BBS due early November! Part 3

The last entry I gave a hint that I would be talking about the guilt I have felt during this pregnancy. Seems weird right? Why would I feel guilty?! Well don't worry I will explain! :)

While pregnant with Evelyn (#1) this was obviously a whole new experience, I was so infatuated with knowing exactly what was happening inside me at every moment! I mean I went to the lengths of acquiring a highly in depth human development book because the 'What to expect while expecting' and the 10 other books and websites I was reading were not good enough! I loved to read about how big baby was, how big my uterus was, what fruit/veggie baby is compared to.... everything I wanted to know it all! Well this poor baby... I get a weekly email that I look at briefly (if I have time). I mean I probably didn't dig up the pregnancy books until I was like 14 weeks... and I looked at them maybe twice! Also with Evelyn, of course I had to take belly pictures, I was so proud of this baby growing inside of me, and wanted to document it... well this poor baby... I am just hoping people don't mistake me for just having a huge lunch or something! :) How terrible am I! I feel like it seems as if I don't care about this pregnancy and baby, you and I know that I obviously do! Enter the guilt feeling... why am I not more excited, or looking up and digesting all this stuff, documenting everything? Sure, I can argue that I have looked at it already, and remember it and all that, but really I think it might boil down to less time and more confidence.

More confidence is an interesting thing that has come along with this pregnancy. Yes, I am slightly worried/nervous about having a second child to grow/support/love/care-for but at the same time, the newness of the whole experience is gone. I am confident that I can carry a baby to term (done that), I am confident that I can care for a newborn (done that), I am confident that I can breastfeed (done that).... it is all those little anxiety inducing emotions I had last time that I don't this time.... I am simply more confident! :) I like that! Also I think I am and will be less hard on myself, with Evelyn I feared if anything I wanted to do or planned to do went wrong, that it was my fault and I was a faulty mother or something, now I know that I can't control it all, I won't beat myself up if I have to feed my baby some formula or if the kid sits in some poop for a little while cause I didn't notice it... I think I am and will continue to be easier on myself, and that is very liberating! Sure, the new anxieties include, juggling 2 kids, toting and caring for a baby at events with a crazy little girl to also keep alive (lets face it, that is the biggest concern right?), and well mostly in one piece! :) That really is where my biggest concern is right now. Sure there are a lot more things I could fret about (and I might later) but one great thing about having Evelyn has helped me with... I have learned to chill a little more, and realize 'no, I can't control everything' I can try to be prepared (I am personally not good at that, Mike is more our planner in the family), but I really have to take things as they come, and that is what we will do when we have two... simple as that. I don't want to worry about everything... that will make me die young! My cousin had a good facebook quote thing that said something like: worrying is as pointless as walking around with an umbrella all the time because it might rain. I like that... I am trying to not put up my 'worry-umbrella' until I see that there is some rain coming... right now I will bask in the sun of the awesomeness of parenthood, and go headfirst and confidently with my wonderful partner-in-life Michael into this next grand adventure! :)

Life is good, I am going to keep living it to the fullest!

BBS due early November! Part 2

Ok, well last I left off with Indy our pregnancy detecting dog. So from there, things were pretty normal, I did not really have any morning sickness (just like Evelyn, thankfully) although with both pregnancies I always get very hungry in the morning... almost nauseous hungry. Once I even gagged myself brushing my teeth, but that was the complete worst of it.

