Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

Before this blog, I had another one solely dedicated to cooking. It started when Max and I were dating, the two of us found cooking as a hobby that we loved doing together, and I needed a stress relief from the busy world of my work life. Writing had always been a passion, cooking had become one, so blogging allowed me to creatively combine the two and share with friends who asked for recipes.

After getting married, I wanted to morph that creativity a little more into a new outlet that covered other hobbies - such as traveling, party planning, homeowner type things - and created this domain. It sat untouched until I had the true need to write again after our loss. While that is a main outpouring of my writing, cooking became therapeutic again, and I called those recipe posts that I'd share Cooking for Comfort.

At least once a week we try to challenge ourselves with something we've never made before and a lot of times it is on the weekend for a date night in, or when we have more time to devote to it. Enter this recipe for a homemade chicken pot pie. Baking is not my forte, I prefer to cook by taste - adding a dash of this and a dash of that. Baking is a precise science that I don't gravitate towards, so when it came to this recipe and making the homemade dough, I left that up to Max's expertise. I was in charge of the filling and felt like I could experiment more and do it "to taste". We enjoyed making it, we really enjoyed consuming it, and it was even Hadley approved. 

Ingredients:
Yields 6-8 servings
For Pie Crust, from Two Peas and Their Pod

• 2.5 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 cup cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 1/2 cup cold buttermilk
• 1-2 tbsp. of water (if needed)
• 1 egg, beaten (to brush the crust as a final step)

For Filling

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup onion, diced
• 1/2 cup celery, diced
• 1 cup carrot, chopped
• 1 cup green veggie of choice (peas, broccoli florets, green beans - I went with green beans for this first attempt)
• 2 tbsp. garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp. fresh thyme, minced
• 1.5 tbsp. fresh parsley, minced
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 3/4 cup chicken broth
• 3/4 cup half and half 
• 3 cups shredded chicken (I used a rotisserie chicken for the flavor)
• Cajun seasoning to taste (Optional. I am a Tony Chachere addict and use it in nearly every dish, so this was no exception and my personal twist!)

First, make sure you have an oven rack positioned in the center and pre-heat to 400 degrees. 

Start with making the pie crust. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt and sugar. Add the cubed butter and toss to coat. You need a moderate in size, clean, flat surface to then dump the ingredients out. Using a rolling pin, roll the butter into thin sheets incorporating it with the flour mix. Use a pastry scraper to scrape the rolling pin and bring the scraps back into a pile to continue to roll out. Continue this process until all the butter is flattened and worked into the dry ingredients. The mix will be flaky and dry. Place back in the bowl and into the freezer for 15 min to chill. 

After 15 min, remove from freezer and add the buttermilk. Using a spoon, stir the buttermilk into the mixture, making more of a dough-like consistency. If it still feels a little dry, add the water, one tablespoon at a time. Cut the dough into two equal amounts, flatten into discs and place separately in plastic wrap or ziploc bags. Let these chill in the fridge while you make the filling.

In a large skillet or chef's pan, heat the butter over medium heat. Once melted, add the onion, celery, carrot and green veggie of choice to cook for about 5 minutes or until vegetables are soft/onions are translucent. Next, add the garlic. Once fragrant, sprinkle the flour over the veggies, add the thyme, parsley and salt. Once coated in flour and seasonings, add the chicken broth and Half & Half, then turn the heat up a bit to let it thicken, stirring often. Once thickened, add the chicken. Final step is to season to your liking with the Cajun seasoning. 

Remove the pie dough from the fridge and sprinkle some flour onto your clean, flat surface. Rub the rolling pin with flour as well to help with it sticking to the dough. Use the rolling pin to roll out the disc to a flattened circle of about 12 inches and 1/4 inch thickness. Transfer the dough to a 9 inch pie dish and press into the dish, patting with fingers to make smooth and stretch more if needed. If there is extra dough over the sides of the pan, trim and discard. Fill pie with filling. Roll out the second disc and repeat the process, placing it carefully over the top of the pie and trimming excess dough if it hangs over the sides. Using your fingers or a fork, crimp the dough to seal the pie. With a knife, slit some lines into the pie. Using a pastry brush, brush the egg onto the top and crust of the dough.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until crust is golden brown. Let cool, then cut and serve! 

Baby HJS the Third

So, our family has a little bit of big news, we are expanding again! We are nearing the seventeen week mark and had an appointment last Friday to see HJS the Third, or more affectionately referred to as little Squish, our go-to name for baby during each pregnancy. If all goes as it should, we will induce somewhere between April 1 and April 8. I'm pulling for April 4 for 4/4. I'm 8/8, my dad is 12/12, we need to pass this onto the next generation.

