Here come the Hendricks'

We have so much to be thankful for this year. Maddie will welcome a new baby sister (mini Chad #2 I like to call her) on or around Thanksgiving day. My actual due date is 11/25/10 which happens to be Thanksgiving! We are so happy and cant wait for Madde to meet her new "be be" as she says. She is going to be such a loving and wonderful big sister.
Chad and I got the 'positve' HPT in late March. It was Saturday night and we were heading to an engagement party for some friends of ours Courney and Kevin and there would be an open bar full of adult beverages in which I wanted to indulge since we had an overnight sitter. Sometime that afternoon I began having the reminesent nausea that I had for 14 weeks of my pregnncey with Maddie. I told Chad we needed to take a test to make sure I wasnt pregnant before the party. I took one, didnt really see the two pink lines clearly so I took the non-dollar store test and once again had Chad and Maddie look first..Chad was so proud when I heard him yelling "Maddie is going to be a big sister". I ofcourse started to cry. Needless to say, I felt so sick at the party and we ended up having to leave early :( This was a very planned baby, we thught with my PCOS diagnosis in September of 09 and all the medication the Dr's put me on that getting pregnant was not in the near future. In January we decided to start 'trying' and I went off all of my meds except for the Metformin, which I had to take until after week 12 of the pregnancy to prevent miscarriage. My OB told us not to get our hopes up since most women with PCOS dont become pregnant within 6 months to a year of their own efforts. I was worried but knew that I had obviously gotten pregnant before so we werent going to stress about it utill need be.
Just like my pregnancy with Maddie, I puked everyday, several times a day for 14 weeks..goodtimes and ten times harder when you have a mixture of 110 degree Florida summer heat, and a 25 pound 2 year old that wasnt walking yet to tote around to daily appointmets and therapy. Non the less we survived and are nausea free for the most part! I have had many ask if we had any sort of prenatal testing done with this pregnancy..the answer is no. No triple screen, quad screen or amnio. Chad for the most part left the decision up to me but we both agree that no matter what we want this baby and feel a prenatal diagnosis of anyting would not change our feelings. I did have my OB refer me to the high risk Dr (differnt one than I saw with Maddie) and I did have an in depth 20 week ultrasound looking for anything of health concern i.e. heat defects, enlarged kidneys ect. I have a 1/100 chance of having another baby with trisomy 21 since I have had a previous baby with it. Still confusig to me since based on my age my chance is 1/1000 and its known that the type of DS maddie has is not inherited. Who knows, stats are weird. Not my best subject in college! So far the baby looks great, and Im even measuring a week ahead according to my last ultrsound at 30 weeks. Chad surprised me with a 3D/4D ultrasound with a video so we got some great pictures of our sweet mini-chad #2.

Time to redeem myself!

Grab This Button Once again you see, I have failed miserably at my commitment to blog regularly. Soooo, I came across this wonderful idea this morning and found it the perfect opportunity to redeem myself in the blogging world. Ironically enough I was laying in bed last night thinking about the blog and how I need to do a better job at keeping it up to date for my family. So here you have it, everyday for the entire month of October I am to blog, (today is Oct 2nd so I already missed one day) even if its not directly about DS. I have tons of new posts to make and I am sure they could easily be more than 31!

Easter Sunday

Maddie's first easter, 2009

This year Easter 2010

Committed to blogging this time!

Darn it! I am! I feel awful that I haven't kept up with this blog like I should be. I am disappointed in myself but I wont let more time slip away unwritten. Maddie is doing a ton of new things and I want to document them all. Her second birthday is next week and while she is not walking yet, she is pulling to stand and cruising very well. Our goal is for her to be walking on that beach sand this summer :) She began hands and knees crawling about 5 months ago and she is fantastic at at now, so much so that she has little interest in standing alone. It was confirmed by her PT that she needed orthodics in her shoes to help stabilize her ankles. We got them last week, they are a size 5 and Maddie's current foot is a size 3. We bought the recommended shoes for them and they seem huge. Now she has even less interest in walking. Go figure. Its only been a few days so I am hoping this will change.