So this might be amusing, I know my one good friend totally thought I was crazy, but I did notice some 'signs' or whatever you want to call it, that made Mike and I think 'hey, this might be a boy'.  So first thing I saw was an increase in acne or pimples... I felt like I was a 14 year old boy or something... I think I was getting more pimples with this pregnancy then I did when I start puberty! My doctor even said she does see that more when women are pregnant with boys. My good friend who had a boy, thought this was silly and a total old wives tale. Be that what it may, that is what I noticed. Also I felt like I had more 'whiskers' growing... ok so we are animals after all, and it is normal for us to have hair on our body and women also unfortunately can get some rather longer hairs on their face and chin, much to our dislike... well that is what I noticed, thankfully I have blondish body hair so my little whiskers were not that noticeable, but I noticed an increase in these whiskers! :)  So these signs happened early in the pregnancy!! So right off the bat Mike and I thought maybe we were going to have a boy! :)

Other than that, my pregnancy with #2 was not too different. I was (still am too) tired, maybe slightly more tired since I have a little one already to wear me out and I still obviously have to take care of her... but I can go to sleep at the same time as her and I have no guilt and I don't care if it makes me 'old' I like and NEED my sleep! :) I started to feel those nasty round ligament pains that are low down or under your uterus (my friend Matt hates when us girls talk about our uteri, so it makes me giggle to even type it!) those pains stink. I also felt like I did start to show (well at least to me) earlier. This time I definitely did not want to, or should I say was not as excited to get into maternity clothes, so much so that my pants/bottoms supply is dangerously low right now and all maternity bottoms are ticking me off! :)

One of the maybe the greatest things about pregnancy with a #2 or probably all subsequent babies after #1 is that you can feel the baby earlier!! :) That really is the coolest thing! SO I am a person that feels like being pregnant is very surreal, and I am always saying 'are you sure I am pregnant' probably for like the whole first half of both of these pregnancies! I see and hear the baby at the doctor, but it isn't till you really feel him or her that it sets in for me, that WOW, I am growing a little human! Amazing! :) So it might be crazy but I did think I might have even felt a somersault as early as 14 weeks this time! But I really started to feel him regularly at 18 weeks and he is one active little guy! :)

Ok stay tuned for part 3 which I will talk about the guilt I have felt with pregnancy #2 and part 4 I will talk about finding out baby's gender.

BBS due early November! Part 1

BBS?!? are you question what BBS is? It affectionately stands for Baby Boy Schilter! :) Mike and I are not people who want to decide on the name of the baby prior to it's birth... I feel we need to see him or her before baby can be named. I know many people do not like this... well tough! I am a weirdo and that is the way I like it! :) Mike will probably roll his eyes at this, cause well yeah we pretty much decided Evelyn's name prior, but I really did wait to see her to confirm her name... one of the other names for a girl we liked was Isabella... could you imagine Evelyn as an Isabella?!? NO WAY! :) see this is what I mean... some names are meant for people. I am sure you have come across people who are named a name and it just doesn't seem to fit them... I know I have! :)

So I feel pregnancy with number 2 would be an interesting topic to discuss. I must say things are a bit different. First I want to clarify, my pregnancies seem to be pretty easy and I don't have many issues (thank heaven), so I obviously may not be very comparable to other women's situations. Well lets start at the beginning... so Michael and I knew we wanted multiple kids, weather that is 2 or 4 I don't know yet (We like to say 1 at a time, but yeah I skipped 3... no offense to the multitude of people with 3 kids, I just don't want an odd numbered family... yes I know I am a weirdo!) :) As many people know, Evelyn is a handful, a wonderful amazing handful, but a handful none the less! So for a while (and many days still) I felt like holy cow (yeah Evelyn says this now and it is hilarious!) but I don't know if I should have been allowed to have one kid, let alone handle more?!? :)  But funny how it works, that there is just a time, and it hit Mike and I, that hey we were ready! I also didn't want us to have kids too close together... I didn't think I could handle the real young ones at the same time! :) so even before Evelyn turned two we thought we were ready... but our life situation made us wait a little longer.... I was finishing my PhD training, and more importantly I wanted to make sure I was going to have a job and insurance when it was time to have this next baby. So that is why we ended up waiting a little bit longer even. But I think our timing was great! :)

