Some Halloween cuteness!

I have been trying to write this post for weeks now. Weeks!  (do I say that with every post now?)

Things have been good.

Let's see, where do we start? Crop. Crop was great! It was the perfect time and place to work on Quinn's album. I had a great time and most importantly I finished Quinn's album. I LOVE it! Love it! I feel more complete in my grieving… does that make sense? Like I have taken a step forward. I no longer have this huge project looming over my head. It is done and I have something beautiful and meaningful to show off to the world of my baby! I am so very proud of it! Her album actually ended up being 2 and the second will continue to be added to. We will add pictures from her birthday celebrations, the ornament that we get her every year… it will be added to and that makes me feel good too.  Eventually I plan to add some of the pages that I did but not yet.  Once our families get a chance to see it first!

Let's see… what else….. The rooms. Eh.. We have not done near what we should have had done by now but we are getting there. So far the wallpaper is completely down, walls have been cleaned with TSP, holes patched, and the ceiling painted. We are very slowly getting there. It will be painted this weekend. THIS WEEKEND! If it kills me! Or more likely, if it kills Steve, it will be painted! Now, this is Ashlyn's new room… nothing has happened in Adley's but that will come once Ash is moved and will not take near the work! Thank goodness there is no wallpaper in there!

Yesterday was Quinn's 11 month birthday. I just don't even know how it is possible! How far we have come in 11 months. I miss my bean and still cry often but I do feel like I have… I don't know how to explain it. I will never move on and there is always a hole in my core that I will never fill but I feel…. Ok…. I guess as Ok as I ever can feel… maybe. I don't know. I feel like I am somewhat settling into this new normal. The normal that though still sucks I am becoming accustom to. The normal that when I lay in bed after Ash has come up to cuddle with Steve and ,I and her hot little breath is on my face and her sweet little arm is around my neck all the while Adley is kicking away and I think, this is close to perfect as my life can ever get. It will NEVER be perfect because there is this huge part of us missing but it is as close to perfect as it can get. I have 2 of my girls here with me the other is looking down on us hopefully smiling that we have come so far.
With yesterday being Bean's 11 month birthday, that means that we are quickly approaching the one year mark. Steve and I have discussed it a few times and I think we decided what we feel is the best way to celebrate her short life. Her actual birthday is on a Wednesday. I was hoping to take Wed - Fri off work but can't with other vacations but I am at least taking off the 28th. Steve, Ash, and I are going to of course go up to visit her at the cemetery and then go to dinner. We are going to go to Spaghetti Warehouse. Now, their food pretty much sucks but it is a place that reminds us of Quinney. Steve and I often went to lunch there after our meetings with the Palliative care team and Neonatologists. We also went there for lunch the day that she died. We wanted out of the hospital for a few minutes so we ran down there. Like I said, their food isn't great but it is one of the only places downtown that is fast to get in and out of . The décor is pretty neat though and it reminds us of Quinn so I think that it is the perfect place to celebrate her birthday. On Saturday we are planning on having a very small birthday celebration. Just family and some cupcakes to celebrate her life. I think it will be perfect! The following Sunday will be one year from her death. I think, think, that I will be ok. The 2nd was not a bad day. It was a good day until very late that evening. The 3rd, the 3rd was the hard day. That was the day that I had to wake up to a beautiful sunny unseasonably warm day, without my baby. Now THAT will be the hard day to face.

So, I think that is it.

Oh, trick or treat! I LOVE Halloween! It is so much fun! Ashlyn was an adorable Minnie Mouse! Adorable!!! Ashlyn had a GREAT time! Her cousins, Bella, Brycen, & Haylee came over, as well as Zaina's daughter Anaya and nephew Trey. Ash was the perfect little trick or treater! She would get right up there and say it and then a nice Thank you after! One house was decked out. Michael Myers and Jason passing out candy, the big girls were too afraid to go up and Ash just walked her little Minnie butt right up there! After T or T everyone came back to our house. Grandma and Papa went with us too! The kids had a great time playing and we had tater-tot casserole and apple crisp! Delicious! I seriously love Halloween!

 Thankfully our weather wasn't too terrible. It was chilly and misty but it wasn't raining so it wasn't too bad!