But you just had a baby! I know, and she’s a year old now. The answer to the first question we are asked and I'm sure on the brains of those who haven't asked is, yes this was planned, yet we were still surprised.

Let me back it up a bit.

In June we went to see my doctor for the 8 month postpartum check up. Max and I were already thinking that we were ready and wanted to expand our family again, but I had some mental hangups that I wanted to talk through with my doctor first. As some may recall, when we delivered Hadley, there was an abnormality with my placenta. I actually didn't know anything about it until Nurse Katie sent me Hadley's birth photos and there it was. The giant placenta blob in all its glory. Not what you anticipate seeing as you are hormonally looking through the memories of those special moments of bringing this eagerly awaited baby into the world. Baby, baby, baby, placenta, baby, baby...wait, what?

Nurse Katie let me know that she wanted me to have a picture for documentation if needed. The pathology reports came back that the abnormality was a 5 cm blood clot but that I didn't test positive for any of the blood clotting disorders that would have been a common reason for it, nor did I present with the other usual suspects such as gestational diabetes or placental abruption. So it remained a mystery and one that I was rather unsettled about. At my 6 week postpartum check up, my doctor said she had yet to find a medical reason for it, but that she was going to run a few more tests and research a few more things and we would revisit it together at the 8 month postpartum appointment.

That takes us to June and it is time for that appointment. We decided to look at my uterus and ovaries not pregnant and found that I had a blueberry-sized cyst on my only working ovary and a number of pea-sized fibroids occupying my uterus. We learned in our fertility struggle last time that my right ovary is the only one that releases eggs, and now it was inhabiting an unwelcome guest (and an unharmful one, which is important to add). Additionally, we revisited that whole placenta-blood-clot question. Something that had weighed on my mind was when we had the umbilical cord scare with Hadley around the 31 week mark, it was an unexplained issue that was chalked up to my stress and anxiety. So we initiated a moderated bed rest and increased appointments with scans to twice a week. With the blood clot coming to light after delivery, coupled with the now existing UFO's (Uterine Foreign Objects, ie cyst and fibroids) we decided I would go see a Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist for another opinion. I had that appointment the first week of July and after reviewing it all, they felt that the blood clot happened either during labor or during delivery, but sometime after they broke my water. Without getting too graphic, the reasoning for this was because if there had been a blood clot in my placenta prior to that time, there would have been blood in my amniotic fluid when they broke my water - but there wasn't.

Leaving that appointment, the specialist said she didn't feel we should do anything differently or be concerned with another pregnancy, we have a good plan. We will do a blood thinner just to add another layer to our next high risk pregnancy artillery as a precautionary measure and will continue on with the frequent appointments and scans when the time comes.

The week after my eight month appointment, I had my first postpartum cycle. However it didn't return in July. For eight days at the end of July, I think I took a test every other day, just in case, but they were all negative. In late August, I still had not had any sign of a cycle and was feeling "off". I remember it vividly. It was a Monday, I had a few work related errands to run, and on my way back to the office, the thought crossed my mind that I needed to take a pregnancy test. It was very similar to the urgency I felt the morning I hopped out of bed at 6 am, bundled up and marched out the door to drive to the store. That was when we learned I was pregnant with Hudson. So, I popped into Walgreens to grab a box of pregnancy tests again. I got back to the office and at 3:42 PM, two lines immediately appeared on a stick. I laughed. I laughed hard. I couldn't believe my eyes and I was in shock. So I chugged water and did it again. I was pregnant alright!

We had started trying, but I couldn't believe we got pregnant when we did. We thought we would be putting time on the clock and go back in to see our doctor around the beginning of the new year to talk options. There was no charting this time, no acupuncture, no special herbs that people swear by, no gluten-free diet to get more hormones in check, no Clomid or other fertility help. Add the cyst on my ovary and we thought for sure that we were embarking again on a long, challenging road to another baby. I even asked myself if I would feel fulfilled with my family as it stood today - my son in heaven, my daughter here with us - as a defense mechanism against the pain of the potentially pending fertility struggle.

