30 Weeks!

Today marks 30 weeks for me and I couldn't be happier! Well, I probably will be happier still when I hit 38 weeks... Right now though, I'm content and so is my OB. I had a checkup with her today and she said that everything still looks great! I hadn't really gained any weight (which rocks) but my blood pressure was elevated and I had protein in my urine :(. She said that she wasn't too worried about it though. She said to really up my water intake and that should help. I myself am not terribly worried about it. I was really stressed when I left the house this morning right before my checkup and I'll I'd had was a cup of coffee. I'm pretty sure that it was the combo of stress and not enough fluids that was the culprit and not preeclamsia.

The most exciting part of my visit today was that Graham was able to go with me! I'm pretty sure that I have said before but, he has been anxious lately with worry for his soon to be little brother. I hate that at the tender age of 9 he is sharing the fears and worries that I have :(. He is still asking if this baby will be going to Heaven like his little sister. I thought that it might make him feel better if I took him to the doctor with me today. I was almost 100% certain that there wouldn't be any scary findings that he would have to hear about so off we went!

While we were waiting Graham and I took silly pictures of each other. :)

Graham came prepared to the appointment and had a list of questions for Dr. W. this morning. They were :

• How big is my brother?
• How old is my baby brother?
• What is my brother going to do when he is born?
• Will he be ok?

She was so sweet and answered each one appropriately for a 9 year old. She really took her time with him and neither of us felt rushed. I love her and the fact that she is a mother to two young children herself (3 years and 1 year). Graham was able to hear the baby's heartbeat and watched as my belly was measured. He really seemed to enjoy being included in today's visit. I asked him as we walked out if he felt better now and he said that he did! It really made my heart feel soo much better. It's just so hard to worry about this new baby and my oldest baby at the same time. I would do anything for him to bring him comfort and happiness!

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 30 wonderful weeks!

Size of Baby: Over 3 pounds by now! I go back for another growth scan in a week and a half and we'll know exactly by then.

Total Weight Gain/Loss: My weight surprisingly stayed the same!

Maternity Clothes: All the time. I still need to go out and find a couple of tops and shorts that are the next size up :(.

Gender: Still a little boy! On Monday's appointment (that I still need to blog about) they re-checked for my Momma and it's definitely still a little boy in there!

Movement: Getting strong and more consistent!

Sleep: I know that I'm going to jinx myself, but it hasn't been too bad lately! I'm really sleepy by the time that bedtime rolls around that I usually drift right off.

What I Miss: Maternity clothes that fit! Haha.

Cravings: Broccoli Salad. Thanks goodness my SIL Melanie is making some for a family gathering this weekend! (Mel make extra just for me K?) :)

Symptoms: A little bit of heartburn some evenings but nothing that a couple of Tums can't fix. Also, the swelling in my legs has started. Darn Texas heat!

Best Moment This Week: It's a tie. I loved that my Momma got to go to the doctor with me on Monday and that I was able to take Graham with me to the doctor today! This fleeting time of pregnancy is soo special and I love to share it with my closest family!

Who Ya' Gonna Call? Ghostbusters!!

Ok, so maybe I'm not quite ready to call these guys, but there is definitely something weird going on in my house. Weird enough that made me actually want to blog about it to what other people thought about the "situation" in my house right now.

We first started noticing something weird going on in Grady's room around the time that I started my bed rest in May. We had decided to move our kitchen step ladder into Grady's room so that he could climb in to his own crib without me lifting him in anymore. One morning Grady got out of bed all by himself and came downstairs. I though to myself "how is he doing that?". When I went up to inspect I noticed that the side rail was down on his crib. (Grady is usually very very scared of heights and will NEVER climb out of his own crib). I questioned Bobby later that day as he had been the one to tuck him in bed that night and he said that he had probably forgotten to raise the rail before leaving the room. I have found the rail down many times when I went in to get Grady up (including this very morning which prompted me to write this post!).