Hopefully I will have pictures of the new room mostly finished this weekend =)

We have a headstone and some other ramblings

I have been trying to write this post for weeks now and just haven't had a chance to sit down and do it. Things have been very busy in the Pfeiffer house.
First off, we have a headstone. An absolutely beautiful headstone! It stands out so well being the only pink one. I love it! I will admit that it was sort of hard to see for the first time. So… final. At the same time it was a wonderful feeling to know that my Quinn was here and now all the world can see that! She lived and yes, she died, but she lived! She lived for 4 days and everyone that goes there can see that now! She has a place not only in the hearts of all of us but also a permanent place there, even if it is in a cemetery it is still hers!

　
Other than that things have been going well.
Much better than my last post.
We all have our days and I think I had a few weeks there but no apologies here. I deserve to have a break down now and again.
I will never lie and tell you that this is easy.
It isn't.
There are days where it is hard to not just break down and cry and scream at the universe that you don't understand why your baby had to die. Sometimes I get lost thinking about her and her little squeaks. Ashlyn might do something sweet like say "I love you mommy" before bed and it will bring me to tears because I never get to hear Quinn say that.
It isn't easy.
It sucks.
Though I don't cry every day I think of her every day and I pray that never changes. This isn't easy and there will be times when I will have break downs and might seem a little crazy. There are also times when my and Steve's marriage will take a backseat as we try to just make it through the days but we will still be okay. I have no doubt in this fact.
Lately, Steve and I have been great. We have been spending time together and talking and it has been nice. Actually, Ashlyn has spent the night someplace the past two weekends and will be this weekend as well. While this is not a trend that I plan to continue it has been nice to have some Meghan and Steve time as opposed to Mommy and Daddy time. The one weekend was my birthday. I spent the morning with Renee and Ashlyn running to a few stores and then I dropped off a screaming Ashlyn and Renee to her house so I could go home and get some stuff that I wanted to do done. Picked up Ash and she and Steve gave me part of my birthday present which Ashlyn opened for me =) It is a beautiful Willow figurine of a couple holding their new baby. I love it. We then dropped Ash off to Nana and Papa and went out to dinner and then to Jared's where I got a few more charms for my pandora bracelet, which is now full =) Saturday morning we went and watched Annabelle's soccer game and then went to Kohls. We got lots of stuff for both girls and a few things for both of us too. Had lunch together… we were a couple. Not parents of a 2 year old we were just us.
This past weekend Ashlyn spent the night with Grandma and Papa so Steve and I could go to a wedding. Two weekends in a row with date nights! How lucky are we =)
Now this weekend Ash is going to Aunt Kesh and Uncle Chris's house while I go to an all weekend scrap booking crop. I am so so very excited for this "me" time! I go twice a year but this will be the first time that I am doing all 3 days. I am not sure if I will get to do the spring one seeing as I will have a 1 and a half month old at home! We'll see but for now I am taking advantage of this full weekend of me time! I plan to work on Quinn's album.
I have been stressing myself out about it for a good while now but I think I am pretty prepared for it now. I feel like I need to be REALLY organized and focused to be able to do this album and have it be the way that I want. I think I am at that point. I have printed poems and pictures and I think I can do it. I am really hoping to not be the crazy girl sitting there crying over my pictures but if I am, oh well! It will be emotional and hard but I really think that I will feel so much better once it is done. I will have something to show off of my baby girl. There is a good chance that I might carry this with me everywhere I go and just shove it in people's faces and be all, "here, look at this! This is my baby, and she lived!" So if I do that to you, I apologize now =)
I hope to scan a few of the pages, maybe all of them, and share them with you once the album is done but for now, I leave you with this….

Headstone

I am so excited! My baby has a headstone!!! I am soo soo thankful! I can't wait to see it!! Can't wait! I will be out that way tonight but swore to Steve that I wouldn't stop in to see her until he was with me. Ugh! I guess I will have to wait until Saturday morning when Steve, Ash, and I can all go! I am so excited!!!
Just when things seem so low and out of control there is always something positive to help me through it!

Thank you Quinnie! I love you and miss you with all of my heart and soul!

I am so happy that you have a proper marker for all of the world to see!

Pictures to come =)

Feeling like a crazy person.....

