A Boy And His Dog

 

He may sometimes terrorize her by chasing her with plastic shopping carts or toy lawnmowers and she may sometimes try to escape his over zealous play, but I know without a doubt these two will be near best friends always.

 

 

Wordless Wednesday

Puppy-love



 Sam eating a popsicle (and sharing it with Bella)

Cuddles all around

So Not Inspired

I am so not inspired to create a blog post. I'm down in the dumps and grieving. But, I need to push my last post farther away, so that I only need to see Benelli's pictures when I want to see them. It's been hard to check up on any new posts of the blogs I follow with seeing that old familiar, lovable face every time. Plus, Sam and Anna turn 6 months old (!) on Thursday, and I need to work back to to the level of cheeriness worthy of being half a year old.

I was never a dog person until I met my husband. My family didn't have pets growing up, so I didn't know the joys and challenges of having a pet like a dog. While we were engaged, my then-fiance convinced me that we should get a lab- to use as a hunting dog for him while duck, goose, and pheasant hunting.

I never knew what I was getting myself into- on both ends of the spectrum. Puppies (especially hard-headed and rambunctious ones like Benelli was) are not easy to take care of. One person I work with told me that her puppy was more work than her infant. While I don't agree with that statement in our case at least (two infants at the same time is a whole different ballgame), puppies take a lot of time and effort. But I also didn't know that I would be opening my heart up to a realm of love that had never existed in it before. Until you've had a dog that you care for as it's main provider and see it grow up from puppyhood to old age while you go through major life changes as well, you cannot comprehend the love that you can have for a animal. While Benelli was a part of our family we got married, moved away from our families to a different state, bought our first and second homes, started professional jobs, endured IF, and expanded our family by another puppy and two babies at the same time among other less-major changes. While we had Benelli, my husband and I grew up.

I know very well that most people probably don't understand how I am feeling right now. Benelli wasn't just a dog for me- he was my first child- albeit a furry one. Considering a dog like a person or a child used to make me roll my eyes before- Now I get it. We have a sign hanging in our basement- "All dogs are pets- Labrador Retrievers are family." And in our case, it is true- Benelli was a part of our family.

I am glad that we chose to make the last 24 hours of his life filled with his favorite things. Friday night, I took just him for one last long walk, ending at the woods so he could explore without the confinement of a leash, we walked at his pace; stopping as often as he wanted and for as long as he wanted to sniff. We let him sleep on the bed that night (a treat usually reserved for when my husband was gone hunting or on a work trip). My husband was able to take him goose hunting one last time Saturday morning as well. We played fetch in the yard and he laid in the sun for awhile. He got lots of treats- cheeseburgers from McDonald's and an entire bowl full of buttered popcorn- his favorite treat of all. There's nothing I would have changed at all leading up to his appointment. I will always be thankful that he was able to do those things instead of being in too much pain to do anything.

Although I'm still ridiculously busy with twin babies and working again full time, his absence is still painfully obvious. It's there when I realize I don't have to walk carefully in the dark to avoid stepping on him as he sleeps in the most random of spots. It's there when all is quiet in our house and I don't hear his sighs, snores, or farts. It's there when I wake up in the early morning hours to get ready for work and now I'm all alone in the kitchen without a furry beast begging for good-morning-butt-scratches by going between my legs. It's there when our other dog sniffs things that belonged to him as if to show she's wondering where he is. It's there when I notice his usual hiding spot under the stairs is painfully empty. It's there when I realize we have to change our way of phrasing things- it's no longer "let the dogs out" but "let Bella out" It's there when we go for a walk as a family.


(Eh- that wasn't even remotely happier, was it? Oh well- I guess I have tomorrow to work on it. )

The Rainbow Bridge

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.

There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together.
There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.

