The Miles Rausch Family Website

We got money for Christmas from several individuals – all put together, with Miles’s bonus, we had a pretty good amount. We wrote down a list of various ways we’d like to use it. Some would take up all of it, others only part.

This “wish” list included:

• MacBook (or MacBook Pro) to replace Miles’s current MacBook, purchased in 2006, which does need replacing sometime.
• Maternity clothes for Holli (we’d get clothes anyway, but it was still on the list).
• Paying off Miles’s car (we’re pretty close to paying it off, and my car will need to be replaced within the next year or so).
• New video camera (a small one that will be quick and easy to film moments with the baby – currently in the running: Flip Mino HD, Kodak Zi8, iPod Nano).
• Droid (or maybe the Nexus?) for Miles (his cell is pushing four years old).
• Plane tickets to Ohio (to visit Bryce and Lindsey).
• Put all of it in savings (since we’ll have major expenses coming up in a few short months).

After making this list, we found that some of these might not work out – paying off Miles’s car would take up a little over half the amount, I’ve got only a few more weeks to be able to travel via airplane (and motion sickness has been a big issue) and I need to save all my vacation days for maternity, and just decided to hold off on a new laptop. We gave me a budget for maternity clothes, and I only went $0.65 over that. I got one cardigan, two camisoles, 8 shirts/blouses, and one pair of brown dress pants (the only color I still needed). Yippy!

Since the money was given to us as a Christmas gift, we know those persons want us to spend at least some of it on fun things for ourselves. Our first plan was to save 2/3 of it and with the other third we would spend it on a video camera and split the remainder between us to spend how we want. With this plan, I would have gotten chairs for our dining table. We currently use card table folding chairs. Gag me. The problem lies in that the table will be hard to find chairs for (it was Miles’s grandparents and his mom stained it and gave it to us) and I’ll want to get six. Ultimately, we decided against the two-thirds/one-third plan as we aren’t ready to make a video camera decision and we’ll just need to consciously save up for dining table chairs. As for matching (or possibly strategically mismatching?), I’ll just need to go into a store with one of the leaves from the table I think.

So we put it all in savings and decided that right away, we both could take $100 of it to spend however we want. We’ll still possibly get some of the things on the list eventually, like the video camera and cell phone (and we already got me maternity clothes) but for now it’s going to stay in savings. Miles is still working on his $100 wish list, but I’ve already spent mine.

• $20 – Purse from Gordman’s with a coupon. Something on my Christmas list that I didn’t get and would have had to pick out myself anyway.
• $30 – Rugs from Target so my favorite rug at our entrance doesn’t get destroyed by winter and to warm up the upstairs living area. The hard wood floors make it very chilly.
• $35 – Electric griddle from Amazon, something on my Christmas list that I didn’t get. I love to cook for us and friends, but sometimes I just want to do it all in one shot.
• $10 – Dry-erase calendar board from Amazon, also something on my Christmas list that I didn’t get but I think I’ll like.
• And with the remainder of my $100, I got a special hot chocolate from Caribou.

Most of you looking at my list probably think it’s a little lame. But it’s totally me. Yes, the lame part. The things I want are almost always practical things. (i.e. dining room chairs, maternity clothes, etc.) All the fun things on the first list above came from Miles. (You can bet I’m the one who put “Pay off Miles’s car” on that list.) His list will be more interesting, and will include PS3 games and Blu-ray movies, when he decides what he’s going to get. But I’m excited about what I got and the deals I got for them.

But why am I defending myself to you? It’s my blog, anyway!

In case you missed it, we’ve got a new Christmas card in our sidebar. Or, you can just view it here!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Dinos dinos dinos dinos! Preliminary sketches for canvases to be painted over Christmas break and hung in the nursery. A little something blue coming soon.

…his Christmas wish list on Amazon is four pages long and 98% of the items are priced outside of our gift budget.

That’s when a girl’s got to get creative.

One year ago from this date, at almost this exact time, our hearts broke. Just a few months earlier, our lives had changed forever. Then, in an instant, they changed forever again.

It took over six months before my body was healed. While I’ve gained acceptance and some peace, hearing others’ stories of losing their babies–reminding me of who we will never be able to hold–I realize my heart is not yet healed. A year seems like a long time, but I remember being in that room and looking at the ultrasound like it was yesterday. I even remember the name of the sonographer–Joshi. “Well guys, I have bad news.” I remember crying for days. And days. My heart is still very raw. With this pregnancy, every cramp, every twinge of pain, every feeling, I wonder, “Is this it? Am I losing another baby?” I got the H1N1 vaccine and while I was confident that I was making the right decision, I still thought, “Did I just doom my baby?”

Part of it, I’m sure, is being pregnant again. Pulling out the maternity clothes I bought, but never got the chance to wear. And I remember why I never got to wear them. I think about Christmas and how this will be the last year where it’s just the two of us. And I remember thinking that last year, too. These things will soon pass, as I’m further along now and will start to experience things that won’t remind me of last time.

Doubt took a very long time to pass. Like I didn’t have enough to be upset about, the thought that maybe the sonographer got it wrong would creep in my head. And maybe the doctor wasn’t paying very close attention. Maybe the baby’s just small. I thought later that maybe I should have gotten another opinion. What if I had just “waited it out”? And my body not healing like it should have just fueled the fire that maybe my body was resisting for a reason. The agony of wondering whether or not medicine had screwed up was unbearable. Through this pregnancy, however, the doubt is gone. I had an ultrasound at 5 weeks and what I saw there, was much different than what I saw a year ago, at 12 weeks. I can’t say it resembled a baby at 5 weeks, but it was something and it wasn’t an empty uterus.

I can’t say I’m thankful this happened to us. And I don’t even know if that’s a place I’m supposed to be some day. I just know I’m not there now. But I have still found blessings in a very difficult year.

We found a doctor that we love. We found her, because she was on-call on the Saturday morning that I went into triage for an “urgent” D&C. I switched my care to her almost immediately. She took me seriously, took action to get my body back on track and cares about us. She did a happy dance when she found out we were pregnant again. I am thankful for my doctor.

A friend stepped up to listen and ask questions, because she had suffered loss too. I was able to share my feelings, however surprising they were to me, and know she’d been there. She kept me sane and out of a dark place. I am thankful for my friend.

I now have a permanent position as a designer for a university that is family-friendly and flexible. I love what I do and who I work with. The stress of finding permanent employment is lifted. I am thankful for my job.

I found the motivation to lose weight and meet major weight-loss goals. I am thankful for my health.

I found that in this tough time, Miles and I are not torn apart, but grow closer. I know I’m not alone in this hurting. I am thankful for my husband.

We’re almost 19 weeks pregnant. While not impossible, we most likely would not be having this baby now, if we just had a baby in June. I am thankful for my pregnancy.