OB visit again!

This baby is really something else! Yesterday morning, I woke up feeling just fine and decided to start baking some Christmas cookies. Lexi & Kiegan were home because it was a Holy Day of Obligation so they did not have school and Lexi was helping me start on some Scotch-a-roos. I kept having to stop and rest up against the kitchen counter because I was feeling really light-headed. Finally, I told her that I needed to just sit down and rest for a little bit. The kids went upstairs to play and I kept feeling worse and worse. It felt like there were a ton of bricks sitting on my chest - I had to work to stay calm and take good, deep breaths. My vision was also going all blurry and I felt like I was going to pass out from light-headedness. I stumbled into the bathroom and just sat on the edge of the tub because I didn't know if I was going to throw up or what. I had brought my phone with me and finally decided I needed to call Travis - I could hardly hold the phone up to my ear and could barely get any words out when he answered, but I was able to say "I need help." and that was about it. By the time he got to the house (Which by the way, he drove past an accident that involved his dad - all is well though - his dad is sore, but his car is totaled!), I was starting to feel a bit better, but told him that I still needed to go to the hospital. When we got there, they hooked me up to the usual monitors and the baby's heartbeat was fine and I wasn't having any contractions. The doctor thinks that the baby must have rolled over onto a nerve and messed with blood flow/circulation. He went ahead and checked me and said that I was 70% thinned out and dilated to a 2 so things are progressing! They also checked my urine and once again I was dehydrated, but they didn't give me an IV (thank gosh!). I also had some protein in my urine which can be a sign of pre-eclampsia and the only "cure" for that is delivery of the baby. So I'm also collecting my urine for 24 hours in this awesome red container that looks like a little gas can. The kids are just totally grossed out by it - especially about the fact that I have to keep it in the fridge! So I drop that off anytime after 1:00 today for them to test and see how much protein builds up over 24 hours or something like that, but I don't have the bad headaches or severe swelling that usually goes along with pre-eclampsia so hopefully things are fine. BUT the baby is considered full-term now so if we do have to deliver him/her, things will be just fine.

I was back home by 1:00 or so and Travis told me to get hopping on the Christmas cookies because he already told the guys at work he was bringing some in. So I made sure to get them done!! :o) Thankfully, I picked all easy ones to do! We also had the County's Christmas dinner in Odell - it had been rescheduled from last Monday. So that got me out of having to cook dinner!

We have our next appt. tomorrow afternoon so we'll see if anymore progress has been made since yesterday! I'll also update the blog as soon as I get the results of my 24-hour urine collection. Fun, fun!! :o)

Doctor's Appointment/Sonogram

Yes, it is 4:00 in the morning and I am awake. I decided that I was tired of tossing & turning and listening to snoring - so what else is there to do but update our blog! :o) I actually broke down and bought Travis this mouth piece thingy to wear at night and it actually seemed to do the trick the first night he wore it and I was so relieved, but now it keeps falling out of his mouth while he's sleeping so we'll see.

My cold is getting much, much better finally! I think I only had to take 1 cough drop throughout the night last night compared to taking like 20 of them. It's also nice to not be coughing my head off all night long. I ended up canceling our hair appts. that Lexi & I had Tuesday night b/c I wasn't feeling well and plus we need to save the money. Monday was suppose to be the Christmas dinner in Odell for Travis' work, but it was canceled b/c of the snow. Not sure if it will be rescheduled? Travis has been working a ton of hours plowing since Sunday morning which stinks for him, but the over-time is much needed right now! So this week hasn't been quite as busy as I was expecting it to be.

We did have our sonogram and doctor's appointment yesterday afternoon! The sonogram went well - we got to see that the baby has hair and VERY chubby cheeks. He/she was sleeping the whole time so that made the technician's job much easier. According to the measurements, the baby only weighs around 6 1/2 pounds which is a far cry from the almost 12 pounds we were told it could be! They say the baby gains about 1/2 a week from here on out so if I make it to my due date then the baby could gain another 2 pounds or so putting him/her around 8 1/2 pounds total (I knew those of you that were voting for 7 pounds or less were CRAZY! Unless you all were just wishful thinking on my behalf that I would deliver a smaller baby. :o) ) They also moved my due date up to Christmas Day - Merry Christmas! Immediately after the sonogram was my appointment with the doctor. When I got up to the waiting room, there was this old lady with a huge fancy fur coat on all slumped over in one of the chairs and I mean completely slumped over - her face was buried down in her coat and she was slumped over so far that her forehead was practically touching her knees. It had me worried about whether or not she was still alive, but then I heard her snore. I guess she was just really tired of waiting?! Anyway, I've gained about 1/2 pound since my last appointment, the heartbeat was nice and strong and she figures I'm dilated to about a 1. We go back next Wednesday at 4:15 - weekly appointments now! It's getting even more exciting now that we're this close to the end!!

