More fun adventures...

Saturday (July 14) I started having contractions that were more painful and intense (the pain was more in the top of the uterus and the back - so I figured this was actual labor as these felt different than any contractions I'd had yet this pregnancy. The OB said that the contractions would feel different and these fit that.) We went to the hospital late that night. I was also feeling nauseous... 

The contractions up to the point we'd arrived at the hospital had barely effaced me any more so I wasn't super happy about that! However, they monitored me for a while and at one point Daniel told the nurse I was nauseous so she brought me in an anti-nausea pill (actually 4 because she didn't have the 1 dose pill.) Not 2 minutes later those pills and everything else came back up... A while later I got hooked up to an IV to give me some IV anti-nausea medication. While I'm pretty sure it helped a bit, I still managed to puke 2 more times. (Oh and then there was the matter of the 3 hurried trips to the bathroom while the other end emptied out... also not fun!)

Soon after that Daniel started upchucking and we decided that we'd both caught the stomach bug Eric had dealt with a few days before. However due to the IV medication (which didn't entirely help me not lose stomach contents a few times that night...) and fluids that came with it, I think I had an easier recovery than Daniel. Once we figured out it was the stomach bug, we knew that ANYTHING would come up, as Eric had thrown up even a sip of water! (So if any of you get this - just don't eat/drink for like 8 hours! And I sincerely hope you'll be able to sleep through most of that time... Okay I really sincerely hope you won't get it!)

We spent the whole night at the hospital and my contractions managed to stop all by themselves somewhere around 5 or 6 (I'd been drifting in and out of sleep since about 2-3 am). Let's just say that having a crazy annoying stomach flu and contractions at the same time isn't any fun! However the contractions did manage to dilate me 1 more cm. So after 2 weeks at 1 cm, I am now at 2 cm...

We left at 9am after getting a few hours of sleep. I was the one who ended up driving as Daniel was in no condition to do so... Let's just say that I wheeled him to the hospital exit as he had to stop and rest after we got out of the OB department. So I asked the nurse at the nurse's desk for a wheelchair. It probably looked funny with the pregnant lady wheeling her husband, but I know he looked like he didn't feel good... so maybe it didn't look that funny.

Luckily my mom kept Eric for the whole day and we were able to go home and sleep a lot. By that evening we mostly just had the flu-achy feeling. We were also glad we didn't have a baby at this point as it would have been a bit miserable to be dealing with the flu and a newborn! My mom brought Eric back and he fell asleep on the way over and slept all night (well he did join us in our bed at 4ish)... so that was nice ;).

The good part - we made it to 38 weeks, which was nice since after our adventure at 36 weeks we had only hoped to make it to 37... Now we're just simply wondering when this little guy is going to show up. (And hopefully Eric doesn't pick up any more bugs between now and then!)


The best part - this morning after a good 9 hours in bed last night we were both feeling mostly better!

June 2012

This month started out with Daniel attending North Star Training for Boy Scouts, so he was gone all day Friday, Friday night and most of Saturday. He came home and got to go to scouts that evening! I decided I am not so good at being pregnant and having a husband gone pretty much the whole weekend.

The second weekend in June we both got to speak in church and then I got to teach Relief Society. (I normally teach the 3rd week but the teacher who teaches the second week asked to switch as she was going to be out of town helping her daughter who was having a C-Section.) So that was a fun experience... I don't do very well teaching/speaking while pregnant as I tend to have my mind go completely blank - true story - for example, in Relief Society I was teaching from the George Albert Smith book that we're using all year and I could NOT remember his name so I had to look at the cover so I would remember it! Yeah, that got a laugh from the sisters in the room...

The day after we spoke, some friends from the ward invited us to a picnic in the park. It was fun (Thanks Hastings!). Then that Thursday was when we had the 3-D ultrasound done and the next day was the non-stress test and the AFI.

Took this the night before the AFI and non-stress test. Just in case.

On the 23rd I started having contractions every 10 minutes, an hour or two later they went to 7 minutes. After a total of 4-5 hours they died down. But pretty much every day since then I've been having contractions - basically 1-2 per hour. Sometimes they get closer together and then die down again, and sometimes it is just a whole day with a contraction or two per hour. (I did have false labor with Eric as well... but that was at least on my 38 week mark!)

