Family Goals

**Nov. 25th, 2015 Kris’ POV**

16 weeks, where did the time go? Kallie and Aunt Jayne pick me up and we en masse go to her appointment. The next one is the really important one, but I have to know they are doing well.

Once we’re in the room and Kallie is settled I take her hand. “You’re nervous.” She says with a hint of giggle in her voice, my pre-pregnancy Kallie is there.

“Wouldn't you be? You’ve changed so much and not all of it is good.”. Jayne chuckles behind me. I turn towards her, “You know I’m right.”

Jayne nods. “Kris, I know you're nervous and there have been a lot of scary things happening, but trust me she is doing as well as she can with this condition. We got really lucky that her cocktail seems to be working well and hopefully she won’t have what my mother did, all pregnancy HG. Her good and bad days are about even and she’s more like herself than she has been since I’ve been here.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “I know this is tough for all of us, but she’s doing great and has a positive attitude. That goes a long way towards helping too.”

Susan was the one who came in this week. “Afternoon all. Dr. Rebecca is with her other HG patient right now so I told her I’d come in here.” She looked at the chart notes for the last visit and so far today. “16 weeks, weight is better than we feared it could be. Oh this is nice. You were actually able to pee in the cup right?” Kallie nodded happily. “That’s two visits in a row, that’s excellent. How goes your intake?”

Kallie sighed. “Lime tastes bad now so I switched to lemon, that helped. I think we might try orange too and see how that tastes. I’m able to keep the lemon water down most of the time, occasionally it’ll come back up though. Food is ok, I’m currently a Sour and Tart gal with hints of Salty and Crunchy. I have taken Dr. Rebecca’s hint and added Miralax to a couple glasses of my drink of the day to keep myself moving.”

Susan nodded and made note. “That’s a good idea, I hope it helps you.” Kallie nodded. “Even better. Now shall we get to the fun part?” Her top was pulled back and goop applied. Then, oh, there was our baby’s heartbeat.

Kallie was smiling as we heard the heart. I finally came up with words to describe how I was feeling. “I thought hearing on the phone was good. This, there are no words.”

Then there was a knock on the door and someone we didn’t know came in. “Oh Whoops! I’m sorry, wrong room.” She started to back out when Susan stopped her.

“Beth wait.” She stopped and took a second look and a smile spread on her face. “Yes it’s me. I’m consulting on a couple cases here with Dr. Waltner-Towes. In fact, please come in and meet the Letang family.” Beth came in and we were introduced. “Beth is a doula. I think with everything going on, you might want to look into having one. I know Magee’s has them but having your own who knows you is an excellent idea in my medical opinion.”

Kallie nodded as she was laying down. “Nice to meet you. Susan, I’ll do some research but today is game day and we have a schedule we need to keep.” She looked at Beth apologetically.

Beth chuckled. “I can appreciate how busy your family might be on game day. Please take my card and when you have questions, call me.” She handed me the card and then waved and left.

Susan was confused. I clarified it quickly. “I have a game tonight. I have a routine that I use on those days that help me to feel ready to play well.” I had figured out that Susan wasn’t a huge hockey fan but she did nod and went through the rest of our exam.

In the end, Kallie sighed as she sat up. “Dr. Rebecca told me last time that I was measuring off and that her own census of the baby might be off as well. It is possible to have more than one and not know it?”

I was shocked. Susan smiled. “It isn’t as prevalent as it used to be, but it is still possible. After all we’re all human and make mistakes. If you’re concerned, then be prepared but don’t get your hopes up. Chances are you have an active child and things were misread early on.”

We made our next appointment, the one for our anatomy scan and headed home. Aunt Jayne went and got Alex while I got the lunch they had gotten ready before they went to the appointment. It was homemade Asian foods, both cold and hot. Kallie carefully filled her plate with the cold stuff while I put the hot and warm stuff on the table. “We have to find a way to thank your aunt for everything she is doing for us.”

Kallie smiled. “What about having her and Oncle Henri as godparents, or even as one set of them?” I turned and looked at her. That was a great idea.

“Them and maybe some friends so the kids understand how much love they really have?” I suggested. Kallie’s smile turned into a grin, then her tablet alarm went off.

She moved to and took whatever medication she needed to take. Then the garage door began to open and soon it was time for lunch.

**Kallie’s POV**

After lunch Alex helped Jayne clean up while Kris and I went up to nap. We got comfortable and he made sure to set his alarm. As we lay there I sighed. I turned to face Kris who was looking at me expectantly. “I’m going to email Dr. Rebecca when we get up. I just thought of a question that I don’t think can wait.”

“Oh?” He said as he closed the small distance between us.

We cuddled carefully and I sighed happily. “I’m kind of starting to feel better a little bit and am wondering if we might want to see if we can step down some of the medications.”

Kris nestled his head in the crook of my neck. “Whatever you think is best.” He sounded sleepy so I dropped the conversation in favor of sleep. As much as this season has worn on me for pregnancy reasons, Kris was having a good year and I wasn’t going to screw that up.

Later that afternoon Kris kissed us all goodbye and set off the the CEC. That left us with a couple hours before we went down to join the rest of the families for some fun. This would be my first in house game since the diagnosis of HG and would be the test for if I could stay for a game or not.

At 6:30 p.m. we made it into the family suite. Alex was engulfed by his friends who had missed him while I found a spot that wasn’t too far from the bathroom and yet where I could see. I settled myself in a good spot and noticed that I had a few of the girls looking at me oddly. I had sent out email about what had been going on and why I couldn’t be around as much as I wanted to be. Then I remembered, I had only told Vero and Carole-Lyne that I even _might_ be here tonight.