Here is Grady's crib set-up right now. When we leave the ladder in his room this is where we leave it and when we come back in we find it moved from the left FRONT of the front of the crib all the way to the right enclosed SIDE of his crib. The side rail is of course in the down position here but we always leave it in the up position when he's in it sleeping.


 A couple of weeks later I noticed that the step ladder was being moved around the one of ends of the crib. At first I thought that it was Grady that was moving it around by reaching over the crib rail. The only thing is that the step ladder is made out of metal and is pretty heavy. Also, the rail comes up to Grady's arm pit. I'm not sure that he would even have the leverage to pull up a 20-25 pound ladder and move it around from one side of the crib to one end of the crib. Grady, being only a new 3 year old, doesn't have the speech skills required to tell us anything other than he wants the ladder moved out of his room at night and he wants it all the way out in the hallway. It scares the heck out of me to think that it's somehow moving around in there at night or nap time and it scares him too!

The couple of things that I've mentioned only happen maybe once a week but since May that's been a lot of weeks! I'm thinking that maybe I should set back up his baby video monitor. The only thing there is that I probably won't be sitting around all night (or even during a 3 hour nap time) to watch every second of it to see what happens.

I need some help thinking about this situation more analytically and less scary. Are you superstitious? What would you do? Do you believe in this kind of stuff?

What A Week!

I just realized that I hadn't updates my blog with the newest pictures from this past week! I couldn't believe how many pictures were on my camera that I needed to upload. Ack. I need to start doing this daily. Sadly, my new camera has decided that it hates me and will no longer acknowledge it's own USB cable. I now have to remove the card every time (and thus risk forgetting to put it back into the hatred filled camera) I need to upload anything. This also requires my lumbering prego self to lay on my floor to inset it into our printer to upload the pictures. I will usually only do this only once a week and the rest of the time I'm left to beg Bobby to do it for me :).



This was this past Sunday at church. The kids were celebrating the end of Vacation Bible School! We were soo proud of Grady for staying up at the front of the church with Graham for so long during the service with out Bobby or I!




We also loved getting a chance to see so many kids singing the songs that they had learned during the past week. How awesome is it to see so many kids praising God! Can you see Graham's profile in the middle of the picture? :)




On Tuesday the boys and I headed out to the Library for story time. It was our first time to go to this particular library and we were so excited that it included a fun singalong as well as an arts and crafts project after the stories were read. The theme there for this week was Underwater Adventures. The boys got to make shark hats to wear!



Graham realized that he was one of the oldest kids there for story time but was soo good to put up with the more "babyish" stuff for his little brothers sake.



Grady and his shark hat! His poor shark needs some orthodontic work done...



Graham and his finished hat. His shark teeth are embellished with a lovely shade of green coloring.

They had an awesome time when it was time to start looking at books. Can you tell that Grady was having a great time looking at books?? :)

Graham quickly found his favorite section. It was the non-fiction space section. I love that he has soo many interest!

Yesterday (Thursday) we stayed inside from the heat and painted some little plaster figurines that I had. Graham painted Monsters and Grady painted Farm Animals!

More than just figurines were painted...

Grady saw that Graham had taken a couple of swipes at his arm with a paint brush and he ALWAYS has to do the same thing...

And as a final picture (lest you all be confused and think that I have a perfect family)  I caught Grady later with one of dried figurines smashing it against the table and then using the flakes as chalk to color on my kitchen table.... Ah well, I've always appreciated toys/projects that were multi-use...

Whoo Hoo It's Friday! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

29 Weeks!

Thank the Lord that yet another week seems to have flow by! I can not hardly believe that this time next week I'll be where I never thought that I'd get to. 30 weeks seems soo monumental at this point!

I don't have a picture of myself for this week. I never felt really dressed up enough to have my picture taken. I'll get one this weekend though!

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 29 awesome weeks!

Size of Baby: At last measurment on this past Monday he was hovering at 2 pounds 15 ounces. He has to be somewhere over the 3 pound mark now! I go back again this coming Monday so I can find out exactly then. I can't wait!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: We shall never speak of this evil topic again.