We had a great Father's Day... Eric and I made Daniel breakfast in bed -

 and while Eric wouldn't let me put whipped cream on his pancakes, he did enjoy eating some:

 

Eric gave Daniel this shirt: (tutorial found here: http://thebluebasket.blogspot.com/2011/09/tutorial-car-shirt.html#more)

Great way to get backrubs ;).

On the 27th we had an appointment with the OB and got my group B strep test done. He also checked me and said I was pretty much effaced but not dilated at all... however he was surprised that I wasn't at all dilated because of how low the baby's head was in my pelvis (which was most likely causing my crampy feelings). So pretty much Daniel and I are thinking that we're not going to make it to 40 weeks, but hopefully we make it to 37 - only one more week to go! The doctor simply told me to take it as easy as I could (looking at Eric during the last part of the sentence...)

The last two weeks in June they were doing Utility work on our block and I would have to say that while it was inconvenient to get out of our cul de sac, Eric really enjoyed being able to see all the trucks and machines out the window!

On the 25th, Eric decided to make our lives interesting by getting a fever and throwing up... luckily by Tuesday he was finished with the vomiting part, but is still sick and has a nasty cough. I should have known he was getting sick, because the night before he came up to me (15 minutes BEFORE bedtime) and said: "It's time to take my vitamins, brush my teeth, take a bath and go to sleep!" I would have to say I am loving the cuddles I'm getting from him while he's not feeling well. On Wednesday he came up to me and said: "Mama, Mama, I need my snuggle loves." I responded: "You need your snuggle loves?" Eric: "I promise!" It was so cute and totally a parrot of me because I obviously say I Promise more than is normal...

I would also have to say that not having to clean up a mess for a day or two was nice as well... but having to see him suffer with being sick was not so fun. His fever reached 103.5 in the middle of the night on Wednesday and then was gone the next day (thankfully-fevers that high always scare me). However we're still waiting for the cough to disappear.

June 30th marked my 36 week of pregnancy... It also was the day that Daniel got to go to the 11-year old day camp in the mountains. He was gone from 7AM until 5PM. Having him gone two Saturdays in the same month wasn't the best for keeping our house clean (especially since I'm suppose to be taking it easy...)

And some random pictures of Eric:

He got a super soaker that Daniel's had for years and was using the orange nob at the end as the sight. Where he learned that... ?

'Reading' his book.

Falling asleep on the floor. He was just too cute not to take a picture ;).

July 1, 2012

Yesterday morning I woke up with contractions coming every 10 minutes.  Luckily I was able to sleep until about 8:30 (thank Eric for sleeping in!) They continued to be roughly 10 minutes apart (yeah, me and that whole never regular with contractions thing!) for the whole morning and early afternoon. Daniel left to go to church at 10:40 (I was staying home with Eric as he still had a cough and we didn't want to pass germs) and they were still 10 minutes apart... and stayed that way the whole time he was at church. While Daniel was at church I showered... nothing I did seemed to make a difference in the contractions - either getting shorter or fizzling out. Shortly after he got home they decided they could stop being 10 minutes apart. By 2:30 they started getting a bit closer and by 4 or 4:30 we decided to head into the hospital. It probably was a bit early but the OB said we should go when they became regular and didn't slow down or stop when resting, etc. 

We stopped by my parents house and dropped off Eric, gave bedtime routine instructions and were off to the hospital. When we got there we checked in and got settled in a room. The nurse came in and checked me - I wasn't completely effaced and I was only at 1.5 cm dilated. So they called the doctor who said it would be best if we stopped the contractions... so they gave me a little yellow pill that slowed them down for about an hour (main side effect - headache). Then they CAME BACK with a VENGEANCE. Seriously they were about 5 minutes apart and VERY painful. I would have to say though - the contractions were actually pretty regular at that point and I honestly turned to Daniel and said, "Are they sure that pill was suppose to stop my contractions instead of help them along!?" I was only halfway joking. Those contractions were the most regular I've ever had! The nurse came and asked how it was going and I said they were back and about 5 minutes apart. So back to calling the doctor... 