To pull the center of attention from me, I could have kissed each member of the Dupuis Family. Carole-Lyne gave up on giving last minute directions to her brood when she saw me. “You made it!” She came over and hugged me. “We have missed you and Alex.”

That seemed to break the ice and I got flooded with questions about everything that was going on. In fact I had to hush the girls so that we wouldn’t miss the start of the game.

The game wasn’t a blowout by any means, but it was kind of a nail biter. With about 5 minutes left St. Louis tied it up. All of us prayed that the guys would score again and we would avoid OT but that wasn’t the case. Needless to say when Geno scored 63 seconds into OT, everyone was thrilled!

With a lot of coaxing by the rest of the mom crew we made our way en masse to the locker room. Due to the Thanksgiving break, everyone was still there. The kids were extra happy because of the long weekend and the win, it made the atmosphere a joyous one.

After media and talking to coaches and everything Kris finally came out. “Papa!” Alex yelled and ran over to him. I saw Kris light up as he lifted Alex into his arms. “We won-d papa.”

A chuckle escaped Kris. “Yes, we did win mon fils. Where is maman? I bet she and Tante Jayne are tired.” Alex threw a hand out towards where Jayne and I were sitting. Bouncing Alex, they came over. “There you are. How are you feeling?”

I sighed and smiled. “Tired as expected. The girls of course wanted to know everything going on so that’s what we talked about in the intermissions. There’s a good chance we’ll be invaded Sunday afternoon for nursery planning.” Kris put Alex down and held out a hand to me. Carefully I got up and we began making our way towards the parking garage.

We all made our way home and got Alex tucked into bed. I sat up working on various ideas for color schemes. I wanted teal in it which made it difficult to make two. Finally I turned to Etsy for ideas and found a great color scheme; grey, navy blue and aqua. That gave me a flood of ideas for a boy’s nursery. They I turned and found a scheme for a girl; teal, purple and white. I put the two schemes side by side and found I really liked them.

Kris crawled into our bed and looked over at what I was working on. “Those are nice. We should probably wait to see who is coming before we make a final decision though.”

I snorted. “Three times I’ve heard it could be either a boy or a girl. At this point I’m prepping for both and am waiting to find out who is joining us.” I was tired of not knowing and not being able to plan more and get more clothes.

Kris nuzzled my growing belly. “We will love whoever is coming, we both know that. Perhaps instead of painting the walls we look at wallpaper. Like we paint the room a soft white or grey and then find wallpaper for the accent wall in one of the other colors.”

He took the computer and pulled up a wallpaper site, then thought better and went to Wayfair. He went looking first for a girly one. We found a sparkly purple scrollwork one that we both really liked. That gave us a baseline for the boy’s one. Soon we found a star field one and both gasped. That sealed it, we bought both that moment.

Just then my phone rang. It made us both jump and I checked it, it was Dr. Rebecca. I picked it up and put it on speaker. “Doctor Rebecca, it’s late.”

She sighed. “I know but I just finished a delivery and I heard your message. If you want to try decreasing your meds, I’m not against it, but we need to do it slowly. Decrease one at a time too. I like that you’re medically fluffy right now and until we know for sure you’re going to stay that way I don’t want to chance it.”

Both Kris and I sighed a loud which made her giggle. “We don’t want to chance anything either. I’ve gotten some really good support on Helpher.org, it’s how I figured out what types of foods are best for me and such. It’s also given me a place to vent about all the things that bug me about not having a more normal pregnancy with people who understand.” Kris looked at me oddly, he didn’t know I have having those issues.

“Good, it’s good to have people who understand and don’t mind if you need to vent. Family can’t do everything, even if they want to.” Kris seemed defeated but I knew how to cheer him up.

“I agree and it’s not fair of me to complain to them about things none of us can control. However, we’re going to shift our focus to things we _can_ control, like the name of this little one and hopefully having this HG no longer kicking my butt so I can get things done that I want to do myself.” Kris kissed my shoulder.

“That sounds great. I’ll see you at the anatomy scan and of course you know I’m only a phone call away if you need me before then.”

I agreed and then we hung up the phone. “Names huh?” Kris said yawning. “Can we compare lists in the morning? Adrenaline wearing off finally.” I kissed him tenderly.

“Of course. I still like Luc for a middle name if this is a boy.” I didn’t know what he had for names and I only had a few that I liked. Kris turned over and turned off his side light, his book unread due to the computer and phone call. I turned down the brightness of my laptop and began looking at names. I wrote down a few that I liked the sound of for both boys and girls. Something told me I would need both.

When I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer I shutdown the computer and went to sleep. Names of children dancing in my head.

At 6:45 a.m., before the alarm normally goes off I sat bolt upright in bed and without really being awake shouted. “Zane Luc Letang you get your ass in this house now!”

Of course I woke Kris with my shouting. I came to with his hand on my arm. “Kalista, are you ok?”

I looked at him with wide eyes. “I was dreaming that the kids were running all over the house and the youngest got outside. You got Alex and this one and I had to shout to get the youngest’s attention.” Relief filled Kris’ eyes. “I think I like that name a lot, it rolled right off my tongue.”

Kris gave me a hug and kissed my temple. “Zane Luc.” He grabbed his laptop and looked them up. “God is Gracious and Light.” The alarm started going off. He turned it off and sighed.

“I didn’t mean to wake anyone, including myself.” I was sorry, sleep was a precious commodity in our home. Kris chuckled. “I didn’t!” I stressed.

“It’s fine Kallie, honestly. I like it. God’s Gracious Light, a good meaning for a boy’s name.” He nuzzled my neck and sighed as he got up. “I’ll get Alex going. Maybe we can get some more inspiration for the girl’s name, or you know talk about it.” I swatted him playfully and the day began.