Maternity Clothes: Sadly they barely fit anymore. Some days when I know that we'll just be hanging around the house I wear some of Bobby's T-shirts. Several days now I have had to re-hang one because it was too small... :( (my Bobby is not a small man)

Gender: Still our little boy in there!

Movement: He does great for a week or so and then I feel like he has an off day or two where he doesn't seem to move much. At my doctors office this past Monday I mentioned this and they reasured me that they don't necissarily follow the 10 kicks an hour rule. They like to say 4 kicks an hour twice a day. They reminded me that if I ever got really scared to just call and they would put me on the monitor.

Sleep: I still have "off" sleeping days where I just can't seem to get comfortable and drift off. Lets just say that last week I read 3 books cover to cover during the nights I couldn't sleep...

What I Miss: I miss the freedom to move around and do whatever it is that needs doing. I will do anything in my power to get this little boy to the best gestation that I can but I'm still a little depressed about the modified bedrest.

Cravings: Chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate!

Symptoms: Just a little heartburn this week, but nothing terrible.

Best Moment This Week: My Momma is coming in town tomorrow and I just can't wait! It's been almost 3 months since I've last seen her and I miss her terribly!

Week 28 (and 4 days)!

I just got back from my checkup at the specialist and things could not have gone better! Baby Boy is still measuring a little bit big (around 1 week ahead!) and weighs 2 pounds 15 ounces now! I can not believe that by tomorrow I will have a 3 pound baby! (ok, sorry, enough exclamations points!) My cervix kicked butt this week and was measuring at 3.53 cm which is waaaay in the normal range. My amniotic fluid index was measuring in the 13's which is great too. The most exciting part of the visit (other than seeing his sweet little face...) was that the sonogram tech totally caught him "breathing". I asked if she saw anything when I knew she was looking at his diaphragm and she said no, but not to worry. A few seconds later she saw him do it! She said that babies don't do it all the time so we were really fortunate today!! On a worse note, my weight went up a bunch :(. Ah well, I spend the better part of my time dieting when I'm not pregnant so I'm not going to worry about it right now. Also, I realized that for all these dang weeks I've been giving myself the wrong amount of progesterone. Once again, nothing I can do about it now. I just need to make sure that I'm doing it right for the next 6 weeks.

 My awesome doctor said that I can come back next week for a checkup (instead of waiting the standard 2 weeks) since my Momma is coming into town to baby-sit me for a while. My Momma has never seen an actual ultrasound being done even with 5 grandkids. This should be really exciting for both of us!

And now for the cutest pictures of the day!



Sweet little face looking right at us!




Perfect profile!



At one point when the specialist was doing the ultrasound he put his sweet little hand up and totally waved to us. It was beyond cute!! How am I ever going to make it though these last weeks when I can already hardly wait to meet this little guy!

Our Fluffy

Fluffy is the sweet and silly nickname that we gave to Caroline while I was still pregnant with her. Since we don't usually pick out names for our kids until they are here on Earth with us we had to call "him or her" something. She proudly received the name the day we came home with our first ultrasound picture at 9 weeks and 1 day.

(I have to interject here for a moment as say how bitter-sweet this moment is for me. It's the very first time I have shared any kind of picture of Caroline on my blog before :(. I keep thinking that maybe for her first birthday in October I will have the strength to post a picture of her or her feet or something. We'll see.)

Back to my story.... Bobby and I both joked that we had never seen one of our kids at this particular week of gestation before and that due to her size and positioning she looked a little chubby (in a sweet way). We called her our "Fat Little Fetus " or "FLF". Both of those morphed into Fluff and then on to Fluffy.

Graham was over the moon to call her this. It just cracked his 8 year old self up for some reason and he proudly shared the name with anyone he could. He still calls her this to this day. The name Caroline has almost no meaning to him. And that's fine. The death of a sibling has to be almost as hard as the death of a child and if calling her by her old name helps him then I'm all for it. One day I said the name Caroline out loud in the car for some reason and he had to ask me "Is that the name of our baby in Heaven?" For a while it hurt me soo bad that he had to ask this question. I just kept thinking to myself what a bad job I was doing as a mother that I couldn't even keep her memory alive within our own family! (I realized later that he wasn't used to the name Caroline as I am, but her old nickname.)