When she came back she said the doctor ordered a shot... let me tell you something - that shot SUCKED (sorry for you people who don't like that word but it really did)! First when it goes into your arm it BURNS like crazy. Once it gets into your system, it makes your heart race (think the middle of a killer cardio workout) and you get shaky (think low blood sugar-and it really makes you feel yucky like that too!) After about 2 hours the contractions had pretty much stopped. We decided to head out of the hospital and ended up staying at my parents house (10 minutes away from said hospital instead of 45.)  It was after 10PM by this point...

I ate something and then we got ready for bed. Oddly enough by this point I wasn't as exhausted and didn't feel as yucky. I honestly didn't realize how much of what I was feeling (exhaustion, feeling yucky, etc) was from that stinking shot!

I pretty much only felt a couple of really mild contractions after leaving the hospital (and since for the past week I've been having a 1-3 every hour I wasn't concerned.) I was told to take it easy (well as easy as you can having a 3 year old at home...) But was classified even more this time (was told that at my last OB appt as well.) I was told that if I went to the store to go shopping (like at Wal-Mart) that I should use one of the wheelchair carts... Luckily we did most of our stocking up in the last 2 weeks!

This morning we made it back in time for me to drop Daniel off at work so he could make his Monday morning meeting (an hour after he was suppose to be there, but I love the place he works as they're very understanding!) 

Here's to hoping that I don't get regular contractions for at least another week!

May 2012

At the beginning of May we decided to start potty training Eric. He got the hang of it (except for going #2) and did well for a few days and then stopped using the potty. After cleaning up more accidents than my pregnant body wanted to handle, I decided that it was time we quit the potty training. All told we tried for about 2 weeks. He occasionally still decides to use the potty but it is once every few days if that (and usually now it is just when he wants a 'reward'). We're not going to try until after the baby is born and life settles down (as we don't want him to regress once he's started using the potty all the time and we hear regression happens quite frequently after a new sibling arrives.)

We were also taking advantage of the warm weather and playing outside frequently. He has a set of construction toys he likes to play with in the dirt - it's his 'construction site.'

On Daniel's birthday (after he got his teeth drilled at the dentist) we had fun as a family. We went geocaching and Eric got to find a few of them which he loved. He now likes going to find a 'treasure'. (Of course geocaching typically only involves signing a log, but he still loves it!)

Eric has really started playing with his toys and will act out scenes from the movie 'Cars'. I tried to get some video of him doing it, but always caught him to late or he caught me trying to film it (he stops what he's doing when he sees the camera.) But he would start with the scene after the race when he's talking to Mack and does the whole Rustez commercial, then mumble through the part after and eventually put McQueen (toy car) in Mack (toy truck) and start singing "Life is a Highway" like in the movie. That kid has a pretty good memory!

One night we were on a walk and passed a yard with a tree stump in it, he said "There's a tree... with it's parts broken off!"

Another fun thing is that for Mother's Day I got an ice-cream maker. Eric loves it and comes running every time he hears it turned on...

One day while I was changing his diaper, he made his comment: "No, We don't eat Bum Cream... we eat Ice-Cream!" He really is on a kick of saying what we don't do followed by something we do.

What a week!

Last Friday Daniel and I had a 'date night' - meaning we ordered pizza and watched a movie together (Philadelphia story - I love old movies!) while Eric did whatever he wanted (as we kept an eye on him...) Saturday I did my normal volunteering (I do it every other week) at Bountiful Baskets. Then Daniel went to scouts and I went to our Steak Relief Society presentation. Which I thoroughly enjoyed (although wished it had not been in the gym the whole time - my body hated me sitting on that metal chair!) Then I came home, made my menu plan, grocery list and was about to go shopping when I started feeling contractions... every 10 minutes. 10 minutes became 7 and we called the OB dept to see what I should do. Try a warm bath was the advice (and if they don't go away to come in and get checked.) Luckily they went away (after a total of 4-5 hours had gone by.) However, since then I have been having contractions all day (about 1-3 per hour.)

Sunday came and went without any major events. Monday Eric decided to get sick. We went to Urgent care that night, but nothing visibly wrong. Tuesday he was doing better, but not completely well. However I needed to run stuff by my mom's house and then went and picked up a cell phone (we haven't had one in YEARS) for emergencies (top on my list was being able to get ahold of Daniel in case of labor...) On the way home I started feeling a little... unsettled (basically any time I started eating something my body would say... keep that up and it will come back up!) Luckily I didn't get sick like Eric. Then Daniel had scouts that evening. 

