Easter Weekend

I hope everyone had a great Easter. We sure did! Morgan came in on Thursday night and got to work from the house on Friday. It was so great to have him a day early this week! My sis-in-law Lindsay came in Friday afternoon and we had a great time just hanging out and visiting with her all weekend. J.David really enjoyed having her here to play with! Due to Morgan's travel schedule our weekend was filled with errands that we were not able to accomplish daddy-free during the week, luckily Lindsay was forewarned of this and was a great sport!

Sunday was busy but great! Before church we had an egg hunt in the living room and saw what the Easter Bunny brought for JD. He loves hunting for those eggs! He also got a special delivery package via Aunt Lindsay from his Mimi and Jay Pops. He had a fun morning and loved having Jelly Beans with breakfast. ha ha ha. We then headed off to church and delivered some beautiful roses for Alexander on the way. It was a great way to start the days events! After church we had a FANTASTIC brunch at my parents' house that was complete with another egg hunt for JD, more Easter gifts, candy, and a birthday celebration for my dad. (still not 50 but gettin' close!) We had a lot of fun hanging out with my sisters and fam before saying bye to Lindsay and then heading off to my uncle's house for Easter Dinner. Talk about eating well. We visited and had a good time with the Brockhaus side of the family into the evening. We came home pooped, but it was well worth it! Here are some pics from our Fun weekend!

Aunt Z-Z, and Auntie Em showing J.David how to use the playground equipment.

Dying Egg on Saturday night...he LOVED it!The finished products. "The Brown Egg" is a tradition of my dad's that had to be passed on!

The Easter BasketThe Hunt (obviously successful!)
Family Photo (why don't Toddlers smile for pics?)

Aunt Lindsay and the boys

Showing off all the eggs he found at Granny and Pap-pa's.

Starting the search, just not quite awake from the car ride...ha ha ha.

Finding the goodies inside the eggs!

Kisses for the Birthday boy! JD loves Pap-pa! Granny and Pap-pa with the life of the party!

Easter Egg Hunt, the mom-mobile, and just some cute new pics.

Saturday was the annual Easter Egg Hunt with our church. J.David loved hunting for eggs and did a great job! We were actually really surprised. There was a 12 egg limit and we thought we were going to have to lead him and slide some eggs in his basket for him...WRONG! He watched the little boy next to him grab one egg and he was OFF. ha ha. We actually had to stop him from hunting and put a few back b/c he went over the 12 egg limit. It was hilarious...ALL BOY!

Here are the pics! There is one of him and his buddy Asher hunting together and one with Easter Bunny and our small group mommies and babies (minus Becky, Grace, and Andrea). The last one is of him trying to fall asleep in the car while Morgan and I were trying to keep him awake. He thought we were funny, but not funny enough to open his eyes.

He has been soooo stinkin cute lately. Here are some of his new favorites:

-he loves to pretend he is a dog, he crawls around "barking" (hilarious!)
-he is really trying to talk. it doesn't always make sense but he is really repeating what we say and you can tell he is learning sooo much!!

-he is saying mama, dada, gurl (squirrel), wawa (water), key, car, bubbles (his fave), three, go, jaxon, pap-pa, mimi, shoe, please, ball, and other things I can't remember or that we will ask him to repeat.

-he is slowly working away from the paci, it is crib time only now.

-loves his blankie
-gives butterfly kisses and likes to fist pound (ha ha ha)

-feeds himself with a spoon (and makes it to his mouth with food!)

-still LOVES music and loves to dance

-knows where most of his body parts are

-thinks quacking like a duck is SO funny, once he starts he won't stop!

These are just a few for my record keeping. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to brag on my little guy. ha ha.

Running around the backyard.

Playing with sidewalk chalk.

Playing Doggie...his is laughing b/c i was saying "come here doggie...good boy!"
Such a good helper.

So Proud b/c he put this hat on all by himself!

Looking in the backyard for squirrels!

Love that smile!