Tuesday was the September Precious Parents meeting. I don’t know if it is the pregnancy hormones or what but I was way more emotional than normal. I just feel….. fucked up. I don't know what other way to put it. I feel fucked up. I have so many different emotions running through me that I don't know how I feel anymore other than just straight fucked up. I am sad and pissed that I do not have my Quinn here with me. She should be with me! I am her mother and she belongs with me and it just fucking sucks that she isn't. Fucking sucks. So, I guess right now I am more pissed than anything else when it comes to that situation.
Then there is the new baby. I am so so very thankful that we have this opportunity to become parents again but at the same time it isn't fair that we have to. Talk about feeling fucked up when you are pissed and thrilled about the very same thing! How do you sort out those feelings? I have no clue! I am excited about this baby and I feel guilty for being excited. I am thrilled that we will (hopefully) have a new baby in our house in a few short months but at the same time I am angry that we will have this baby when we should have Quinn. In all honesty we would not be having this baby if Quinn were here so how in the hell do you separate being happy and excited for new baby but angry and sad that we have to have a new one at all?
I guess this all explains why I feel fucked up! Too many emotions about the same thing to even begin to sort everything out!
I feel slightly out of control.
I don't know what I am feeling anymore.
It is just all too much! I am a giant jumbled mess of emotions and I hate it! Hate it!
So, I guess that is why yesterday I was much more emotional than usual. I guess it is all understandable but it doesn't make it any easier.
I feel like a crazy person.
I am on edge. Steve and I got into a HUGE fight a few weeks ago. The Saturday before the gender reveal. I was crazy. Crazy! That is the only way that I can explain it. I still think that he was in the wrong but by the end I was just crazy. I mean I might as well have put on my wife beater on to look the part since I certainly sounded like trash outside screaming my fool head off. I will also admit that there might have been a beer bottle thrown….. I told you, I was crazy! I didn't however throw it at him. I threw it at the ground, lol. The one good thing about that fight was that it was the first one in a long time that we actually resolved. We actually said our piece, both apologized for being crazy, and we moved on. Normally it is more of a argue until we can't fight anymore then ignore each other until eventually we just forget about it. So I am going to say that even if it was a bit out of control it turned out to be a good thing.
Everything is just hard for me right now.
I am emotionally overwhelmed.
I am mentally overwhelmed.
Besides doing a crappy job at sorting out all of my feelings I am also doing a crappy job at being a wife. Steve and I had a discussion and we both just sort of suck right now at being a couple. We are great parents to Ashlyn and we do a lot of family things with her but there really isn't an 'us' right now. We have done a really good job at ignoring us a couple. I know that part of it is that we have both been dealing with Quinn's diagnosis and death in our own way. Even though we both lost essentially the same thing, a daughter, it is still very personal and different for each of us. We grieve differently but both seem to need to stay busy and that doesn’t leave a lot of time for us. But, we finally admitted that this is a problem and both agreed that we were going to start making us and our marriage a priority. We are going to go on dates and just do things for us and stop taking each other for granted. So, I guess that is where we are at right now. It will all get better…...

I have entered wallpaper hell!

Had a pretty busy weekend in the Pfeiffer house.
Saturday we got up early to clear out the living room, Ashlyn's room, and what was the play room to get the carpets cleaned.
 The play room has now taken over our basement so we can work on Ashlyn's new room.  So, we need to make some changes down there to accommodate the 2 year old.  *sigh*  anyone interested in a solid wood marble top bar that is in perfect condition?  So sad to get rid of it but we could use the space.. and the money... so... I plan to post on craigslist here in the next week or so.  Boo. 
After the carpets were all cleaned Steve, Ash, and I headed to Ace to get some supplies to start stripping wallpaper and for me to re-finish what will be Ashlyn's new dresser.  Right now it is a terrible orange stain color but it is going to be a pale purple with a fun Martha Stewart stencil on the front of the drawers.  I am super excited to see how it turns out! 
Once we dropped off our supplies Ash and I went to pickup Kesh and Bella to go to lunch and see Finding Nemo 3D. 

This is pre-movie.  Please ignore the glistening around the mouth.  We might have gotten a little overzealous with Bella's lip gloss!  Seriously, by the end of the day it was all over both of their faces, nails, legs... apparently now it is called "entire body gloss". 