But, as the time for our new baby to arrive draws nearer and we feel a little bit safer for the outcome, we talk more and more about "baby brother". It's obvious that Graham is picking up on this and in turn is taking more about "Fluffy" for some reason. At first it made me really sad to hear that nickname. I quickly realized though,  I didn't want to be one of those parents that just sweeps things under the rug emotionally just so "it can be easier on everyone". We let him talk about her as much or as little as he wants to now.

I will admit freely to hiding much of my tears and emotion from my kids. I want to spare them the sadness that I feel and I certainly don't want them to worry anymore than they already do. So I don't talk about Caroline all that often. That's why it brings me soo much joy when Graham and I have conversations about our growing family and he goes through all the "new roles" that everyone will be playing. He is still the "Big Brother", Grady is no longer the "Little Brother" but now holds the title of "Middle Brother", then he always adds in "then there's Fluffy" and then our newest  "Little Brother". I love love love that he always includes her in the lineup of our children. Even I as an adult don't always do that. My brain just seems to get stuck in the "I only have 3 boys" category. Bless his sweet heart for the gentle reminder of "No, there will always be 4 kids".

I hope that this garbled mess makes some sense. It's all been running through my head for a couple of days now and I really needed to get this out! Grief, fear and excitement are all hard emotions to process all going on at the same time.

I hope that everyone is having a great weekend so far and thanks for listening!

My Day In Pictures

This is how I started out my day. Yummy, a glucose test drink! At least this time it was the Fruit Punch flavor. I wonder why they can't make these thing carbonated. They would taste soo much better!!

Then I got poked in the arm for the blood draw. FIVE vials were drawn for ONE gestational diabetes test. Hmmm...

Had small panic attack on the way home from the doctor and began wondering if this was the pregnancy that I wouldn't pass the glucose test. I stopped at the grocery store and bought this to eat before I get the results back. You know, just in case I can't eat anything sweet for a while. (I might have had another panic attack when I got home and have eaten a piece while the pie was still frozen. It was gross.)

I went by the our church when I knew that Vacation Bible School was almost over to get a couple of pictures of the boys. They were having such a great time!



Poor Grady. At the end of VBS today he had just had enough! I took him home early and put him straight to bed. He was just a mess he was so tired!



After the gross frozen pie incident from earlier I was still having the urge for chocolate. I had just gotten done reading a recipe for a Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake that Jayme posted today. It was really really good!

My sweet hubby had a really bad day at work (one of those kinds of days where you should have just stayed in bed...) so I made him his favorite dinner to cheer him up (along with the cake). You can find this yummy recipe here.

Hope that everyone else had a great day!!

Prayers Please

Update: I'm back from my appointment. Dr. W. said that my cervix checked out great! No pressure being put upon it and the blood didn't appear to be coming from it. Yay! Still no telling where it's coming from but she didn't seem terribly worried about it so I'm trying to not be either. She went ahead and did my 28 week checkup while I was there so all that I have to do tomorrow is the glucose test. She said that since I'm doing so good I can start to do more on my feet and less laying down! Yay again!



Oh Lord, the drama that is this pregnancy. So I went to use the restroom and realized that I was spotting. Again. I called my doctor's office and spoke to a nurse and she said that they would squeeze me in at 4:30 today to check and make sure that it wasn't from my cerclage giving out (or from anything else worrisome for that matter).

I told the nurse that I had a my regular 28 week appointment tomorrow morning at 10:15 but she said to come in anyway. She did seem really relieved though when I told her how far along I was. Thank goodness for that brief amount of positivity!

Ya'll please say a prayer that it's nothing. Personally I'm praying that it's something really stupid like hemorrhoids. (I can honestly say that I have NEVER prayed for hemorrhoids in my life but I am now!! :)

(sorry, humor is the only thing that keeps the anxiety from setting in full force...)