I was in disbelief, it was followed by overwhelming emotion and joy, but then I felt guilty. For pretty much the whole first trimester, I felt guilty. My road after loss put me in a new segment of the population of women who have a mother's heart but not a baby. Whether that is because they've lost a child or they can't get pregnant, it's an excruciating trial in life to endure. This time around, I have a number of friends who I love and care for who are walking the road of fertility struggles, others who are unable to carry a child again, those who would do anything to realize they were pregnant. It gave me intense guilt that I had Hadley, but now had been given another opportunity too, while they were still waiting for a living baby or had been trying for much longer.

I felt guilt because I then had this overwhelming fear of opening my heart again to another baby. This is a very scary road, there are a lot of what if's, and a lot of sorting through the trauma from a third trimester loss. I had a hard time connecting to the fact I was pregnant again, I was doing this again, this was really happening and it was happening now. With Hadley, though there was fear, it was hope and faith that won the struggle. Through the doubts that would creep in, I just knew she would be here with us, because she had to. We could not go through what we had been through before. Finding out I was pregnant later than I had with both other pregnancies and with my UFO's I had also convinced myself this pregnancy wouldn't stay viable. I just felt like I shouldn't get attached to the idea of it and that feeling lasted until we hit the twelve week mark. We waited longer to tell people, I struggled with if we make an announcement, but in the end, we felt this baby deserved to be celebrated, too.

Rewinding back two years, when we were fresh from loss and on the road to picking up the pieces, I told myself that, as much as it hurt while going through it, my heart needed to have enough distance between Hudson’s birth and becoming pregnant again so that it could have been possible had he lived. I struggled really hard with the feeling that I needed to know that Hudson and Hadley could have both been here. Personally, my heart couldn’t handle that the only reason she was here was because he died. That just wasn’t in my scope of understanding for my personal healing.

After Hudson, I no longer believed that everything happened for a reason and that it was not God’s intent for him to die of a cord accident, for us to give birth to him not living. That is just not a place my belief system or my relationship with God will allow me to go to. I felt like they absolutely could have been 17 months apart, it was possible, I would have them both here. Now becoming pregnant again in the time frame in which we have, it is further testament to that. But, that’s where I also started to get hung up again. I felt like if I had both Huds and Hads 17 mo apart, would we be pregnant now with this baby, making Hadley and new baby 18 mo apart? That thought circled in my mind those first few weeks, hindering me from connecting because I was grieving the son who wasn’t here and the sadness for reaching a point now that I felt like it would have been a life with Hudson, or a life with this baby but probably not both. I’ve had to make myself stop going there, and stop thinking about it like that. I will continue to see him among our family in my mind, however that looks at any given time in the future, but I had to finally set a personal emotional boundary and stop going to the other place of question. It’s just more than my heart can take anymore as life after loss continues on. 

There's also been a fair amount of post traumatic stress, and more of it will occur as the pregnancy progresses. I talked about that a lot in my posts from my pregnancy with Hadley. That pregnancy had terrifying moments, especially throughout the third trimester, because the loss of Hudson was still so fresh. There were a lot of emotional hurdles to clear, going down that path again. But even in the midst of it all, there was a peace. Like an ever-present feeling that, okay this may be scary but we are going to get her here safe and sound. Because we have to, we just do. There wasn't another option in my mind, we couldn't and wouldn't endure that loss with her. 

This time, I’m having more flashbacks to my pregnancy with Hudson than I did with Hadley and a lot of that derives from our life aesthetic. It has now been almost two and a half years. A number of the moms I was pregnant with then are also getting pregnant again now, or similar situations we were going through three years ago when we first got pregnant are present again now. When life from a time that resulted in tragedy begins to mirror the present day, it pours some rubbing alcohol in the re-opened wound because the last time some of these things were going on, our baby died. When it came to those other families, it was really hard for me to face them for a long time. It was a lot to work through to get to a point of comfort around kids within a 6 month age range of Hudson, and it's still a work in progress. To be clear for a minute, they did nothing wrong, it was all me and my heart. It was too hard for a long time and sometimes it is still too hard. At this moment in time, I’m forced to face the reality of what I’ve been avoiding. I see him in our daily family life when I allow myself to go to that place. Right now, when I see the families with kids near his age - who he'd be in class with, who we were "pregnant friends" with - I am forced to see what I've been trying to avoid. That we could’ve been raising our babies together this whole time.