Happy Turkey Day!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Ours actually started last Sunday with a Sancken Thanksgiving in Saunemin and we spent Thanksgiving day at Travis' Aunt Jill and Uncle Brian's house. Talk about GOOD FOOD! The only bummer part is that I can't fit as much food as I want in my belly. :o( We also went to my parent's house for dinner so we were all VERY, VERY TIRED when we got home!

Baby news: I ended up in OB again Wednesday night. I was on day 7 of a headache! The Dr.'s office had to really convince me to go - I was really hoping they could tell me something else besides Tylenol that I could take, but they said that I needed to be evaluated. Well, it's a good thing I listened! Apparently I was dehydrated (despite having just finished my 7th bottle of water for the day on the way to the hospital!) and I was having contractions again as well. They gave me some Imitrex (migraine meds) for the headache and an AWESOME IV for the dehydration issue. It took multiple jabs with the needle to get the IV started - first she digging in the top of my left hand and couldn't get it threaded so then she switched to my right hand and it took two attempts to finally get it going. Those of you that know how much I HATE needles can be assured that even though I was pretending to be brave, inside I was a shaky, sweaty mess and I wanted to punch the nurse!! Since I was also having contraction again, the nurse checked me to see if I had started dilating and even though I haven't the baby has definitely dropped. She said the baby's head was RIGHT THERE and she had to literally reach around it to check for dilation. We were released a few hours later. I felt fine during Thanksgiving Day, but that night was a different story! First of all, my heartburn was AWFUL - probably the worst it's ever been. I finally went downstairs at around 1:00 am to see if I could sleep sitting up in the recliner, but things just quickly went downhill from there. I started vomiting and running a low-grade fever plus I have a super bad cough so that wasn't helping b/c every cough meant that I was pee'ing my pants (which I am SO tired of doing by the way!). The last time I looked at the clock was 4:10, but then I fell asleep on the couch, woke up and went back up to bed around 6:00. So far today the fever is gone and I'm not vomiting anymore, but the cough is still driving me nuts and I have ZERO energy. Every time I cough I feel as though I'm going to cough the baby right out. Oh - and I am definitely waddling which is cute too! :o) I did make it to Walmart to pick up the last few items I needed for the hospital bags - I have a feeling we won't make it to our due date so that's put a fire under my butt to get the bags ready.

As far as the daycare goes, I'm done till probably February or so. As yucky as I feel and as often as I'm having "issues", we decided it would be smart to go ahead and close down. No reason for me to be lifting little ones and on my feet all day at this point. It'll make things rough financially, but we need to be smart about this!

Now that December is just a couple of days away (hard to believe!) we've got a lot of busy days/nights coming up. We'll see just how many we make it to! Tomorrow is my cousin's boy's birthday party in Towanda and I think I'm going to try to get a bit of Christmas shopping done as well while I'm still somewhat mobile. Plus tomorrow night we have a little gathering in town for my sister-in-law's birthday - she's 23 today, so young!! :o) Monday is the Christmas dinner for Travis' work so we'll be heading to that, Lexi & I have hair appointments on Tuesday night, we have our final sonogram and next doctor's appointment Wednesday afternoon and the list goes on and on! I should have more time on my hands to keep this blog updated so keep checking back!

I hope everyone had a great Turkey Day!

Doctor's Appointment Update

We had another appointment yesterday afternoon. It was another quick in-and-out one - I think we were in the waiting room longer than the exam room! I've gained 3 pounds since my last 2-week appointment and the heartbeat was nice and strong (around 160 bpm). She said the contractions that I am having are probably due to being on my feet so much during the day. I feel like I'm sitting all the time, but I guess I'm not sitting enough! I am starting to notice some swelling in my ankles which is expected as we get closer to the end. We go back on December 3rd for our final sonogram (we're hoping to find out what the baby is this time!) and our next regular appointment is immediately after that. Then we'll start going weekly - the end is drawing near!

Here are a couple of pictures - the first one is one that I attempted to take of myself at about 32 weeks and the second one Lexi took last night and I'm 34 1/2 weeks. Enjoy!

Already a trouble-maker!