Wednesday came and with it my OB appointment... in which I found out that the reason I'm having cramp-type feelings is because baby's head is so low in my pelvis. In fact baby's head is so low that the OB was surprised that I wasn't at all dilated... just mostly effaced. Eric seemed to be doing better and I was trying to work out the car situation (should I take Daniel to work or make him bring the car back to me so I could sleep in a bit more...) so I could attend my Great-Uncle's Funeral. Wednesday evening I started having contractions a bit more frequently, but this time I was pretty sure it was false labor as they started at 5 minutes apart... that's how my false labors tend to start! Luckily they died down and we went to sleep. Somewhere around 2:30 I noticed Eric was HOT (he came to our bed around midnight with a cough that didn't sound so great)... So I went in to get the ibprofen and the thermometer when both Eric and Daniel met me in the kitchen. Took Eric's temp and it was 103.5... *Sigh* I had thought he was starting to get better! We called the nurse's hotline and followed the instructions. We all slept in (after Daniel called into work saying he'd either be late or not in at all...) I decided to not go to the funeral and expose all of the attendees to whatever bug Eric has!

Eric's fever hasn't came back (*fingers crossed). He's still acting a bit sick but is getting into stuff again... so he's not that sick! We decided to watch and see how he's acting. If he still isn't remarkably better by tomorrow we'll take him in again.

Hopefully this next week is a little less eventful... although if you ask Daniel or my mom they will tell you that they think baby may make his appearance within a week - which would DEFINITELY NOT make it less eventful! I'm still hopeful that we'll make it to July 7th (when I'm 37 weeks)... I can't say I'm hopeful much beyond that though (see paragraph 3...) but we'll see. I should at least pack my hospital bag - just in case!

34 weeks

I'm currently 34 weeks pregnant and am simply glad to still be pregnant. Wait, What? I never thought I'd be saying that because about a week ago I just wanted to be done (but knew it would still be about 7 weeks!) So what changed? The reality that I could have had to deliver a baby 6 weeks early...

Last Thursday I went to get a 3D Ultrasound (our clinic does them for free if you have your 20 week ultrasound done there...) We got a clear view of baby's back - but I don't have one of those cool pictures to show you what baby looks like... we didn't get one (well we could have gotten one of baby's back...) The ultrasound technician was actually in my ward growing up. She was a few years younger than me but we knew each other. As she was doing the ultrasound she was asking questions (which I naturally assumed was just to make conversation since we sort-of knew each other.) She asked, so what's your due date, followed by - who's your doctor, and then, When do you see him next? Um... right then I KNEW she wasn't just being friendly and conversational... So what's wrong?

It turns out that my amniotic fluid was a bit low. So she called my OB and after we waited for a while (he was with a patient) the doctor said I should  go home, take it easy, drink lots of fluids and then go to the hospital in the morning for a non-stress test and an AFI (Amniotic Fluid Index).

I would personally like to say that I don't handle situations where there are unknowns very well! I always tend to go with the worst case scenarios... So of course when I got home, part of my taking it easy was to look up what happens when one has low fluid levels. (Side note: when Daniel told his boss that we were going in for tests due to the amniotic fluid being low, he said it almost sounded like he was taking me in for a tune-up... and it kind of does!) So I learned that some people have bed rest, others have to deliver early and others have to go in for the AFI and non-stress tests 1-2 times per week... So I naturally imagine that I'm either going to deliver this baby during the next few days or I'll be on bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy with having to travel to the hospital 2 times per week to get tests done (not too bad but the hospital is a 30-45 minute drive away!)... and the waiting was excruciating. I honestly wish we could have went in that afternoon as I don't handle waiting very well!

This picture was taken Thursday night - just in case! Me at almost 34 weeks

The next morning came and we headed off to the hospital. I learned that morning that I wasn't the only one with a worst case scenario outlook - Daniel kept thinking that we'd have to have a C-Section... When we got there the nurse hooked me up and I was so thirsty (as I am pretty much every morning...) and I asked if I could have some water. She said she'd have to check in case they had to take the baby they might not want me to have anything to drink. Okay that did NOTHING to ease my fears... however she did say that she wasn't saying they would have to... but still didn't help! After a while she hadn't come back so I asked Daniel to go ask if I could have anything because I was really thirsty by this point. He came back and said my OB would get some for me. (Apparently he was the only one at the nurse's desk when Daniel went to ask.) A different nurse than had taken us to our room and got everything set up came in with the water. About a minute after she left the first nurse came in and said it was time for us to go to get the AFI done and "they" said that it would be best if I didn't have anything to drink... (who is 'they' I wonder - obviously not the doctor who was ready to bring it in himself!)

