice down her when they moved her because she kinda woke up then.  She hasn't been able to swallow much lately and was holding stuff in her mouth, so they had to start thickening any liquid that they gave her, including water.  If she were to hold it in her mouth, it may go down into her lungs and cause her to get pneumonia. So I went over to her bed and told her that I brought her some balloons and toopen her eyes and let me know if she liked them.  She kinda frowned a little and moved her eyelids but never opened them.  I told her they were straight ahead so when she woke up they would be there.  I sat and talked with Annie for a little bit before giving Debbie a hug and kiss and telling her I would see her soon and to wake up and look at her balloons cause they were really pretty.

Last night my phone rang about midnight, I had just gone to bed and heard it before I had a chance to look at the caller id.  It was Tiny Dancer which meant it was my Grandma.  I grabbed the phone with my heart starting to race. 
Grandma:"Hi honey, its me. I'm at the hospital.  Hold on a minute....Let me call you back in a little bit."
Me:"Grandma are you ok???"
Grandma:"I'm fine, it's Debbie. I'll call you back."

So I tell my husband about the call and then try to lay back down and get some rest, breathing deeply as my heart rate slows back down from the shock of getting a phone call in the middle of the night. My Aunt Billie calls me back about 12:30am and I can tell she is crying, she said Debbie had a bad seizure at lunch that day and hadn't waken up and her blood pressure dropped on them so they took her to the hospital earlier that evening about 9ish.  They had to put a tube down her throat to help her breathe.  They wanted to do a brainscan, but there wasn't a neurologist on duty to do the test, so they were sending her to Ohio State Medical Hospital in Columbus to get it done. (Don't even get me started about how this is the second time they were unable to do a scan in the middle of the night and had to send her elsewhere, this a place that is supposed to be a level 2 trauma hospital!) So they got her ready and put her into a semi coma for transport to Columbus, which is about an hour away from my hometown where she lived. My uncle was going up with her and the rest of the family was going home and heading up in the morning. Annie was in Kentucky and started her way back home about midnight when she found out they were transporting her.

Debbie had another seizure while in transport to OSU and I guess that she was still having a light one when they arrived.  They put her in MICU, which meant there were limited visiting hours.  So I got up there when the 1-2 today when visitation started.  When I got there, Annie and her husband was there.  My Aunt Linda and her husband Randy, Aunt Billie and Grandma had all rode up together, Aunt Joyce and her husband Joe had followed them. 

I sat down and Joyce told me that they were testing Debbie for Spinal Meningitis. I stopped in my tracks...that is so scary and dangerous, not that cancer isn't frightening enough ,but that is dangerous to anyone who has been around her! She said that if they found it they may have to give anyone who came into contact with her fluids, so those were feeding or changing her shots and medicine.  I hadn't done any of that but still would need to be suited up and scrubbed to go visit her.  Thankfully for Debbie and for all of us Jim came back and said that the test came back and she didn't have it so we all were fine. I opted to wear a mask back anyway because of all the sickness floating around a hospital and I had just gotten my flu shot. And I coated myself in sanitizer.

A few minutes later, Jim said that people could start going back to visit 2 at a time.  So Annie and Matt went back, then Grandma and Billie went back, then Linda and Joyce, then me and Randy went.  When we walked back to see Debbie my heart was kinda in my throat. I knew she would be on a ventilator and would have tubes and wires all around her but nothing prepares you for when you actually see her hooked up to everything.   She was lying propped up against a few pillows and had dozens of wires hooked up to her head to monitor her brain activity for the EEG.  They had a video camera on the side keeping track of her eye flutters and body movements to see if there was any correlation between brain activity and the times her body moved.  She was on the ventilator and every handful of breaths you would see her left side kinda lift up like she was trying to breathe on her own along with it.  Then she would just lay back flat and kinda start to twitch her eyelids but never opened them. 

We each took turns talking to her telling her that we all were praying for her and were out there thinking of her and wanted her to know we all loved her. We told her we knew how strong she was, that she was a fighter but we knew her body was tired today and to just keep fighting and come back to us and open her eyes.  I told her that I loved her and would see her soon....that I knew she loved us and we had people all over the country praying for her.  We slowly walked out so the next group could come in, but it was hard saying goodbye, not knowing if she even knew we were there.

After we got back to the waiting room, Joe and Jim went back to talk to the nurses. Joe is a respiratory therapist so he translates some of the medical jargon to us. By that time my Uncle Tom and his wife Cheryl and their son Conner had come in and were followed soon by my Uncle Bob and his wife Teresa but it was after 2 so they just waited in the waiting room and then wentwith everyone when they took off to go get some lunch and wait till the next round of visitation at 5pm. Before I left I gave Annie and Uncle Jim a big hug and started to cry.  I whispered that I loved him and we just kept hugging each other. I could tell he needed that hug. I grew up staying with him and Debbie on Saturday nights and going to church with them Sunday morning, spending the day with them and then going back to church Sunday night and Grandma would pick me up at church.  They were a big influence on me growing up, so he was kinda a father figure to me.  I hope he could feel all the love and support I was trying to give him. Sometimes holding out a hug can say some of the words that you can't mutter out when your heart is in your throat.

I talked with Grandma a little bit ago who just got home and here is the status as of tonight. Her heart and lungs look good and are functioning properly. Her blood pressure has stabilized and she is having occasional spikes in her blood sugar, so they are considering giving her insulin.  She is on 40% oxygen and has a oxygen level of 99%.  Breathing along with the ventilator but isn't on any other meds at this time.  They found some small pieces of food in her lungs when they put in her breathing tube, and she has a some aspiration pneumonia. They have doing the EEG most of the day and will see how her brain activity looks and if it points to why she is having her seizures. She is scheduled for an MRI in the morning.  A few aunts said that she squeezed their hands today but she hasn't woken up since yesterday afternoons seizure. The tests will tell us if there is any brain activity, and then we will know a little more about where we stand. But until then...we just wait.  Pray and hope that we get good news tomorrow and appreciate every extra day that we have had with her and pray that we get one more chance to look her in the eyes and tell her that we love her.

11 The Great Pillow Debate

Need your thoughts friends. My husband and I saw these pillows at Target the other night and had differing opinions on them. This is where you come in. Do you like them....or would you have kept walking by?

Here is the sofa that we have in the front room.  Its a lighter cream color then this but you get this basic idea of shape and style.

Here are the pillows. Think I like the brown better, but the red is so pretty too!

Thoughts?
Think they are cute or a waste of material?

6 Halloween 2010

Spent Friday night at a work Halloween party, these people do all out...they have moving characters and motion sensor noises and a graveyard complete with a hearse and everything.  It was a fun time.  I dressed up like Doonese from Saturday Night Live, if you haven't seen any of the skits, do yourself a favor and go youtube it...so funny. 

My husband was  Jason from Halloween....specifically the 2nd one. Before he got the hockey mask. I have no clue because I refuse to watch movies like that. But he was pretty scary if you came across him in the dark I can assure you of that.

Saturday night my family had a wienie roast in my hometown at my Uncles house.  I ditched the dress and wore warmer atire, but still sported the headband and arms for a bit.  I spent most of the night loving up on my 2 little cousins babies....they were so stinking cute in their little costumes! 

Cutest lamb and Duckie ever!  It was nice to spend time with family and enjoy being together.  Standing by a nice warm fire and munching on some fall goodies didn't hurt either!

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween filled with more treats then tricks. 
Happy November!  Can't wait till Thanksgiving!!!