Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hello Everyone. This blog was once a dream, well at least I envisioned illusions of grandeur with it. To think I was going to try and blog daily...then weekly. Now its come down to monthly I guess. I am getting harrassed yet again for not blogging, so I thought there could be no better choice of day for a blog than Thanksgiving.


So this year I have about a billion things to be thankful for. Every year I sit and ponder for at least a few minutes the things I should give thanks for, and every year I really don't come up with much and default to the usuals....family, friends health. Yadda Yadda Yadda. Turns out this year that Health is really something to be thankful for. To be finished with chemo in another week, and hopefully never having to poison my body with that is a blessing. I am eternally grateful for my wife who has been by my side during all of this. I'm thankful for family and friends, all who have supported me in this trial. These are so just the major ones. I don't really suppose you want to hear me talk about all I'm thankful for. So I'll keep it to that. Thank you all for being there for me. Ok onto something new.

So Sarah had a scare two days ago. Lots of contractions and cramping and what not so we thought it was time. We held out and waited to see what the result would be, she went to bed and had a little nap. Woke up and all was well. So just a bit of a false alarm. So we got a bit excited but no luck. 14 days left today.... this is worse than when I was 8 and waiting for Christmas. I'm foaming at the mouth waiting for her to show up. So Sarah's last doctors appointment resulted in "modified bed rest". Which goes to show that she is all go no quit..and that her body is telling her that she needs to relax a little and sit down. So now she must be sitting or laying most of the day. She's been taken off of work and now she's relaxing comfortably in her recliner. It's been a long pregnancy and we're coming to the end. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

How am I to Raise a little girl?

I guess this will be a rant/rave blog. I've been sitting on this for a few days and it hasn't gotten any better. Which is good for readers I suppose. How am I to raise a little girl in the condition of the world as it is. I can't fix it so I suppose I'll have to just learn to live with it. Ok so a little background to go with my concerns. Preggers and I went to Yale New Haven hospital for a new doctors appointment. Its over an hour away and with traffic in the morning trying to get down to New Haven, it can be kind of a drag. I had a CT scan of the chest to check out my lungs at 9 am, and an appointment to see a pulmologist (lung doctor) at 2:20 so there was some time to kill. By the way pulmologist said that my cough...just a little pneumonia, here take some antibiotics.

So Sarah and I went to lunch, little local diner as we had some time to kill before 2:20 and my next appointment. She orders up a rootbeer float and I a coke no ice and we decide to split a corned beef reuben, if you've never had one they're delectible and I recommend one immediately. Ok so long intro to say that in the background Fox news is on. I don't make a habit of watching the news as is it just normally upsets me, as it did on this particular day. A man accused of videotaping the sexual assalt of a 3 year old. So this only put me in a rage, how can this man live with himself? What are they going to do to him in prison? Actually I hope he gets justice due in prison! Then I started to think about the things I would do to someone for wrong doing against my own wife let alone my daughter. I would go to prison, of that I'm sure.

Then the third thing on the list to get my goat (as gram says) was that the State of California has passed a bill banning the use of "Mom and Dad" and "husband and wife". As these are discriminatory against gays,l The bill in question is SB777 and if you look online you'll read all kinds of things about it. Until about five minutes ago I was vehemently against it and now after actually reading the bill it eased my anger only a little bit. One of the things allowed by this bill is for boys to use the girls locker room in school and vice versa if they want. Not to discriminate based on gender or the gender that the person identifies with. Ahh what the hell is this world coming to? If you have dangly bits then you're a boy and if you don't have dangly bits then you're a girl.....proceed to the proper locker room.

The first thing that annoyed me in the news was that in CT they are going to or are thinking of banning things at recess and gym that cause body banging...no more tag, no more fun games, soon it will all be just stare at each other, and we're concerned about how obese our children are becoming. Good thing McDonalds has a milk option instead of soda.....what kid wants milk as an alternative to soda? Anyway this will be the end of this rant. I have a check up appointment with the surgeon. I have to go get ready.