The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together.... (Author Unknown)

Benelli

August 13, 2002 - September 4, 2010

School started. I seriously have no love for my current class of students. Why is it that no one warned me that besides simply not wanting to come back to teaching, I would not enjoy it that much anymore, because all I want is to spend time with MY children, not other people's children who were woefully not taught appropriate direction following and listening skills? (Don't even get me started on the academic side of things!) I feel like I'm already at that crabby mid-year teacher stage when you daydream about spring break. Tomorrow is Friday, and I can't wait for it to be over.

Except, for the first time in my life, I'm dreading the Saturday after it. Right now, I just want time to stand still. I want to stay in this moment where I am at home in pjs with my hair in a ponytail, spending time with my family- all the members- my husband, my two children and my two dogs. Because, you see, after Saturday morning, my family will be missing one important part.

Benelli's appointment is at noon.

Right now, I just want time to stand still.

Avoiding the Obvious

I haven't felt much like making a post in the last week. I think it's because I don't need to get the school stuff/daycare stuff/dog stuff off my chest or vent about all of it- I just need to spend as much time as possible NOT thinking about it to survive. I've been in a crummy mood. If I created a post, it would have gone something like this:

"Sam and Anna have had a horrible time falling asleep at bedtime lately, which I suspect is because I was at work 3 days last week and they just want to be held by me because they miss me, instead of chillin' alone in their cribs . They've always been pretty good at bedtime sleep until now. On Thursday I had to work from 8 am until 8 pm and Sam was so distraught with my absence that by bedtime, the only way my husband could get him calmed down was to wear a shirt of mine while running the blowdryer. Then Sam woke up at 4 am for his MOTN feeding (which I did- huge mistake) and he didn't want to leave me, so Sam and I hung out on the couch from 4 am until 6:30 am when his sister woke for the day. Since they are resisting bedtime simply because they want to be held, we resorted to full on CIO (cry-it-out) Sunday night out of desperation. We decided the only way to break the cycle was to not hold them. That sucked, but worked. After two days, Sam and Anna are no longer crying/being held off and on for 4 hours after bedtime. I drank a lot of wine, and cursed the fact that I felt the need to pile more upon my plate. Oh, and Sam ate horribly most of the week because he doesn't eat as well for anyone but me.

Work sucked, but I managed, knowing that I would have 5 days in a row to be at home after the 3 days of working. That ended today. Tomorrow school starts. Boo-hoo. It sucks leaving two babies without you that you did everything short of move mountains to get. I don't have enough words for how I feel, and like I said- I do better if I just try to not think about it. So that's all I'm going to say about that

Benelli's days are numbered. My husband is calling the vet tomorrow to see when we can make an appointment to bring him in. This royally sucks because I always said I would take several days off of work when he died, and what teacher can take off the first few days of school? Imagine trying to keep a happy kindergarten teacher smile pasted upon your face when your dog is dying and your two precious miracles are spending their days without you. This might just be my best beginning of school yet.

The combo of all of the above created another anxiety attack Sunday night. This one was a doosy. I might have just found the combo of things that is more than I can handle at one time.

So in short, this week we did CIO, Sam will probably not eat well again, I go back to work full time permanently with co-workers that are not nice people, and we will probably be killing our dog (my first dog). My week is shaping up to be one awesome, stellar week."

Now who wants to think about, type, or read that? So instead, I will share with you my first belly photo from a year ago, and my brave belly shot almost exactly one year to the day later, taken this week. Not too bad, I think. I may have not met my goal of all pregnancy weight lost by the first day of school, but according to my scale last night, I am only 2 pounds away from that. Not too bad at all. (Focusing on the good, focusing on the good...)