It had been about a half an hour at this point. The nurse unhooked me and we went to get the AFI done. Luckily it turned out that I had a normal amount of fluid (albeit it is on the lower end of the normal range.) The doctor came in to the room shortly after we'd came back. He said the levels were normal but 'they' wanted to monitor me for a bit longer. He also said that I should do kick counts if I wasn't feeling baby move like normal (and explained how to do them). So who is this mysterious 'they'? I'd like to know ;). The nurse came in and hooked me back up to the monitoring thingy and after about 20-30 more minutes came in and said we could leave. Everything looked fine.

Me at 34 weeks with Eric... for comparison.

I would have to say that this experience really opened my eyes to what some women have to go through while pregnant. While I didn't have to go through all the worse case scenarios that went floating through my head, the reality that I could have had to was very real. I can also say that I'm grateful to still be pregnant and am trying to be more upbeat about all the normal but annoying symptoms that occur during the last few months of pregnancy. Although I'm sure I'll probably be complaining in a few more days as that's just the way human nature works!

This experience has also made me rethink my approach to unknown problems/situations. It really NEVER occurred to me that everything would be fine and I'd be continuing life as normal! It made me realize that I need to shift my thinking to be more positive and not ONLY think about the negative. While thinking about all the possibilities can help me to be prepared in case one of them happens, I should also focus on the fact that everything CAN be alright (while still formulating plans for if it is not alright so I'm not caught completely off guard.)

April 2011

I've fallen a bit behind... I still have a post to do in March, but I have to sort through a lot of pictures for that one so I thought I'd post about April (since we didn't take many pictures that month!) Basically only on 2 days... The day before Easter (egg hunting) and on Easter. We have a few before then but that's basically it!

Eric really had fun Easter-Egg hunting... but even more fun when he got to reap the spoils!

We didn't give him that many eggs and I put them out of reach so he couldn't eat them all in one day (or one hour!)

These are the same type of Jelly Beans that were on his cake - they were sour and I decided I LOVE sour jelly beans...

Easter Sunday we went to visit my parents. We took a trip to the ranch and go to see the baby cows... this one was a brand new baby cow. We were across a fence from this cow and her calf, but she was still eyeing us suspiciously!

This is another calf we got to see (not very close mind you...)

This is the calf's momma... I love the way she's staring us down! Don't mess with momma cows! (We were riding on a Gator while seeing the cows so we weren't on foot, and we didn't ever get too close to the calves - that is just asking for trouble!)

We also got to see this baby horse:

He lost is mama a few days after birth.

Eric really loved seeing the baby horse.

He could have stayed there for a long time watching it.

My mom climbed in with it and held it so Eric could pet it. (Baby horses that are fed by humans tend to kick at people so we didn't trust Eric being that close to it without intervention!)

Eric really loves seeing the baby animals (as well as the big ones!) We had a fun trip.

As for what we've been doing this month - Eric and I haven't gone out a lot as we started potty training him about mid-month. It has definitely been an adventure. I think I tend to visualize things being easier than they really are! However, he's doing pretty good during the week and has most of his troubles on the weekend (well with peeing in the potty, pooping is another animal entirely and he's just really starting to even try to go on the potty)... except this weekend he did better than before, so maybe there's hope that I won't have to do laundry as often anymore! The first thing I learned about potty training is to do it when I've had enough sleep (I was tired the day we started it and that wasn't such a good thing.) The second thing I learned is that it is better to do it when your spouse isn't going to be working tons of overtime (granted I didn't know this would be the case when we started!) Third, it takes patience and a lot of incentives (who knew that playing with bubbles would be one of the best rewards - granted we hadn't played with bubbles at home before...) Fourth, you'll want at least 14 pair of underwear to start with or you'll be doing laundry a lot more (we went through about 10-12 pairs the first day... and we did actually have about 14 pair - luckily.) 

I promise the next post will not contain bathroom or potty training stuff - it's just that potty training was what we did the second half of April!