17 weeks and 6 days

I guess I can call what I'm going through today "snow lag". Looking outside to the almost 5" of snow piled on our road/driveway makes for me to be super, super unmotivated.

I'm starting to feel like a horrible mother. Poor Payton was left to play all alone most of the day today. She kept herself busy while I kept zoning in and out of conciousness on the couch. I could not get myself to get up. I feel so exhausted already that I can hardly wait to see what the 3rd trimester has in store for me.

Sarcasm.

Payton was absolutely excellent today given the fact her mother looked like she was coming down off of a 20 day drinking binge.

Tomorrow I'm 18 weeks. During my first pregnancy, at 18 weeks is when I had to have my giant surgery. The scars left on my belly are just half of the reminder of how scary that entire situation was.

Here I was, 20 years old and had never had surgery in my life. Dr. Fish told me I didn't have an option to 'opt out' of surgery, but that it was a must.

I remember crying in the little room and he asked Josh and I to follow him to his office where he sat for a good half an hour talking to me about everything.

I told you he was a great, great man. I'm not sure I really know any other doctors that would sit with you as long as you needed and not be concerned about the next patient until I was finished.

Having Payton has a reminder as to what he did for me is something I can't explain. The surgery lasted for nearly 6 hours, and the cyst they removed was larger than the size of my head.

My big, fat, double chinned jiggly head.

I begged to be kept awake during surgery because I was so terrified, and I wanted to know what was going on. He finally agreed.

As they removed that big swollen fleshy balloon of cysty goodness, they asked if I wanted to look at it.

"No."

I was VERY strict on my answer.

Dr. Fish tells me to look over and there it is laying on a big silver platter.

Like a Thanksgiving turkey ready to be sliced open; except fleshy, and veiny and...

You know, here's a great visual:

Is that seriously not the yummiest thing you've ever seen in your life?

That's Payton's "cyst-er" coming out during surgery.

The risks of surgery were high, but the risks of complications - even death - from not removing it were more than sky rocketing. It had to go.

So here I sit 5 years later with a gorgeous little girl, a 13" vertical belly scar and once again 18 weeks pregnant.

I'm just glad to be delivering one this time.