We were up at the swimming pool near the end of the summer and ran into some family friends. We had grown up together and they had a son within a month of Hudson’s passing. When their son was born, I had to unfollow them on social media because my heart couldn’t take seeing him grow up. It wasn’t in malice, it wasn’t to be cruel, it wasn’t out of jealousy. It was simply doing what I had to do to emotionally protect myself because it hurt so bad to see little boys his age. Seeing them now didn’t hurt as bad as it would have a year ago, but it still took me aback quite a bit. I could manage a smile and small talk, but I couldn't sit facing them. I had to go to a different section of the pool to play with Hadley and avoid the images my mind wanted to take me to of what my son would look like, what he’d be doing, how I'd be juggling both of them. This may be something that someone who hasn’t lost a baby cannot fully understand and I don’t expect you to, but I do think it is needed insight. These are things that I still live with, things that are still difficult and hit differently. It takes me back to then and that is just a fact of Pregnancy After Loss. That’s something I have to work through in my way and I continue to, in my own time. I am still a work in progress. 

These things are the triggers that take me back to feelings I don’t want to feel. Panic I don’t want to have. Anxiety I don’t want to face. Grief I want to run from. That’s post traumatic stress derived from loss.

Being a third trimester mother of loss, I know that getting through a first trimester doesn't mean that you are safe from the unexpected or unimaginable. Anything can happen at any time. When it comes to this pregnancy, we will have the same approach as last time. The umbilical cord will continue to be watched closely. Hudson’s was very long and very thin, making it easy for him to become wrapped. Hadley’s was a marginal insertion which carried risk-factors of its own, but when monitored closely can be harmless. A marginal cord insertion happens when the umbilical cord attaches on the side of the placenta instead of in the middle (like it is supposed to). For this pregnancy, I’m praying for a normal cord placement without any issues.

At our appointment on Friday, we did learn that I currently have placenta previa. This means that my placenta has attached itself over the opening of my cervix. The good news is that this is something that has the ability to correct itself and that about 90% of the time, it does. We will go back in four weeks and find out if it has moved or not. It is a big prayer right now that this self-corrects and we can have a completely boring, uneventful pregnancy. I was told not to google placenta previa, but I did because, I'm only human and I'm not going to worry about those things unless we are faced with them. To save you the google search, it doesn't necessarily mean anything life-threatening to the baby and that is what is most important.

I’m praying for health and blessings on this little one. I’m praying that he or she will thrive.

You said you were 16 weeks, so what about the gender? That's the second question we get. This time, we aren't finding out until delivery.

From the time we got married and started dreaming of a future family, we said that if we already had a boy and a girl, if we were to have a third, we wouldn't find out the gender and would let it be a surprise. I am a perpetual planner and never really thought I could do that unless I was prepared either way. After Hudson died, I remember people who told us they felt like they "knew" Hudson. That finding out his gender, naming him as early as we did, it made me feel so connected to him, and others shared the same sentiment with us. I said at that time that we would always do that.

But, my grief continues to evolve. I'm in a different place now than when I was two years ago when I felt we needed to always know. A place where I think I need to not know, so that for once, I don't overthink and get carried away with the emotions of those thoughts. I'm in a place in my grief that I'm almost afraid to go through the emotions of knowing that I'm having a baby boy throughout a pregnancy. I imagined what life with Hudson would have brought us. When Hadley arrived, I got a good indication of everything we had missed - but it was different, girls and boys bring different things and different experiences. Planning for a boy again, I think it would bring on waves of grief and added stress that I really want to keep at bay during a pregnancy. I know myself and I would compare the two boy pregnancies and drive myself crazy with worry. On the flip side, I think if I were to know right now during the pregnancy that I was having a baby girl, there would be emotions of mourning a life as parents to a little boy after having been so close to it once before.

I don't want to cause myself more stress or anxiety than what there will inevitably be throughout a third trimester. Since we still don't know what caused Hadley's cord flow issues for sure, and it wasn't the blood clot because that came later, my stress is the top suspect. Therefore, I want to be as peaceful and calm as possible this pregnancy - especially if the placenta doesn't correct itself and I do end up with placenta previa and the complications that could come from that.

We are prepared to welcome another baby, either a little girl or little boy into our lives. We have already had one of each - maybe not in the way that we had planned, or the way that some would recognize, but in a way that allows us to hold true to the pinky promise we made on our honeymoon five years ago. I feel like once this baby arrives, regardless of gender, we will have the same reaction of relief to be holding a healthy baby, of pure joy to welcome them into our lives, and the feeling like our family is complete. I think having that moment to look forward to is what we need for this second Pregnancy After Loss and what will be our last pregnancy experience. I've heard it described as the ultimate gift and one of the last true surprises in life. Hudson is our angel, Hadley is our rainbow. This baby is our grand surprise and I think that is perfectly fitting and special for him or her.