So the beginning was a little different to start, for Evelyn we pretty much got pregnant right away and I knew the earliest I could know that I was pregnant, it was very much like 'clockwork' or however you want to say. This one, well since I must have been stressed around the time of conception (aka getting my PhD!!) turns out I ovulated late... but see I thought it would be just like Evelyn so I kept getting 'negative' pregnancy tests... but more accurately I was not really pregnant yet cause I ovulated later... but one thing that was the same as Evelyn, Indy our puppy, started to act really funny around me. This happened with Evelyn too! I think he could have a side job as a pregnancy detector! :) So I pretty much concluded we were not pregnant with the second one, when Indy started acting weird... and then I thought, well maybe.... so I took a test, and sure enough, Indy the pregnancy detecting dog came through! :) Oh and if you are interested Indy's acting funny was him needing to be right next to me all the time, like lay by my feet when I pee, walk behind me so close his nose touched my legs, lay on top of me in bed or on the couch... just overly lovey and protective. This activity is this pronounced only very early, not all the time, but throughout the pregnancies he does seem to have an extra need to lay on my tummy... so he must really know something is going on there! :)

Ok so this got really long so I decided to make it a multiple part series! :)

P.S. Don't you just love ultrasounds! OMG melt my heart, and this little person is growing inside of me! Wow, life truly is a miracle and a gift! :) I love this little boy already! :)

All things Grandma Dian

Well we have concluded the last few days that were all things Grandma Dian. I was very unexpectedly sad yesterday, after all the funeral and burial activities were done, and we drove past the now fresh pile of dirt that marks the place where my dear grandmother lies. I think it struck me then, she is gone, I can't go visit her anymore, I can't hear her amazing voice (unless Alissa gives me that voice-mail she saved thankfully), I won't get her awesome hugs, and hear her say 'love you, love you'. So now we have to go back to 'normal' life... it feels weird. I know this is all a part of life, but it sure is a sucky part of life!

Grandma's funeral was beautiful! We had tons of pictures, so many beautiful flowers from family and friends, the near endless stream of people whom grandma touched a part of their lives, it was a wonderful testament to how amazing a woman she was! Just like at my grandpa Honey's funeral, when I was a mere 3 year old trying to understand, I didn't want them to close that box (coffin)! Those darn boxes, they are such a symbol to me, they are like the final blow, the dagger that chops off that last piece of my heart. I had to watch them lower her into the grave too, for some reason I just wanted to see it, the finality of it... the confirmation that, that is indeed where she went... she won't just magically be back her home in her rocking chair by the window. Now is the time for healing... that is what they say right? I have to heal that part of my heart that the box cut off (yeah the box is the bad guy in the story), how do you heal that sadness? Yes, we need to celebrate the life she had, those wonderful (too short in my opinion) 78 years. The pictures we put together sure did show that she did have a good life, full of family and friends, those of us that will miss her dearly!

Since grandma has passed something kind of funny with Evelyn happened, now if I show any sadness, for example in my stress and emotional turmoil, I yelled at Evelyn (she was trying to destroy the book I am reading right now) but I probably yelled at her a little more than I needed, well she understandably got very upset, and I started to cry cause I made her cry. Well after I went to find her hiding to apologize to her for yelling at her, she saw I was crying and you could see the change on her little face, all of a sudden she was not sad, looked very seriously at me and said 'Who you miss?' This amazing little girl now associates her sad momma with her missing grandma Dian! To top it off, last night as we were putting Evelyn to bed, she said unexpectedly 'Grammy Dian up in heaven.' It was very matter of fact, and not a question, but a unsolicited confirmation almost. As I write this, I know that will be my healing, the band-aid for my sadness, Evelyn, this little baby that grows inside me, Michael, and our families. I will heal with time, as I try and aspire to be as much like grandma that I can, full of love, kindness, tenderness, and goodness. I know she is looking over us, and she has laid the blueprint for me to be a better mother, and future grandmother.

Thank you blog readers, for being there for me and reading these last few post about my grandma, I have found them to be very therapeutic for me, and helped me wrap my head around the last few days.