In The News!

We just realized the other day that Bobby and Graham made one of the local papers! I'm so proud of them!

Bobby's elbow is covering most of Graham's face but you can kinda still tell that its him. :) As you can see it's from the 4th of July parade that the guy's were in for Graham's Cub Scout Troop. 

Bobby has been in the paper before but I think that this is a first for Graham!

Begining Of The Week Randomness

Ugh, I have soo much to blog about and I just either haven't had the time to sit down to do it or I've been too tired to sit and form complete thoughts :). The 3rd Trimester tiredness has all of a sudden kicked in. So, once again, I'm turning to my favorite thing in the world right now...bullet form!

• I adore bullets. It allows me to have to avoid the aforementioned inability to form complete thoughts. I'm all about doing anything the easy way these days!

• I can tell that either the baby is getting much larger or I am gaining weight at a crazzzy rate (probably the later) and now I can't hardly fit into any of my maternity clothes. Crap, crap, double crap. Tops and bottoms, they are all too tight. Being a stay at home mom, I don't really need all that much to get by, but Ya'll, I'm down to like maybe 1 pair of shorts and 2 shirts. I hate the thought of buying anything more as this is the last baby and watch me go into labor the week after I spend good money. Crap.again.

• A waitress offered me Wine at Olive Garden this past weekend. I was all "Whaaaa?". I'm guessing that when I sit I just look hefty and not prego??

• I got myself into a big flower kick this past weekend and did my nails in flowers and then bought some for my table too!

• The boys and I watched the last space shuttle take off the other day. I love it that not only do we get the NASA channel but that both of my boys really enjoyed watching and listening as it took off!

Are my kiddos the only random ones that like to lounge around in laundry baskets to watch tv?? :) Please pardon Grady on the potty. That is a whole other post I have in my head...

•  Graham finished up swimming lessons on Friday night. We adore the place that he goes to. Graham gets to learn from the daughter and granddaughter of the the sweet lady who taught Bobby. Graham already knows how to swim but I like that he gets to strengthen his strokes and learn more about water safety in general.

I forgot to pack my camera on the last night so all I had was my phone to take pictures. Yikes! This is the best swimming one I got... :(



Graham was so proud to receive this years achievement certificate!



• Today both boys got to start Vacation Bible School. Our church does such a good job getting all the kids closer to the Lord! They had a blast today! I'm sure I'll have another post coming up later this week with more pictures.



I tried to get the boys picture together for about 20 minutes this morning. I finally gave up. Sadly (or funnily, however you like to look at it) this was the best! :) Grady was in full-on Monster Mode this morning.



Prayers for Baby Acorn

Some time ago I did a post for a fellow Baby Loss Momma, Emily (and you can read, or re-read that here). As a quick recap, she lost her first child, Aidan, at around 23 weeks. She went on to get pregnant again (yippee!) but soon started having problems all over again. This brave and wonderful woman has gone an astounding 15 weeks with ruptured membrane and no infection is now giving birth to her next child! I'm guessing that he or she will be here sometime today!

Emily is only 32 weeks (which still rocks!) but is still of course nervous as to the outcome of Baby "Acorn". I'm praying to God this morning that while he or she  may be born small they will hopefully be incredibly healthy! Emily deserves this baby soo much after all that she has been through with his/her brother and then during her long and stressful pregnancy.

Please stop by and leave Emily some love and words of encouragement as she gets through this last hurdle to becoming a Momma to angel here on Earth!!

The Almost 27 Week Doctors Appointment Update!

I had my regular every 2 week visit with the specialist this morning and everything came back not too crappy this time! :) My cervix is only borderline iffy measuring in at an average of 2.67 cm this morning (2.5 and below is crappy) and with only some slight funneling. The baby however looked great! He was weighing in at around 2 pounds 5 ounces (in my book that's almost 2 and a half pounds... I like to look on the bright side of things). On average he is still measuring at around a week bigger (whoop whoop!!) at 27 weeks and 6 days. My AFI (amniotic fluid index) was at 11.95 which kicks butt too since that's usually what keeps me up at night worrying about. Overall our little guy is in the 56% this week for his growth which they said was excellent. Grow baby grow!!