5 1/2 months post-partum twin birth at 37 weeks. (Here's a bang photo for you, Kerri)

9 weeks pregnant with twins, sucking the bellah in as much as possible (same pants as the above picture but a different color)

9 weeks pregnant with twins (letting it all hang out)

Updates

Benelli (our dog): There seems to have been a little bit less bleeding in the last few days. The tumor has most definitely regrown in his mouth, but I am taking the decrease in blood as a good sign. He will be 8 years old on Friday- I see some special birthday treats in his future. :)

Swaddling: Nights 1 and 2 were rough. Our former 11-12 hour sleeper Anna was awake every hour crying and needed major soothing to get back to sleep. We had every intention of sticking it out, thinking that we were in for 3 days of hell, but I just couldn't do a third night for her. It is just obvious to me that she's not ready. I couldn't survive taking care of twins after three nights in a row of only about 3 hours of sleep either (how did we do it in the early days???). Sam, on the other hand, didn't seem fazed by the new sleeping arrangements at all. Even though his arms were free from the bondage of the miracle blanket, he slept fairly well- when his sister's frantic cries didn't wake him up. On the third night, we gave in after a few hours and re-swaddled Anna (I swear, she almost sighed in relief- or was that me?) and then slept soundly the rest of the night but left Sam in a sleep sack, and he did fine. So for now, Sam's all done with the miracle blanket but Anna's still there. We'll try again in a few weeks.

Eating/Weight Gain/That Damn Reflux: Sam and Anna have been eating a little better, and Anna gained 4 oz in a week, so that is encouraging. Sam, however, lost an ounce in the same week. I swear, they both can't just do well at something (anything) at the same time. Whether it is eating, sleeping, gaining weight, or whatever. I suspect they have a powwow in the middle of the night and plot ways to keep us on our toes!

Down in the Dumps

Meh. It seems like I get a good spurt of blogging energy and the ideas keep flowing so I make so many posts that I have to schedule them for days later because I don't like having more than one post in a day. Then, I come crashing down from my blogging flurry, and don't feel like typing a thing for days. I have things I want to share, but just don't feel up to it.

Lately, I'm just getting so tired of fighting the reflux battle. I never imagined that Sam and Anna would be 5 months old (in a few days) and we'd still be stressing over reflux related issues- whether the medicine they are on produces the best results we're going to get, or whether we need to keep looking for something better. I do think their reflux is under control now, but they still just don't eat well. Sam's doing okay, but Anna's not. It gets so disheartening to get her weighed weekly and seeing that scale barely budge from the week before. Now you might be thinking: why go every week then? Well, because our pediatrician is okay with us not getting frequent weigh-ins at her office as long as I am carefully monitoring her weight and making sure she is still gaining adequately. I am supposed to call if she does not gain about 1/2 oz per day on average. In the last two weeks, Anna's gained 2 ounces total. I called today. Sam and Anna were pretty consistently about 10 ounces apart since birth. Now Sam weighs a full pound and a half more than her, and he's just gaining a decent amount- not going through a growth spurt. I have no issue with her being a little peanut- I just want her to gain a healthy amount of weight.

It seems like most of the time, all I do is stress about weight. If it's not about how little they are gaining, it's about how little I am losing. My goal was to get back into my work clothes by the time school rolled around. I thought way, way back in March that that was an achievable goal for 6 months down the road. I gained 8 lbs from the IVF cycle and 62 lbs from pregnancy which equals 70 lbs of fleshy poundage I'd like to never see again. I've got less than 10 to go from pregnancy weight, but 15 ish lbs to go to my goal weight (what I weighed at my lowest ever in March of last year). And that damn scale hasn't budged in a while. Jillian Michaels and I get together for a little "shred" every morning but the scale hasn't shown a difference in what seems like forever. I've got less than a month until I go back to work. I don't have time or money to buy a whole new wardrobe. I miss my size 4 work pants (insert pouty face here), and I'm afraid I'll never get to wear them again.

And last down in the dumps thought (I put the most trivial in the middle and saved the worst for last): In March (about a week before Sam and Anna's birth day), I shared in a post that we had discovered our dog, Benelli, had a tumor on the roof of his mouth. I updated a month later in another post that we had our vet remove what she could of the tumor and biopsy it(when the babies were about 2 weeks old). We were told that it was cancerous, and fairly agressive so we could have months to a year before it could return to the point that something would need to be done. I owe you an update on our dog.