Love you, love you grandma Dian, now and forever! :)

Remembering Grandma Dian

Well the time has come for my Grandma Dian to leave this earthly home and join the others in her family up in heaven. Grandma Dian passed away this passed Saturday, early in the morning with loved ones around her including my aunt, my mom, and my sister right by her side. She then proceeded to put a smile on her face, which I am told is not really a normal thing for people to do as they pass away. I am not even kidding, she had a down right smirk on her face. I think she looked more like herself in those minutes after than she had the whole week prior. She is in a better place. She is with many of her loved ones. She is no longer suffering, or coping with her severe anemia. I am happy, sad cause I will miss her, but happy that she is at peace and back with my grandpa, my uncle Jim, grandma's mom and dad, her sister, her brother, and also a good friend of her's that passed away. One of the daughters of my grandparents really close friends, ones they spent a lot of time with when they were young families, she said there was going to be a great game of sheepshead in heave on Saturday night! Isn't that great?!? I can just imagine her being welcomed in and all the love, and them having a game of sheepshead! Puts a smile on my face! :)

I always knew that my grandma was such a loving woman, she was an AMAZING grandma to me and had the biggest heart in the world! When she passed, there has been such an outpouring of love and respect for my grandma, she has touched so many people outside of her large family, I am just in awe of what a wonderful woman she really was! And we haven't even had her funeral! I am sure I will continue to be in awe of this great woman, and I can only hope to aspire to be half the amazing mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother she was! I know she will continue to guide me and love me, and show me how to be the best I can be. For now I have to just practice feeling her presence and seeing the signs she provides me! Love you love you Grandma Dian! :)



Grandma Dian with Mike and I at our wedding



My parents and Grandma Dian meeting Evelyn



Stop by Grammy Dian for Evelyn to spend some time (Evelyn 3 months)



At Cousin Jili's 1st communion (Evelyn 4 months)



Evelyn's Baptism



Four generations of mothers and daughters! so much love! :)



Grandma's 78th birthday party this April. We look so happy! Love you love you grandma!



My Grandma Dian.

Many of you that are closer to me, are aware that my grandma is currently battling a pretty bad illness.

Sadly my grandma Dian, the only grandparent I have left, is not doing very well. She has a type of blood cancer that is called MDS or myelodysplastic syndrome they use to call it pre-leukemia. It is the same disease that Robin Roberts from Good Morning America had just beat. Trouble with MDS is that there is not a lot you can do but have a bone marrow transplant (BMT)... and they don't tend to perform BMTs in older patients cause the process to rid the person of the cancer cells (aka intense irradiation) often is so hard on the older person it kills them before a BMT could actually be done. So this is not something that my grandma could even do. 

MDS is considered a disease of the elderly, because more often it occurs in older individuals, when you make blood throughout your life you progressively accumulate mutations in these cells, and if you get enough 'bad' mutations you can create cancerous cells or in the case of MDS, blood precursor cells that do not do their job and people suffer severe anemia. It is interesting, or at least I find it interesting, that they are finding many patients that have received chemo or radiation to fight another cancer, like breast cancer, go on to develop MDS (just like Robin Roberts and my grandma). The theory is that the chemo and/or radiation causes another 'hit' or mutation to those bone marrow cells and the accumulation of these negative mutations causes the cells to become cancerous. There are a number of traits that a normal cell acquires to become a cancer cell, for example: the ability of the cell to grow without constraints (tumor masses/lumps), the ability to travel to other parts of the body (metastasize), and others. Some people are unfortunately born with/inherited a mutation or mutations that predisposes them to advance more easily in one or more these cancer characteristics or traits (i.e. the BRCA genes in breast cancer). 

That is exactly what happened with my grandma, she suddenly was just feeling light headed, dizzy and out of sorts, and then they found out through blood tests that all my grandma's blood cells were dangerously low! This happened in February or March I think it was. Since then she has literally been surviving on blood transfusion (SO PLEASE PLEASE DONATE BLOOD, NO EXCUSES!) anyway, I digress. For the last 4 months she has also been receiving a 'newer' drug, a kind of long shot, it is a type of chemo, but not like what most people think of chemo, but still decently rough for my 78 year old grandma. Unfortunately after 4 rounds of this drug, it was apparent it was not really doing much good for her, and her blood counts were not recovering even close to normal. 