Ok I suck

Ok so heres a quick update because I don't want to subject you all to the pain and agony of a complete update that would normally go right here. So heres another down and dirty. Surgery went well...Better than they hoped. They were gonna let me go at day seven but I wanted to stay an extra day. So eight days in the hospital and then home. Healed well and at home.....Chemotherapy has started again. If I could have three wishes I would use each one of them on each round of chemo I have left. I hate Chemotherapy. I could go on about how much but really if you can imagine how much one could hate something you'll just be grasping how much. Preggers is doing well, very well. We couldn't have asked for a less eventful pregnancy. Now I might add that for preggers it really has been uneventful for the pregnancy but she has had to deal with me....and for that she deserves Sainthood. She has had to deal with all the pregnancy stuff and me...and I am no easy patient sometimes. I love that woman very much. 71 days from today is Sedona's scheduled birthday. Hopefully things go as planned, although the way things advance with the baby she'll be born the day she's supposed to. I'm not making any predictions though I'll leave that to everyone else. So thats kinda the update for now...I'm trying to figure out how to add video so that we can post video when its time...still working on it. You'll know when I figure it out. Thanks for being patient all.....

My Update

Ok so here's a quick update with me...a down and dirty and the low down…its not pretty…not ugly either but here it is. I am going for surgery on Wednesday. I am going to meet with the anesthesiologist tomorrow for presurgery workup. I am expected to be in the hospital for 8-9 days and in ICU for the first 2 days. Feeding tube for a month. Expected to eat after day 5 or 6 but small small meals. I am going to maintain the feeding tube to make sure that I can maintain nutrition during chemotherapy. Um they are going to take just above the tumor and just below…so that equates to some esophagus and some stomach and everything in between. They are going in my stomach and in by my clavicle…not sure how that all works out but he’s done it quite a few times and wasn’t going to question it. He’s done well over a hundred of these surgeries and I am the youngest he’s ever done it on. 5 out of every 100 die due to complication s of one type or another. I intend to be one of the 95. So that pretty much covers it, quick and clean. I'll be at Yale Hospital and the surgeon has been doing his job longer than I've been alive. He is the Chief of Surgery for Yale New Haven and as far as I'm concerned there is nobody in the world I want to do it more than him. Well I would do it but sees as I'm going under the knife I'm not much of a candidate. Well again thats the long and the short of it.

Its a Girl!!!!!

Ok so here it is. I am sitting here in front of the computer 5 beers down, at least one to go. I haven't blogged in at least an eon and I have so much to potentially say I just may be here till the sun comes up. Thats another 5 hours for those wondering. It's A Girl. Sedona Rae Fredrick. We're excited, I know I'm excited. I can't wait to be a daddy. I went to the library the other day and went to the kids section. Got the book Oh The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. I read it to the baby before Preggers went to sleep. Heck I figure I have to get my reading skills perfected before the baby is born. That and flipping pancakes. I have to get a griddle for that though....I realized that its still a few years down the road but I'm gonna start learning to flip them now. Ok I'm gonna eat a string cheese to go with my beer while I type up this atrociously long blog. Ok about Sedona.


Preggers and I went to her 2nd Ultrasound, and the lady was lookin around and checkin things out. I told her if you don't know 100 percent what you're lookin at don't guess. She says oh I know what it is. Its a girl! If I could've been more excited you'd never have known it. I was jumpin around pumpin my fist in the air and doin a dance. I was so excited. EVERYONE else knew it was a boy. The baby is sittin high or it's her complexion or blah blah blah. Eat it! Its a girl. HA! I guess thats what I have to say to that. I actually didn't think I'd get the girl. I figured that I should be thankful for the fact that we got pregnant so quickly, and I should prepare for the fact that because I wanted a girl I was gonna get a boy. But so far I'm battin a thousand. What next I wonder? The world may never know. Tomorrow is an Appointment with the OB and I'll meet him for the first time and another ultrasound to check Sedona's heart. We couldn't see it last time because Sedona's back was facing Pregger's front. So yet another free ultrasound to check on the baby. Woohoo.

Ok so we've registered for Sedona. We registered at Babies R Us. I can't belive how much fun that was. It really was fun. It took a long time and Preggers hates shopping but it was fun. Its under Sarah Fredrick and um I hope that we thought of most everything. If not then please feel free to let me know what we missed so that I can put it on the list. We're kinda new to the whole thing anyway. Well thats about it for the ITS A GIRL blog. Sorry for taking so long to update.