Benelli's mouth started bleeding this week, and upon looking, we found that the tumor is back. He is also bleeding from his nose, which could very possibly mean that the tumor is causing trouble there too. There is nothing we can really do at this point, but keep an eye on him to gauge how he is feeling. Every day we get out the carpet cleaner and spot clean bloody spots out of our carpet. Benelli wheezes and coughs and I can tell he swallows some of the blood in his mouth.

Last April, I wrote this after learning the results of the biopsy: Benelli was my first pet. My first baby. The first living thing that I took care of, nurtured, and loved. It is so unfair that my children won't be old enough to remember him and love him like I do. I am devastated.

He was such a difficult puppy- made me cry so often, ran around in circles in our apartment with crazy eyes, bit me all the time with his sharp puppy teeth, was a horrible walker, and rivaled Marley with his antics. One day he discovered how to unroll toilet paper to his delight and he ate my glasses and a book once, just because. He had to be taught how to swim. Now, he loves retrieving in the water, and has been known to just swim around in a lake for the fun of it. He goes crazy for fireworks- but only because he wants to go look for the duck after hearing one firework. He's 85 pounds of pure wuss: afraid of cats, and lets our 60 pound 5-years-younger yellow lab push him around. He loves saying good morning to us by going between our legs and getting good-morning-butt-scratches. For him, nothing beats a kernel of buttery popcorn goodness... or when Dad lets him lick the baked on goo in the crockpot pan when I'm not looking. He's been a part of our family for longer than we've been a family.

I love my big black teddy bear so much.

(My husband always gives me crap about writing posts that make him cry. Sweetheart, I'm sorry- I know I did it again.)

Dog Update

Where does the time go when you have twins? I know I am spending more time awake, so I should have enough time to get basic things done, right? I have about 6 blog posts I have swimming around in my head, but something always seems to come up that leaves these posts on the back burner. Sometimes the babies keep me on my toes all day long, with hardly a spare second to eat or go to the bathroom. Some days, our feedings and nap times go extremely well- like they are so far today- so I can afford myself the luxury of reading blogs or making a post of my own. (I'm so far behind commenting, and for that, I'm sorry. I do read them all though!)

For today, those 6 other post ideas are going to have to wait some more. Today I have something more important to blog about.

Last month I wrote this post about my dog. We had discovered that Benelli had a mass in his mouth on the upper jaw, near the back. We took him to the vet and found out that it was indeed, a tumor. I explained that he would need to be put under to remove the tumor to analyze it and find out what we were dealing with in this post. I mentioned that it would cost around $700, when it fact it was close to $1000. All this happened when I was about 36 weeks pregnant and ready to deliver any day. We decided to wait until the twins arrived to make the appointment to make sure his surgery wasn't scheduled to be while we were at the hospital for a few days. Benelli had the surgery last week. We got a phone call about the results yesterday. On my husband's birthday.

It was not a good birthday present.

Benelli's tumor is cancerous, and is in the bone (they took a fragment from his jaw bone to check). Basically, there is nothing we can do to completely remove the cancer this time. (About 2 years ago, Benelli had a cancerous tumor on a leg that we had successfully removed) The vet had removed as much of it as possible last week, but is certain that it will grow back. She told my husband that we could have a few months, or maybe a year before a serious decision would need to be made because it is a fairly aggressive type of cancer. On top of that, Benelli's toenails have been separating from the quicks and coming off. This has been really bothering him. We got the results back from that as well- and were told that his immune system is basically rejecting his toenails. My poor dog is in rough shape.

I'm barely holding it together- and honestly, not letting myself think about it as much as possible. I mentally packed it away in a box for right now because if I let myself truly think about it, I couldn't function enough for my children. Gone are the days where I can selfishly go cry in my room for a few hours- there are mouths to feed about every 3 hours, and diapers to change.

Benelli was my first pet. My first baby. The first living thing that I took care of, nurtured, and loved. It is so unfair that my children won't be old enough to remember him and love him like I do. I am devastated.