Enter a few days ago, Monday to be exact, my mom lets my siblings and I know, if we want our kids to see grandma when she is more coherent and still somewhat herself we should visit soon. My first reaction: 

WHAT? 

That seemed all of a sudden, I am very logical, and I have read A LOT about this disease, and I am realistic, but I thought she was doing pretty well with her transfusions... well turns out the blood transfusions don't seem to be even improving her quality of life right now. For some reason (there are so many things in life/health/science we can't explain) but the blood transfusions aren't doing anything to helping her feel somewhat normal anymore.

You know what that means? 

There is absolutely nothing left anyone can do.

Like I said, I am a very logical person, I like to read about things, know about them, understand things, especially medical disorders and cancer. Up till Monday I think I was handling things really well, I was very composed and understanding, helping others understand and process, but when I saw my grandma, the only grandparent I have left on this earth, and she looked almost like a dead person already, my walls broke, and I was just her granddaughter again, not a scientist, not a logical-I-read-all-about-it-person. I was crushed.

Enter a new parenting experience: how do you explain to your 2 and half year old why mommy is so sad and crying? How do you explain death? How do you explain how a granddaughter feels when she is inevitably going to loose her grandmother?

Evelyn saw me crying very very hard and said: 'mommy what is wrong? it is ok mommy.'

I reply: 'mommy is sad' Evelyn: 'Why mommy?' Me: 'Well you know grammy Dian who we just visited, she is sick and she is not going to be here very long' Evelyn: 'Why?' Me: "Well sometimes we get sick and our bodies shut down and then we die and go to heaven." Evelyn: 'Why?' Me: "mommy is going to really miss Grammy Dian" Evelyn: "Grammy Dian going to go to heaven, and mommy going to miss her a lot."

BREAK MY HEART TO PIECES! not only is Evelyn such a smart girl (I know I am biased, but I think she is amazing) but here she is caring for her mom so much, hugging me, consoling me, telling me everything is ok, trying to understand something that is so foreign and new to her and she pretty much nails it! Evelyn proceeded to repeat this last line many times Monday night, and I just cried.

Grandma Dian is still with us at the time of writing this post, she did not receive her blood transfusion yesterday, which means she will be inevitably running out of blood soon. Now we just wait, and make her comfortable, she is not in pain, so we are thankful for that. I am also happy for grandma to be able to see her husband, my grandpa, whom she has been apart from for the last 20 years, I am happy they will be able to be together again! See I still am optimistic, even when very sad! :) 

In the words of my Grandma Dian: Love you, love you!

Our summer summary so far.

Hello all,

Sorry I have been absent, you all know how it goes, summer is crazy busy! Ok I know empty promises are bad, but I do promise to get better at my blogging now. It is funny cause I think about different blog posts all the time, different things in my mind, different things I could write about, but I just don't seem to take the time to sit and do them! That is what I will fix! :)

As of late in our lives, we just had a 10 day vacation up to my family's cabin, it was great! It worked out super that we could put the 4th of July and our week vacation back to back! :) We were really lucky and had great weather and did lots of swimming and outdoor boating and sun soaking! We all came back with pretty good tans! I am peeling a little now though... ugh, but it will be ok!

So now we are back home and man it is HOT, yes it sucks being hot well pregnant, but at least I am not like ready to deliver! I am 23 weeks right now, feeling our baby boy kicking like crazy! :) But I can do a separate post on all the baby fun stuff... See I shouldn't put everything into one post! Sheesh, such an amateur blogger! :)

Other than that, Evelyn is in Gymnastics at La Fleur's in Germantown, I will do a separate post on that too. Mike plays softball on Thursdays. The day seems to run out of time, especially in the evening and our family time! :( We are keeping busy. I have been in my new position for about 2 and a half months... it is a little slow for my liking, projects just need to get underway, there are new things, and I guess I need a little more defined projects to really flourish, but it is getting there. Part of my troubles is waiting on MDs to get us the samples from a specific type of cancer that we are studying... but it will come together, I am always the optimist.