And now for the exciting stuff (because mostly what I posted so far only interests me and is for my records so that I don't forget)!

What a way to start out a Wednesday! There is just no other high in this world than seeing your baby happy and healthy!

Disgusted

I don't want to harp too long on this subject and foul my family blog with what is going on in current events right now. I'm sure everyone is totally aware of what has transpired in the Florida court system this afternoon. All I can say is I am beyond DISGUSTED.

That foul "mother" and her family have only succeeded in making me want to hold my boys tighter, read to them longer, spend even more time with them, kissing and hugging them every second that they will let me, and truely love them to the end of time and then back again. If nothing else has come from the tragedy of an innocent little girl loosing her life, it has made me want to be an even better mother than I thought possible. I'm hoping every other mother in America feels the same way so that she didn't loose her life in vain.

If you have a second go and check out The Heir to Blair. She really said it best.

Happy 4th of July and a Commenting Challenge!

What a crazy, fun long weekend we have had! I'm super excited that I can share all of our festive 4th of July celebrations (and other miscellaneous goings-ons) by joining up with Jenna from Jenna's Journey! She is doing a super fun challenge to link up and then  read at least 10 new blogs a day for 7 days and leave a comment on everyone. How fun to get to know other people and have other people get to know me and my family!

Graham and I started out the weekend by escaping from the crazy heat here in Texas and heading to the nearest movie theater! This has always been one of our favorite places for him and I to have Momma/Graham dates.

Yikes! Not the greatest picture of Graham and I at the movie theater but we just had to commemorate our finally seeing Kung Fu Panda 2!

Sunday for us started off pretty low-key and ended with a bang! We headed out to church for the 11 am service and then went to lunch afterwards. Grady can always be bribed to smile for the camera with the promise of a french fry! Graham has just learned from over the years that it's better to just smile and get it over with or else I will just keep bugging him until he does. He is one smart kiddo! :)

When we got home from lunch, I had Bobby take a quick picture of me for this weeks pregnancy journal. I think here I am 26 weeks and 3 days! Can you tell that this is definitely a post-lunch pregnancy belly?? I swear it was not that big when we left the house that morning!!

We rested up for the rest of the afternoon and then headed out the Circus!


At the age of 9 Graham is starting to get really tired of me asking him to pose for his picture everywhere we go. Thank the Lord he is such a good sport most of the time!

Two Words : Cotton Candy. Yummy!!

Poor Grady started to have a meltdown in the middle of the show. By this late in the evening he had just had ENOUGH of being cooped up in our little part of the row. I finally took his picture mid-cry and showed him the camera and thank goodness he was all distracted by it!! :)

The fun end of the show parade!

This morning we woke up and headed out to start our 4th of July activities! Graham is in Cub Scouts and we were able to participate in tons of fun activities in our little community here. The first thing that he and some other boys were able to do was the flag raising at the local park!



(I was trying to get a close up of the boys doing the flag and consequently you can't see Graham in this picture! Oops!)







I am soo proud of Bobby and Graham! Bobby is the assistant Den Leader for the Webelos group. I love that they have this special thing that they can do together!

The boys also got to be in the Garden Ridge parade around the neighborhood. I was standing on the wrong side of the street to get a good picture of the boys. Can you see Bobby waving at me though? :)

Grady was equally excited by the parade as he was as all the candy that he collected!

After the Parade the Cub Scouts had a "Rain gutter Regatta". Bobby and Graham each built a little wooden boat to sail down a rain gutter.  No trophies were won but they had such a good time participating!

We are about to head out to my in-laws house now for a little cookout.  We seriously celebrate the 4th of July around here almost all day long! I hope that everyone else has had a great long weekend!!