Please pray that we get as long as possible to take our dog for walks, give him hugs, and enjoy his presence.

However, right now a baby began crying and wants to be fed, so I have to put this back in my mental box and close the lid, for now.

It's Always Something

So my dog most definitely has a tumor in his mouth and because of the location, needs anesthesia to do a biopsy. They will remove as much of it as they can and then analyze a sample to find out if it is malignant or benign, what type of tumor, whether it will continue to grow, etc. The cost of the procedure to put him under and just do the biopsy is around $700.

This pretty much solidifies the fact that I will be going back to work at school for the last three weeks of the school year.

This royally sucks on so many many levels.

So March It Is

February with its full moon this weekend passed with nada in the baby department. I'm still here at home, still in exponentially worse pain, and now gestating at over 36 weeks. Obviously they just aren't ready to come out yet. My body is definitely saying it has had enough, but my uterus isn't listening!

I had my weekly OB appointment and NST last Thursday, and things were same as usual. The babes did great on the NST (this time I drank OJ before the appointment so I wouldn't have to drink juice after a while there, and boy did that work!) My OB won't check my cervix yet, because even if I was dilated it wouldn't be any sort of true indicator of when I'd go into labor anyway. I could be at 1-2 cm for weeks, or go from 2-10 cm in the same day. So whatever. I also had my GBS test. My next appointment is on Friday. Maybe I'll get a cervix check then. He did say two weeks ago that he'd be okay with inducing/scheduling a c-section for 37 weeks-38 weeks, so I'm hoping that if I make it to Friday's appointment, I can say, "let's schedule that c-section for Tuesday March 9th!" (At 37 weeks, 2 days) I'm really trying to hold that date in my head so I know I only have 8 more days left, at the most. Believing that I could have more than that is almost too much for me to bear at this point. I'm in major pain here. This body was not made to carry 11-13 lbs of baby or gain 60+ lbs in a few short months and it reminds me of that every second of the day and night.

This weekend was a hard weekend for us in other ways, not pregnancy-related. We discovered my black lab Benelli has what appears to be a tumor in his mouth, on the top jaw, way in the back. He is 7 1/2 years old and had a cancerous tumor removed from his leg 3 years ago. We've always said he's a cancer survivor. It doesn't appear to be bothering him, so the earliest the vet can/will get him in is on Tuesday afternoon. If it is a tumor, we are thinking it isn't removable anyway because of the location. He's my first dog, he'll always be my first baby, and I'm not ready to lose him yet. As he's gotten older, I knew the day I'd have to say goodbye was getting closer and closer, but it just doesn't seem fair to have this happen at a time when my head and heart must be focused on other things. One of our baby daydreams while TTC was imagining our children trying to say his name and coming out with "Nelli." I could always picture toddlers trying to climb on top of him and pulling his tail, and Benelli taking it all like a champ. He has to stick around for a lot longer for those to happen. He'll always be my favorite dog and I love him so much. Please send good thoughts our way that we are wrong- that it is not a tumor and is something that is easily treatable.

I'll leave you with some pictures of my lovable, huggable dog that has been through so much with us in the past 7 years:

See how good he'd be with kids?

My Benelli

Randomness

I'm not feeling very motivated or creative today- just having a lazy, blah Saturday. I did want to update on my current $ projections for our upcoming IVF though: We're only about $500 short now of the estimate! And that is fantastic news!

Also, Jake had his communicable disease tests last week and my communicable disease tests are on Tuesday... so hopefully after that I'll start feeling like we are doing something to get out of BFA land (BFA= Big Fat Abyss, according to Bottoms Off and On the Table) rather than just sitting around and doing nothing.

I also realized that I have not talked about my fur children yet, gasp! Bella and Benelli are my replacement babies for now. Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Bella (the yellow lab) is a lot bigger now, but this is one of my favorite pictures of our two pups.

See how good Benelli would be with kids?

And one more of Bella just to be fair.