News About Our Baby

As you may know we found out yesterday that our baby has SMA (the same condition Evan had). We were shocked and heartbroken by the news, but this morning we feel more at peace. We feel we want to give our son a life of dignity and love for whatever time we will have with him. It is important for him to know his mother, father, big sister, and all of his family and friends love him. We still plan to paint his nursery blue and take him to a Rebel game. :o) We want you to know that it is okay to talk about him with us, to be excited about him, and to feel some sadness too.

With Love,
Joshua & Rachel Harris

Madster's Enchanted Life

Her new goggles for swim class. (upside down works too)

Somehow, even after almost five years, she is continuing to surprise me almost daily with her creativity in fashion. She insists that skirts can be worn as shirts too.

When I told her and her friend they could have a snack, I didn't realize they would help themselves to popsicles dipped in sprinkles. Once again, her creativity surprised and impressed me.

Maddie's end of the year school carnival was very cool. Of course, since the Hannah Montana movie she is very seriously considering being a cowgirl when she grows up. At least that is what she tells me. Here she is getting some good practice in.

I am happy to be 28!

Birthdays are not a big deal to me, but they are to the Harris family. And Maddie is definitely a Harris. She wanted to throw me a "huge party" for my birthday and took her job as party planner very serious. My sister was nice enough to take her to the party supply store and let her pick out whatever she wanted and to help her make a cake.

Every woman dreams about having puppy decorations at their 28th birthday party.

And the streamers were breathtaking.

And I have never loved another birthday cake as much as I loved this beautiful and creative one.

Although this surprise dessert from Josh, brought out by the waiters of SW Steakhouse at the Wynn, was pretty darn close. (I HIGHLY recommend this place for very special events!)

All in all, I had a happy birthday party with my family and a romantic birthday dinner with my husband. It is a promising start to a wonderful new year ahead of me.

I lied...

I'm not patient. My sister-in-law, Juli, told me about this test you can buy at Walgreens that you pee into and it tells you the gender of your baby. So, of course, Josh and I went down and bought the test. What did it say you might ask?

So what did we do? We went directly to another one of those commercial ultrasound places. We told the lady she had to be darn sure about the gender, and after 45 minutes of looking at the baby in every direction and angle and nook and cranny (or lack thereof), she said it is definitely a boy. So to me, that means 99% sure, which is enough to at least start considering nursery colors and names.

A lesson in PATience

Have you ever seen the SNL skit of "Pat," where the central aspect of the sketches was the inability of others to determine the character's gender? I wonder if the creator of that skit was also an extremely impatient pregnant mother who pressured people to tell her the gender of her unborn child WAY before you could even tell. My doctor was smart in not saying his guess of the gender at 10 weeks. Apparently, two women whom you pay $75 each for a commercial ultrasound and gender check have not googled how many weeks it takes to tell the gender of a fetus. Because one said for sure a boy, and the other said for sure a girl. Google (and my doctor) says it is impossible to tell before 12 weeks, and you should wait until 15 weeks to tell the gender because both genders look exactly the same until then. 

So am I having a girl or a boy? I am not going to ask anymore, or declare it on my blog, until my doctor officially tells me at around 14 weeks like a normal, more patient pregnant woman would do.

Until then, I am also not going to tell Maddie because she will think either her mother is crazy, or that babies can just change gender in utero.

On a positive note, Josh and I went to see the broadway play The Lion King at Mandalay Bay and it was FANTASTIC. I cried at least four times, but that could just be a pregnancy thing. I was blown away by the costumes, sets, and talent and would highly recommend it. It is definitely child friend too if your kid is old enough to sit still.