Sunday, March 29, 2009

Quicky...

Thank God we didn't get our puppy because we needed/wanted a dog for protection. As you can see, she takes her guard duties very seriously. :) (This is how we find her 9 times out of 10 when we come downstairs in the morning.) I love her so much. She is as much a part of this family as the children are and I honestly believe she enriches our lives more than we could ever hope for without her.



Ellie has discovered (rediscovered, I should say) her ballerina tutu. I pulled it out of the closet and it has become part of her regular attire. Little man is currently obsessed with the play Dirt Devil vacuum that I purchased mid-year last season. They were having a grand time this afternoon and it was such a pleasant surprise to catch this shot.



No baby news. Docs are estimating (and re-measured five times on Thursday) our newest addition weighs in at 9 lbs. Highest estimates are 9.13. Lowest is 9.00. We all know how much stock I take in those measurements...But, I'm terrified that these estimates are going to sway my doctor's view of a VBAC. The specialist has said it is absolutely 100% impossible for me to have a VBAC. My thoughts on this are that these specialists are men who couldn't handle the challenges our bodies face in childbirth. I will fight for my VBAC.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Time flies!

Where has the time gone? I tell ya, we have been so busy around here getting ready for the newest addition.

The kids are doing marvelously. They continue to push boundaries and question everything. Elizabeth is a smaller version of me when I was 17. My mom tells me I was more like Ethan as a child in the sense that I was very laid back, quick to learn, and listened well (for the most part). Elizabeth is what I eventually became in high school when I learned that I had a voice and liked to use it. LOL! She does not have the time to sit still for anything, other than a quick book, which she really does thoroughly enjoy. As a result, she's not one to sit and learn while mommy points out the words or colors. Ethan has mastered his colors and tells you the color of everything around him. Elizabeth has mastered pink and black, but that's about all she wants to talk about. Ethan can spell TRUCKS and TOES from memory. He does this thing that I'm convinced is "picking" through the alphabet in his head. I'm not sure how else to explain it, but if you ask him to spell one of those two words, he will begin as normal...

"T" no, no, hmmm, no... "R" "U" no, no... "C" no, no, no, hmmm... *pause* "K" "S". Then, he turns to you and very excitedly chirps, "TRUCKS!" It really is as if he's picking out the letters, or if his brain is sending him the letters and he recognizes that it's not the right one. Very strange.

Ellie has taken to wearing her ballet tutu around the house. I picked one up on etsy.com shortly before her first birthday and she wore it for Valentine's Day pictures (2008). As I was cleaning out their closet last week, I found it and took it downstairs for them to play with. Now, she wears it all the time and even out to dinner the other night. LOL! She is our dancer and singer and will stop everything to sing you a song if you ask.

Both have been uber snuggly as of late and I am savoring every moment of it. Whenever we're near the hospital, they both chime up, "Mommy! Doctor, see baby?" They're so accustomed to my twice a week appointments that even if we're just going to Target (next to the hospital), we must be going to see the new baby. They have been phenomenal through this entire process and I couldn't be happier with their progress. I am confident that we will have no transition issues when we bring the newest addition home in a few weeks.

Nothing new on that front, other than the toxemia scare. I went in for my regular appointment last Thursday and the specialist sent me across the street to see my regular ob, who sent me straight to l&d for several hours. It's funny to me how the male specialist jumps to conclusions and is quick to ignore me. My ob was fuming when she finally got up to the ward and realized just *why* the specialist sent me in. You see, I have a long history of intense heartburn in pregnancy. I have to take a higher prescription for it than normal in the last trimester. It's normal - FOR ME. After the twins were born, they were confident that the problem was my gallbladder. Unfortunately, that wasn't the issue since they took that out during emergency surgery two weeks after the twins were born. Add to that the headache that I had for three days and the fact that my bp was (to him) higher than normal, all signs pointed to toxemia apparently. Well, let's break it all apart and take a closer look. The heartburn we've talked about. It's normal for me. The headache? Stress and sinus related, I'm sure. BP? It was only 130/80. My normal bp (and this has been consistent throughout the pregnancy) is 116-118/60-68. So, while slightly elevated, it was really not a reason to freak out. I spent all morning in l&d hooked up to monitors, unable to drink anything because they were sure I was going to be induced. Ugh.

I had a follow-up appointment yesterday and my cervix is soft, yet firmly closed. I have another ultrasound on Thursday to measure the baby. If they're right, then we're looking at an estimate of about 8.5 pounds. Like I've said to many of you, I take no stock in those measurements as they're notoriously off. It's a nice guess and a party conversation, at best. We shall see, though, what the specialist jumps to do. We're all operating under the guess that *someone* will insist on inducing next week. It's a good thing nesting kicked in last weekend and I'm just about finished with everything that needs to be done! I can't find my receiving blankets from the twins, so I'll go out tomorrow and pick up a few new ones. Otherwise, I've divided all of the baby clothes. We have five big bins from Target. One is a "gender neutral" bin of newborn clothes. We have girl clothes separated into 0-9 months and 12+ months. The same with boy clothes. Then, which ever baby this is *not*, we can sell those clothes or donate them.

I know there is more that I wanted to talk about, but I'm exhausted and my fingers are killing me. I'm going to go curl up in bed for the night.