Update

Ok no pictures this time nothing fancy....until I can think of an appropriate postable picture. Ok I have no idea where to start. So I'll just start somewhere. Preggers now feels the baby. I am still out of the baby feeling loop as it were but I am hopeful for the future. Um...I....hmm yes ah well we did have an appointment. Yes this is where I might get in some trouble. I did promise to post after the appointment but the news was ambiguous anyway so I'll use that as my defense. Anyway the appointment was for the ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby. Really it turns out they want to take a bunch of measurements and if you happen to find out the sex of the baby then kudos to you. If not oh well. But in our favor the baby was all hopped up on sugar and didn't let the ultrasound tech find anything. So no sex of the baby....no measurements.......come back in 2 weeks. So thankfully the tech couldn't get any of the things she needed otherwise we'd have to wait until our next scheduled ultrasound which I think is at 30 weeks. We have another scheduled ultrasound on the 2nd. So Preggers and I are cautiously optimistic about that. Today is Week 21 and 3 days, and the day of week 22 we'll hopefully get to see some more.

We intend to register for the baby stuff after we find out the sex. I'm pretty sure we're going to register at babies r us and target and I'm pretty sure we know most of what we want. We went into babies r us to find the crib we wanted and we always go from the beginning of the store to the place where we intend to actually look. I love that place and normally someone will stop and ask if we need help, the answer is always no and that we're just looking and so on. However this time we had a little extra help anyway. We just stopped to check out some car seats recommended by Michelle and the nice lady asked if we needed anything and we told her no but she asked me if we had a car seat picked out...I said well yes and no....which then made her all inquisitive as to why yes and no. So I told her what I knew about them and she told me a little more. So she sealed the deal on the one we want cause she pulled them all out and showed us why. We then spent the next two hours going down the aisles talking about each section and what was popular and what was the most expensive and why and so on. We also got some very valuable input from mothers that happened to be walking through the store. What they thought of the products and why they liked or disliked them. So overall a great experience.

So thats about as good an update as I can provide today. It's something......I felt guilty not having posted. I didn't get any ribbing from anyone about it though...at least I don't think so anyway. Well I hope it goes as I plan because I'll post when we know the sex. Wish us luck

Cobwebs

Ok so I guess from Michelle's recommendation I should update. According to her the blog has begun to grow cobwebs. I decided that no one likes to read about my woes and everyone loves to read about the baby, so I am trying to keep my bad, horrible stuff out and focus on the baby. That being said Preggers is having such a wonderful pregnancy that there really isn't much to keep updated.

Now we did have a doctors appointment that I was unable to attend due to taking family members to the airport. I swore up and down that I wouldn't miss one but it wasn't an important one and this one I could afford to miss. The trip was to finally meet the Dr. that could potentially be delivering the baby. They're kind of on a rotation and all that cool stuff so we may or may not get delivered by him, I say we like we're some furniture...ok not we, the baby. Speaking of the baby.

We find out the boy/girl news on the 18th of July. So that gives us 10 days from the writing of this letter to find out. Pink or Blue, Blue or Pink woohoo I can hardly wait. We're going to register sometime after we find out. I'm not sure when the appropriate time to register is or even if there is an appropriate time. But thats when we are going to so thats ok by me. We've talked about registering at Target and Babies 'r' Us.

Also on the realm of really kick ass news. Preggers felt the baby move for the first time a few days ago. She said it felt like "someone was lightly dragging a finger across her skin". Thats way awesome I can't wait till I can feel it. I've even heard that later in the pregnancy that you can actually see the baby move. That would be cool in an Alien kinda way I guess. It would be cool if I could get a picture of it. Maybe some video. Still working on getting some video to put on the blog. That will happen though in time. Preggers is getting bigger though, I guess thats worth mentioning. She has to sit in all kinds of funny positions to keep the pressure of the baby. So sometimes I look over and see her sitting in her chair sideways and one leg up on the end table, it's amusing to me because its a recliner. She doesn't find it all that funny, the recliner doesn't take the pressure off and so she sits however she wants.

So I apologize for taking so long...I know I have some die hard readers out there (Hi Gram) and that they check often. So I figure from now on that posting and mentioning that I have no news is better really than no news at all. So I'll post baby growth updates. I got that idea from Michelle too. I just have to figure where I'm going to get my updates from. So this is it for now. I suppose I've rambled on long enough.

Concerns this week:
1. Have to get Preggers a Maternity Belly Ring
2. Have to read up on the good and bad baby products before we register.
3. Need to get real smart on baby safety as far as Car Seats are concerned.

P.S. Kristi this link is for you Phoneme.