Our big girl is feeding herself with a spoon, no fork yet. She is a signing machine and knows the following words without prompting. Meaning I say the word or show her a picture and she signs it! Amazing. I am so proud of her.
mama, dada, dog, baby, ball, eat, drink, milk, more, please, thank you, cow, fish, and quite a few others I cant think of off the top of my mind. She is so smart. She has this adorable way of letting you know what songs she wants you to sing to her. I will have to take some pictures of it to post later. She knows "If you re happy and you know it" and "Wheels on the bus" and asks me to sing them at least 20 times a day.

On the hearing aid front, still the same. I have yet to find a suitable ENT here locally that either has a halfway decent bedside manner or wont accidentally puncture her eardrum. Thats a whole other post. I just want a solid answer about her hearing loss once and for all. I might wait my entire life. Its been a huge battle to keep her aids on and I have all but given up some days. We are getting new molds on Thursday so I am praying they will be a better fit and easier to keep on.

Her thyroid levels at last check were pretty good. Her synthroid dose is still very high for her age/weight (50mcg) but it took a year to get them close to normal. The thyroid gland is the command center of the brain. Potentially the most detrimental thing that could happen to Maddie is for her to miss a few doses of her synthroid. Dr. D still believes she may not even have a thyroid gland at all because of her levels when she was first born. The only way to know for sure is to take her off of all the meds for a week and see how out of whack they are. Not an option at all Im willing to explore anytime soon. She will get a whole new set of blood work done at her 2 year check up next week.

Well, thats it for now. Im off to bed, we have a long week of party planning to do! I have some great photos to share in my next post.

Saying Goodbye

She's a beauty isnt she?? Before I met Chad, this was his girl. Marley was the main lady in his myspace photos and the first Hendricks family member I got to meet. During her puppy years Chad says she was a rowdy thing, chewing well over $1,000 of items. From pillows to jeans and one of each of several pairs of shoes (a few of mine.) He says he dreamed of owning an English bully since college. So, after buying his College Park house in 2005 he purchased this pretty little girl. No research on the breed. Not knowing the expense and demand she would have in her later years. Not knowing that sweet sweet Marley would have you chasing her for miles around the streets of our neighborhood after she darted out the front door. Even though shes fat, that dog can run fast. No joke!

Here we are in 2010. Moved into a smaller house, no fenced yard, an older dog, and a mobile toddler. When Maddie was born everyone encouraged us to consider finding a better home for her, where she could run free in a fenced yard. The encouragement came mostly after me being late to work several mornings because I had spent 30 minutes to an hour to chase down and corral a 60lb bulldog, me being 8 months pregnant. Yeah, good times. None the less we couldn't bear the thought of giving her away. She was a part of Chad and I loved her way too much. Over the last 2 years we've realized that the amount of love we have for Marley warrants us giving her a better life. She is 5 years old. About halfway through her life expectancy and a great companion. She has a very sweet disposition and craves attention. Attention we couldn't give her the way we needed to. Maddie pretty much consumes all of our attention now. Like I said it was hard to admit that 2 years ago but its true. Her vet bills alone were going to put us in the poor house.

So, Chad pretty much found the perfect family. It is one of the hardest decisions we've had to make since we've been married. It was very emotional. We changed our mind the first attempt to drive her over. Im pretty sure Chad cried a little. I balled my eyes out almost the entire one hour trip there. Chad emailed the family several times before hand, and even then we were prepared to refuse to leave her if we felt their situation was not right for Marley. I knew in my heart they were perfect though. They had a huge beautiful home. Several of their neighbors have bullys and Marley has already had several play dates from what we hear. They have 3 boys. 10,11 and 12. It was confirmed Marley was the perfect match for them when the mom shared that the middle boy has autism. It took us over an hour to say goodbye and we left with a box of tissues we did not walk in the door with. I pray to God that Marley is being loved and played with and that she is getting plenty of butt scratching!

Chad, Maddie and I have had so many great times and memories with Marley. I am kind of glad we wont have to watch her suffer through her older years and eventually her death. Its been so hard to post this and see all of the photos we have of her. I miss her terribly and I know Chad does too. It will be hard when we turn the calender to the month of June to and see the photo that was selected of Marley and Maddie.