I send my love to all and hope that everyone is well!

Sunday, March 8, 2009

I'm sitting here trying to think of something to report. The dog is staring at me. She has taken to watching every little move I make, as if I'm going to go into labor at any moment. She did this when I was pregnant with the twins...at about the 34 week mark. She's such a momma dog.

The kids are good. We're really having some issues with Figgy and her behavior, but rather than elaborate on the bad, I'll choose the good. She's so smart. Her vocabulary is booming and she lights up the room when she runs (because, let's face it, the child never walks anywhere) in. Her eyes sparkle with a shine unlike anything I've ever seen. She worships the ground her brother walks on and I love to watch them together. She imitates him a lot of the time, too, which is interesting. The Professor has learned his colors. Blue. Green. Red. Pink. Black. Figgy has absolutely no interest in learning anything other than pink. She'll catch on, eventually. They have been wrestling so much lately that we're almost positive they're secretly planning on trying out as the WWE's next tag team. You very rarely hear any complaining from one of them when they're doing this. In fact, there is a laughter unlike anything we've ever heard.

We've been super busy with preparations lately. We're trying to get our bedroom in some sort of shape to manage a pack-n-play in this space. My brother and his family came over yesterday for my birthday and we all went out to dinner. When we came home, he and Jason moved the large entertainment center out of our bedroom and into the basement. The next step is to vaccum the heck out of the space that the ec was in. Do you have any idea how large the dust bunnies are?!?! Oy. The next step is to move the bed and change the fabric on the headboard, then put the rest of the furniture into place. I built our headboard a few years ago and we change the fabric on it to suit our moods. The latest is a sea green color, meant to be soothing. I have to go through the last of the baby clothes and get two more containers to separate them into. Since we know the gender of this baby (still pissed about this), I'll keep the girl clothes close but not get rid of the boy stuff just yet. I'm holding out hope that the tech really does just call all babies "she/her". I'll be overjoyed if this baby is, indeed, a girl. But, the thought that the surprise has been ruined just devastates me.

I'm still having twice weekly ultrasounds (Monday/Thursday) with the specialist. We had a particularly bad visit last Thursday that left me hysterical and nearly unconsolable. My blood sugars spiked, again, in the early morning hours for a period of three days. The scan itself took nearly an hour and then the doctor came in and poked around for a few minutes. He asked me to meet him in the other exam room because we needed to talk. On the way to the exam room, he asked that I leave a urine sample. When I got in the room, he started poking around on my legs and ankles, asking about swelling. I assured him there was no swelling (and he found the same). He was certain my blood pressure must be through the roof. Nope. 118/68. At this point, I'm thinking he's hinting at pre-eclampsia. Then, he gets back to my blood sugars and I tell him that I was thinking it could be the Tums that I'm overdosing on. The Zantac isn't working and I'm waking up at 2:00 and 4:00 throwing up, essentially, a fire ball. So, I wondered if the spike had something to do with the Tums that I'm taking in the middle of the night. "Could be. Get sugar-free." But, then, he jumps to the fact that I shouldn't be having such bad heartburn at this point in the pregnancy and there is concern about the nausea and vomitting. Okay. Let's backtrack for a second to the twin pregnancy. I threw up every single day of that pregnancy, save for a few weeks, until the day I delivered. I even came close to throwing up on the table that morning. So, it's normal for me to be sick like that. I also had fireballs from heartburn until the very end. To me, this is normal pregnancy stuff. To him? No. His answer? "I think your liver is malfunctioning and I want you to get a panel of bloodwork done." That's it. Nothing more. No elaboration? He doesn't have time to talk. He never does. He hands me the labwork with two boxes checked off: one of them is under organ disease and is called hepatic liver.

To top all of this off? The tech was teasing me about how big the baby is and called her a "gordita." I shrugged it off while in the room, until I looked at the picture she gave me and noticed she typed it into the picture! So, I have this sweet headshot of my daughter with a note that says, "Gordita."

*sobs*

My poor husband has never seen me so upset before. The kids were trying so hard to cheer me up in the car. I dropped Jason off at work and the next thing I know, my mom is trying to get a hold of me. You see, my husband and mom work for the same company so he stopped by her desk on the way up to his and told her about the visit. My mom NEVER gets involved in anything, but ended up sending an e-mail to the doctor.

I'm going to see my ob next week and will ask her for a referral to a different specialist. I shouldn't have to go through this at the end of this pregnancy. I've shrugged off everything else, but this really was the breaking point for me. I only have 6 weeks (if that) left. They keep telling me the baby is way too big at this point (6 pounds 11 ounces - ESTIMATED). I keep telling them (the specialist) that they're wrong about the due date and that I don't have any faith in their measurements because they were so off with the twins. They tell me they can't possibly be wrong about the date because it was based on fetal measurements at 6 weeks. I tell them they're absolutely wrong because the date of conception that corresponds to their due date is physically impossible. There's no way I conceived when they say I did. I'll be in the history books if that's true.

So, that's it from our little neck of the woods. The kids are thriving and I feel like I'm doing *something* right in that regard. I seem to suck at being able to carry a singleton pregnancy. What else is new, though? I suck at almost everything I attempt.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Sunday, Sunday.



This was the only peaceful, smiling moment of the day. That is all.