Well that will sum up my apology post and I will move on to a more specific post about my grandma Dian, since she is on my mind a lot as of late!

Hope I still have some readers,
Kala

Wildtree

Hello anyone reading this blog, sorry it has been slow, I will try and pick it up a bit... now that I don't have a dissertation to write anymore. Oh and pictures of my graduation will come... maybe next week to do list! :)

On other news, I have decided to become a Wildtree representative!! What is Wildtree? Well Wildtree is all natural, preservative free foods. Wildtree was founded on the premise that food should be natural, nutritious, delicious and easy to prepare - all at the same time. Why did I become interested in Wildtree? For me, it was simple, 1) Everyone, including my family, has to eat. 2) I wanted to provide healthier meals that didn't take forever to cook (and I was sick of always having take-out, pizza, spaghetti, or chicken nuggets). 3) Wildtree provided easy recipes and gave me variety in food so I can mix-up my food choices. 4) Wildtree designs freezer meal workshops in which you can prepare 10 freezer meals in about an hour to have ready to cook in about 10-15 minutes after your busy workday. You can find out more by visiting my Wildtree page: www.mywildtree.com/KSCHILTER 5) plus I think it will be fun!! :)

I was introduced to Wildtree through a lady that Mike works with, she puts on freezer workshops ever quarter for the people in their office who want to join. Well my first time was awesome! We did a grilling freezer meal workshop and it was great! I loved it! Mike and I have eaten two meals from it already and can't wait to try the rest! Then I found out they have all kinds of freezer workshops, from crockpot meals, to comfort food meals, and burger meals, meat and potato meals, baking meals, you name it, there is a lot and it can go with the seasons! I just thought this was great, and something I might want to do regularly so I decided to try out this rep thing, and I hope I get other excited too, and help to make their life a little easier in the home/dinner area! :)

OK well my launch parties where I can tell everyone about it will be Sunday June 2nd at 2 pm and Wednesday June 4th at 6:30 pm. This way I hope to accommodate to may people's schedules and we plan to do more fun things like freezer workshops!! :)

Let me know if you are interested!! 

Dr. Kala

Well it is official, I am now Dr. Kala! :)  It is exciting, surreal, and I am very happy that it went so well! I will have to try to get some pictures from my dad... he was a regular old photography guy the whole day! :)

No I don't feel different, and really not much has changed yet. Mostly I am still the same old Kala I was before, I just have some letters behind my name. The official graduation ceremony is not until May 17th and then I get my fancy velvet hood in which I am 'hooded', know now how your professors in college would wear their cool velvet hoods at the graduation ceremonies, well now I get one of those too! :)

Soon we will be starting a whole slew of new things, new job, new insurance, new pay, new time on my hands (kind of)... new new new! Which is good, change is good, new things are good. I am excited to see how the next few months go, we should have just enough time to adjust to some of these new things, before we jump to a BIG new thing, that being parents of two! :) Yikes and Yay at the same time! :) We are so very excited, I will post some more on this probably in the future, I am still keeping it some what on the down-low... even though I am bogging about it here... I know I am silly! :)  ok well just signing in for a minute, saying hi and that the craziness that was the last few months have now come to an exciting end, and the Schilters are again running head first into some fun and exciting new adventures!

Last 4 Months - Guest Post

I have to apologies for my wife and for myself (not picking up the slack) for not posting anything to our blog in so long but the last four months but been crazy, mainly for Kala. I have been the supporting husband and loving father to a crazy child but all of the hard work and determination by my wonderful wife has led to the following:

P.S. Sorry if it is a little blurry, had to Photoshop a little

P.P.S Hopefully in the coming months we will again have regular blog posts

 

P.P.P S. If you feel like coming on the 8th, the opening hour or so is open to the public