"I don't want to smile!"

And lastly, the mom-mobile. For anyone that knows me well, I have probably told you that I will NEVER drive a minivan. Well, guess what?! I am eating those words!! ha ha ha. We have been car searching for months and after lots of research have decided that the thing I have been fighting for so long is the one things that fits ALL of my car needs. So, we took the plunge on Saturday! I am officially a mom, and is it funny that I feel more like a "grown-up" mom? stupid i know, but i do. Anyway, I love it and hope to one day fill it up with babies and lots of love and laughter. And for those of you laughing right now b/c i just went against everything i believed in...no hard feelings b/c i too am still laughing at myself! for those of you that think I'm uncool now....go check one out, drive it, and see the SPACE! then tell me who's uncool! ha ha ha!

Friday's Appointment

I wanted to thank everyone for your constant prayers. We had our appointment on Friday and physically I am doing great. The tests confirmed that it was an infection that took our sweet Alexander. This is extremely rare since the amniotic sac is intended to keep out bacteria, but for some reason it did not for me. According to the tests run on Alexander (there are still a few more results still pending) he was a completely healthy baby boy. This brought me both tears of joy and sadness. I find comfort in knowing that he was a healthy, perfect baby boy, in some way it validates even more his short life, but it also cuts even deeper knowing that this rare case of infection took the life of a perfect, innocent child.
To answer a few of those open-ended questions...

1. Could this have been prevented?
No, they do not know how this happens, why it happens, or how to prevent it. It is simply a "fluke" thing that is very rare.

2. Why didn't they catch this?
Due to how rare this is and how quickly it moves there was nothing pointing them to this. My crazy week of traveling, illness, and business explained all my symptoms and Alexander, along with everything else on the monitor looked perfect Tuesday morning.

3. What if i would not have gone into labor?
If they had suspected and tested me for infection there would have been nothing they could have done to stop or post pone labor. If they would have discovered the infection before labor set in they would have had to put me into labor.

4. Future children?
As far as they can tell it is highly unlikely that this will affect my ability to conceive or carry a perfectly healthy baby. For preventive reasons i will have some blood work done and be sent to a high risk doctor in a few weeks. The dr. basically just wants to get a second opinion on the situation to ensure that they would not do anything differently so whenever we are ready to have another baby we will be prepared.

Overall it was a very bittersweet appointment. It was good in knowing that we left there with the knowledge of what it was, but sad because we don't know why. Good knowing that we still have a positive future to look forward to, but heartbreaking to know that we will always be missing one perfectly healthy baby boy. We left there with a good sense of closure for the situation, and we praise God for that. Now we can focus on healing our hearts and our sweet J.David!

J.David

This post is about J.David. It's been a while since I posted about him. He is really growing into this amazing little boy! He understands so much and even though most of what he says is in a language i have never heard before, he is really trying to talk to us. He is so full of love and joy. There is not a day that goes by where I don't laugh at something he does or smile because even though he may not say the words "I love you" he will do something to make sure I know he does. That's not to say we don't have fits...screaming and throwing himself on the floor are part of his new fit-ness program, but he full of more good days than bad ones. He has no idea what has been to me lately. He always knows when to bring us a smile and cheer us up. We are so thankful for him and his ability to bring so much light to such a dark time. Thank you, God, for my precious J.David. I know HE is working through my son to help give me the strength to move forward. Here are some cute pics of the last week of so...

Playing with his new dump truck and wearing Daddy's hat. Couldn't take it off of him!

Helping Daddy and Jay Pops roll out mommy's new rug. Pics of new Living Room coming soon!
Scraping his "cleats" in the Cardinal dugout! He put his Teddy Bear there to look outside with him. SOOO cute!! We tried to move the bear, and he kept putting it right back facing outside...ha ha ha.
Playing golf outside with Daddy. Here he is practicing his caddy skills.