Travis and I ended up in OB last night around 9:00 or so. At about 7:45, I started having sudden severe lower back pain. After talking with a close friend who also happens to be a nurse, we decided that we better play it safe and head to the hospital. When we got up to the OB department, the nurses had me pee in a cup to make sure that the back pain wasn't from a urinary tract infection and then they asked me 100 questions and hooked me up to a couple of machines. One was to keep track of the baby's heartbeat and the other was to monitor any contractions I might have been having. Come to find out I was having contractions every 2-3 minutes! The first thing the nurse had me try was drinking 2 large cups of ice water and then emptying my bladder. Sometimes just doing this will make contractions stop, but of course it didn't. She also went ahead and checked me to make sure that I hadn't started dialiting which I haven't. Apparently there is an outer and an inner cervix (?) and my outer cervix is dilated to a 2 which is of no concern and my inner cervix is still completely closed which is good. Finally, they decided to give me a shot of Terbutaline in the back of my arm to try to stop the contractions which didn't work - I was still having them every few minutes! They could give me 3 shots within a 60-minute time span so 20 minutes later she gave me another *awesome* shot in the arm and this seemed to do the trick! We were back home around Midnight or so and today I went ahead and closed the daycare just so I could rest. My back is killing me again and the nurses just think it's par for the course so a heating pad is my new best friend! Our next regular appointment is next Wednesday so hopefully there will be no more excitement between now and then. Lexi said she would pray for me and the baby today - I told her to pray that the baby keeps on cookin' because it's not time for the timer to go off yet!

Time for an update

We survived Halloween! Lexi was with her dad and Patrick was with his mom; so we trick-or-treated with Kiegan. He was Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean this year. We also were 'wild' and let him walk around a few of the nicer subdivisions this year instead of just sticking to family member's houses. So needless to say we have TONS of candy and that makes me a very happy pregnant mom!! I would post some Halloween pictures, but guess what...we never even thought to take any. :o)

Lexi has had her first Brownie meeting and I think she really enjoyed it! It sounds like they may be going to Medieval Times on the 15th and since that is Kiegan's birthday I'm thinking about also taking Kiegan and Patrick because I know both of the boys would just love it. If you don't know what Medieval Times is all about, check out the website: http://www.medievaltimes.com/home.aspx

Baby news: I'm 32 weeks now! We had an appt. yesterday afternoon and Dr. Nye actually measured my belly for the first time. His immediate reaction? "You are going to have a very BIG baby!" He made the comment of it being a 12 1/2 pound baby - I assume jokingly, but that's all Travis needed to hear to be a proud daddy and want to tell everybody! We have our final sonogram at 36 weeks which is when they'll be able to get a better idea of just how big the baby is and the position that it's in. Dr. Nye said that if it looks as thought the baby is really going to be as big as he thinks it's going to be then they'll offer me the option of having a c-section, but if anyone knows me at all - I'll quickly say 'no thank you'. I prefer to try to do it all naturally (no drugs, epidural, etc.) if possible - I was able to with both Lexi & Kiegan so hopefully I can with this one as well. Travis also got to thinking last night that he hopes it's a boy if it's going to be such a moose (which by the way is what he wants to name it - 'Moose' - yikes!). I have also not gained any weight since my last 2-week appointment so the doctor said that I'm doing a great job of staying on track as far as weight gain goes. I'll admit that I am getting to be very uncomfortable and my energy level is quickly going down. A part of me wishes that I could go ahead and close my daycare earlier than I'm planning because I feel bad that I don't have the energy I need to for my kids, but it's going to be hard enough not getting paid for the time I already plan to be closed! Also, my lower back is ON FIRE especially at the end of the day - turning from side-to-side during the night is extremely painful for me. I hate to complain so much b/c I really do enjoy pregnancy, but these last few weeks are going to be rough I think! I suppose if the baby is as big as the doctor thinks then it's probably hogging every bit of possible room and making me feel so uncomfortable. We have our next appointment 2 weeks from today and then we should be having our final sonogram 2 weeks after that - I know I plan to find out what the baby is (it drives me nuts not knowing!) and I think Travis is wanting to know as well. We probably won't post anything on here if we do find out because we know that a lot of people will want to just be surprised since it's so close to the end anyway, but if you want to know just ask us!!

(I usually keep my political opinions to myself, but I have to say YAY OBAMA!!! I knew he'd smash McCain and I feel a positive change is finally going to happen.)

New pictures!

Ok - finally! Here are some pictures of my ever-expanding waistline. Of course I wore a black shirt today to help make me look "slimmer". :o) I'll be 30 weeks (7 1/2 months) this coming Sunday. Enjoy!!