It's been a while since I've posted. New babies will do that. I swear, Flynn caught every virus that went through town this winter. They were all hand delivered by the older kids, despite our best efforts. I think we're through the worst of it now. He's been healthy for weeks!

Flynn's doing really well. He's strong and healthy. He's rolling over and sitting up.  almost 6 months old. He's growing like his daddy, and about to move into 24 month size clothes. I tried to breastfeed, but ran dry after a few months. So, after discovering he can't tolerate cow's milk or soy, he's thriving on Dr Sears recipe for homemade goats milk formula. He drinks half a gallon a day! He drank that much of the other stuff, too. He was just sick, and covered in wicked eczema.

Our 15 yr old cat had to be put down last week. She's been going senile for a while, but just finally snapped and started doing a variety of irrational and dangerous things... Including attacking the kids out of the blue. She's been with us since she was a baby. We had to bottle feed her when we first took her in. Rehoming her would have just been cruel. Her body has been shutting down too. The vet said she might be able to prolong her life a little but we'd have been offering her a slow and miserable death that way. Instead, she fell asleep being petted and loved by her family, with her head in my hand like she always liked to sleep....and never woke up.

Our other cat is handling it well. He's so relaxed and playful. I think watching her suffer the last year or so was worse for him than losing her. He's always been Flynn's buddy, but has stepped it up recently. Sometimes when I'm holding Flynn, Aslan will ask up into my arms, so he can snuggle with Flynn. He doesn't try to snuggle with the baby unless he's in my arms, but he's always nearby. It's really sweet.

Here we go again

Well I've certainly had a roller coaster ride lately. Things have been going absolutely haywire with my body. I tried adjusting my diet and exercise levels. I tried every home remedy I could think of. I finally broke down and went to the doctor. We began running tests. Each round ruled out less and less preferable issues. Before I knew it, I was scheduled for an ultrasound to look at my ovaries. I won't go into much detail but with my symptoms and testosterone levels (117. Healthy can range from 2-45), ovarian cancer was looking pretty likely. It wasn't my first cancer scare but we really ruled everything out first this time. I was going in pretty sure of the outcome.

All of one second into the ultrasound, the world was tipped on it's side. That's how long it took to find the baby...because it's pretty decent sized. At twelve weeks, it's a little over 2 inches long. The tech really took her time and thoroughly checked out the baby and both ovaries from every possible angle. Everything is incredibly healthy and well developed. We still have a few tests to run just to be sure, but with this added information it looks likely that all the weird symptoms and such are just a result of my hormone disorder interacting with the pregnancy. I haven't had a baby survive past 7 weeks in over a decade. And frankly we weren't monitoring my systems at all until about three years ago. Add to that, I didn't suspect I was pregnant with my first until I was showing... And the Dr insisted I wasn't pregnant with my second until I was around 12 - 18 weeks. Clearly I don't have any idea what's really normal for me in the first trimester. Lol.

What I do know is that I am well past my personal miscarriage zone, and still have a healthy and very active baby in me. And it seems that the pregnancies that are easy to detect are the ones that self terminate, with me. The healthy ones throw off all the wrong signs in the first trimester. Since I'm clearly not incapable of having more kids without fertility treatments, as previously thought, I'll have to keep that in mind in the future!

As for pregnancy updates...
- I can't drink anything but bottled water without getting nauseous. That includes our awesome well water at home. I'm going to give my favorite soda a try tonight though. Fentimens rose lemonade. It's pricey so it's a rare treat. I'm hoping the touch of ginger in it will allow me to still enjoy it.
- I crave raspberries and raw goats milk cheese. I know raw dairy can be a crap shoot during pregnancy but it's soft cheeses and milks that are the real issue. With harder, drier cheeses the risks aren't any worse than eating pasteurized. So I found myself a nice hard goat cheddar (tastes almost like string cheese though, with a texture almost like fresh Parmesan). It comes from Sierra Nevada Cheese Company and is available for a nearly reasonable price at the discount grocer in the nearest big town. I'm eating like 12+ oz of raspberries and 8+ oz of cheese per day and not much else right now.
- Weight gain. I'm like 70lbs above my personal healthy weight range to begin with. At 5' 8" that's not quite as bad as it sounds, but it's still a serious issue. I really shouldn't need to gain much weight to support this pregnancy. I gained about 5 lbs the first month. Then, plateaued. Around week 10, I gained almost 10 lbs. I was bloated with water weight at first. Then, it all just kind of absorbed into my body. My comfy jeans are now snug. :( I haven't gained anything since then, though. So, I am figuring that was just my body increasing blood volume. The body increases blood volume significantly during pregnancy. Not normally so fast, but my body tended to handle changes in sudden shifts with my first two kids. So it's not a red flag.
- Although the baby doesn't have a gender yet, I am beginning to suspect it might be a boy. I'm having truly insane pregnancy dreams, and the one constant is that I'm always a man in them. That's very weird for me. My dreams are usually third person. Occasionally I might be myself or even someone I know for part of one. I'm never just some random guy my mind makes up though. I might share some of the dreams with you, but I'm not sure how well received they would be. They are increasingly disturbing and graphic. The consistent theme is that the guy I dream I am is witness to or the sole survivor of some kind of weird tragedy where he loses whoever he cares most for. They were almost comic at first but are getting to be more and more twisted and intense. The only upshot is that I wake up feeling like I just read a thriller novel, instead of like I just lived through it. The story lingers with me, but without any kind of emotional attachment.
- My next Dr appointment is Tuesday. My last batch of test results will all be in by then. I'll update you once I process whatever I learn then.