For a quick update: We are doing really good and are so grateful for all the cards, calls, prayers, and encouragement. We are so blessed to have such an amazing support system. We buried Alexander last Thursday with a small private graveside service. It was so beautiful and his location is perfect. Please just continue to pray for us as we continue to heal and also for my Dr. visit on Friday. We are going to find out the results of the tests that they ran on both Alexander and myself to help solve this mystery. There is a significant chance that there will be no findings and we are simply going to have to accept that this was a "fluke" type of situation. Please pray that we are accepting of whatever we find out. Thank you!!

Before the Storm...(lots of pics)

The week before we lost Alexander we had a wonderful mini-vacation with J.David. We went down to Orlando to see Morgan and spent 5 days there with him. It was so wonderful to enjoy some warm weather and take it easy! We got there on a Wednesday and found out that Morgan was actually going to get Thurs and Friday off...A four day weekend!! woo hoo!! We went to a Braves spring training game, Seaworld, and best of all Magic Kingdom. We had a blast!! Sadly the last day we were there Morgan and I caught a bug and didn't leave the hotel room. It was sad, but luckily it was only a 24 hour thing and we were fine by flying home time. Here are some fun pictures from our trip. Enjoy!!

Reunion Dinner with Daddy at Jason's Deli

Braves Game @ Disney! Full of hotdog eating, smiles, and J.David screaming "GO GO GO!!"

Seaworld! This day trip was more for mom and dad but JD really enjoyed Shamu's show and the dolphins. Daddy loved the rollercoaster!

Of all the fun places we went JD LOVED the playground at the hotel best! ha ha. It doesn't take much to make them happy at this age!

Magic Kingdom! We took the ferry over, met Pluto, Buzz lightyear, mickey and minnie. We had so much fun and although he wouldn't smile for the camera almost all day JD loved every min of it! (except for maybe the characters.) His favorite rides were Dumbo and Small World. At least someone likes Small World. ha ha. He also really enjoyed the parade that night. I just wish he would have embraced his Mickey ears. We had to distract him with ice cream for that picture.

Of course we have to wear our new Mickey sunglasses home!

Thank you is not enough...

Morgan, J.David, and I just wanted to thank everyone for all your sweet comments, flowers, meals, calls, and especially your prayers. The support and love we have received has been such a blessing to us all. And I mean it when I say that we feel the effects of all those prayers. God has wrapped his loving arms around us at this time and we know through Him we will make it through this. J.David has been amazing medicine for us over the past few days as well. He has been even more of a comedian than usual leaving us no choice but to smile and laugh, and always seems to know the perfect time to give us hugs and kisses. He will never know what he has done for his mom and dad by simply being a precious toddler. Thank you again and we will continue keeping you all updated. We love you all!!

Alexander Morgan Trotter

Tonight I am sad to share that last night 3/3/09 at 11:56 pm our sweet baby boy came into this earth for a short period of time. He weighed 3 oz and was 6 inches long. So small, yet so beautiful!! He blessed us with his presence for nearly an hour before going to meet Jesus. We named him Alexander Morgan and it suited him to a tee. He was a true fighter til the end, a true miracle.

To answer some of your questions:
I had been having some spotting for a little over a week but was in contact with the doctors and the hospital. I had been checked out two times, one of which being yesterday morning. We had an ultrasound where Alexander looked so strong and healthy and was moving like crazy. That is when we learned he was a he and that he actually measured big! We left with a great piece of mind and went home to relax. Sadly, that evening things took a turn for the worse and i realized quickly that the cramps i had been feeling were actually contractions. Within an hour of being at the hospital and hoping for the best my water broke and we knew our time with him on earth was going to be limited. Morgan quickly scheduled a flight home from Orlando, FL and arrived this morning. Things went as well as can be expected for this situation. We were blessed with great nurses, doctors, and especially family and friends to support and love us. Thank you everyone for all your thought and prayers. We were able to say goodbye to our precious Alexander this morning and despite the tragedy and heartache we are determined to make a positive impact out of his short life. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Love always, The Trotters