Nemo in 3D is pretty fantastic.  I love the movie anyway but it was really neat in 3D.  Highly recommended!  Ashlyn apparently wasn't all the impressed because she chose to sleep through most of the movie.  Oh well, made it less stressful for me =)

Sunday I decided to start stripping the wallpaper in Ashlyn's new big girl room.  Ugh!  I have now entered wallpaper Hell!  Seriously!  I worked on it for probably 6 hours yesterday and I do not have a single wall done!  Kill me now!  Seriously! 

I did have some pretty cute help though...

This is the before shot....  we will see how long it takes to get to the after....  by the way it is going, it might be done by the time that Ashlyn graduates college!

It's a........

Eeeekkk!  I am SO excited!

The box that my mom might have went a tad crazy with, lol!  It turned out great and a whole lot better than if I would have done it!!!

PINK!!!  I will admit that I did see a peak right before they came out of the box and that squeal you hear on the video would be that moment, lol!  It's a girl!!  Eeeekkk!

The family - as complete as we can ever be....

2 pink for me, a blue for Steve, and a pink for Ash.  It really looks white, freakishly white really but I swear it was a pale pink color!

It's a girl!!!!!

Our bank account is in trouble!!  Not even 12 hours had went by before I made my first Target run!  Can you tell that I am slightly excited to get to buy for my healthy baby girl??

Healthy!!!

Baby is PERFECT! ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!!!

A million pounds has been lifted off my shoulders! Finally, I can breath easily, we are having a healthy baby!!! HEALTHY! The most beautiful word that this mom can hear!!!

This morning was…. stressfull to put it lightly. I actually slept okay which I was quite surprised but thankful for. As soon as I woke up though the thoughts were just running through my mind. I was in short, terrified.
I hate to be late, even though I usually am, but I REALLY do not like to be late if I am already stressed about something. Of course we left slightly later than I wanted but we made it there right at 9.
Got checked in and Steve made a comment about it being weird to be there and knowing that he (Dr Stewart) normally deals with multiples. I might have said something to the effect of…"it is weird to be here because this is where they tell you that your baby is going to die"… might have. At that point I had to tell him to stop talking to me because I was going to loose it. Yeah, I am not dramatic at all!
Thankfully we didn't have to wait too long and the tech came out to get us. Just like with Quinn, open door to the left. Very same room that my world came crashing down just over a year ago. *sigh*

The tech was wonderful. She was the very same tech that we had with Quinn. She said that she remembered doing our scan last time and though she isn't supposed to tell us anything, everything was looking perfect.

This is the point that I start to cry.

Happy happy tears!!

She made it through the scan and then it was time to venture down lower to see the gender. She turned the screen on us so I had no chance of peeking at all. Baby was VERY stubborn and did not want to show the goods at all! Neither did Ashlyn. I have very modest babies!! After rolling from side to side to back to side to the other side, right about the time that I thought that she was going to give up and we were going to be releasing yellow and green balloons, she said she got it! Phew!! She was a trooper and tried for a long time! It might have been the fact that I said I couldn't have two babies that I didn't get to buy for or that I didn't have a neutral nursery picked out so I had to know, lol!

What!?!?

Like I said, I am not dramatic AT ALL!


After all that Dr Stewart came in and said how happy he was that he got to do this scan in different circumstances and that the baby looked great. He then went through every little piece and part. Brain is formed and looking just as it should, the fluid around the brain is as it should be, hands, fingers and toes are all perfect! 4 chambers of the heart, no holes in the lips therefore no cleft, stomach is there just as it should be, everything, EVERYTHING looks perfect!   Then he gave me a very big hug!  I guess he is no longer my least favorite person on Earth. 

Baby is measuring right on schedule - well one day ahead, quite the over achiever, and 11 ounces! Only about 12 more pounds to go, lol!

So, I feel like a new person! The worry, well most of the worry, is gone and I can start planning on having this baby and actually bringing them home in 20ish weeks! Eeekkkkk!!!

I am super anxious to know if Bee is a boy or a girl but just knowing that regardless of which, they are healthy is enough for me, for now! But that doesn't mean that I am not counting down the seconds until Sunday at 12:30! Seriously people, do not be late! That box will be ripped open at exactly 12:30!! =)

Now, your last chance for guessing! At yesterday's appointment the heart rate was 168 and this morning was 153. You have seen that I am carrying slightly higher and if you must know I do not think that my butt has changed at all… but I don't think it changed with either of the girls either!