Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

I should have stayed in college

I discovered today that being a mom would be a lot easier if I had an engineering degree. While I was still pregnant with Megan I decided to buy a sling. With two other kids and a house to take care of, I knew I would need some help in comfoting the baby, but still being functional. A sling seemed like a really good idea. I got one that has the rings so it is adjustable and it has a long tail that can be used to cover up for nursing in public. Let's just say I should have gone with the other kind, which is one piece of material and requires no adjusting. Getting it on is relatively easy, but then when I put Megan in it nothing seemed right. She looked almost like her head was lower than her feet and was really scrunched up. She cried instantly, so I took her out and headed to the computer to look for some help online. After reading the instructions several times I think I have it figured out, for now at least. I'm worried that the next time I try to use this thing I'll have to start all over and read the instructions for another 20 minutes to get both of us comfortable.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

"I think I like her"

Sean did bring Emma up to the hospital for a very short visit on Monday. She held Megan and after a couple minutes decided, "I think I like her." Then she said, "I think Megan likes me too!" She is so excited about the baby. She is constantly "checking" on her, but is really doing well with being gentle and not constantly touching/poking her. Hopefully Nathan will be just as good when he gets a chance to interact with her.

Our new addition

Well, after getting no sleep Saturday night because of irregular, but uncomfortable contractions, my water broke at 3:50am. I woke up Sean and said, "Honey, my water broke." He said, "That means we need to go, right?" You would think having been through this twice before that question wouldn't need an answer, but he just sat and looked at me until I said yes. We got up and got dressed, told Sean's mom we were leaving and headed for the hospital. Luckily the trucks had already been plowing the roads, so they weren't too bad. After my water broke the contractions really slowed down, and actually got less painful. We got to the hospital and got checked in and the OB on staff actually had to some and check to make sure my water had broken. I said if it wasn't my water breaking, I want to know what came out of me! Of course my water had broken, and they called my dr. who said I needed pitocin since my contractions had practically stopped. I was already dilated to 4, so my dr. said I could have my epidural whenever. Around 8:30 the contractions picked up, but were still tolerable. I decided to get my epidural then because I didn't want to be miserable and trying to hold still for my epidural. The anestheseologist came and it took 3 tries to get my epidural in right. A little bit later I was still having some pain, so they tried to give me a litle boost in the meds to see if that would help, but it didn't. The anestheseologist came back and gave me a dose of some other medicine, which helped just enough that I could get some rest. I woke up in a lot of pain and the nurse checked me and said I was 9cm. I had gone from 6 to 9 in about an hour. She called my dr. and got all the delivery equipment ready. Sean helped me through the next several contractions by reminding me to breathe. I was in a lot of pain and wanted to push so bad. I felt like the baby was going to pop out any minute anyway. My dr. arrived, put on his gloves and I finally got to push. She was born literally 5 minutes later! Megan Elise arrived at 1:35pm, weighing in at 7 pounds 15 ounces, and was 20.5 inches long. Originally they said she weighed 7lbs. 6 oz., but after being weighed on another scale later, we found out she was a little bigger. I am feeling pretty good. I'm amazed at how good I'm doing. I think feeling so good is going to make it hard to not overdo it. Megan is doing great and only gets really mad when we change her clothes or her diaper.
Unfortunately, Nathan is sick, so when we got home today Sean had to take him to the dr. Nathan has a double ear infection and some sores in his mouth, so the dr. gave him some antibiotics and some tylenol with codeine to help him rest. Hopefully we can keep him away from Megan until he isn't contagious anymore and we can keep Megan well.
Thanks for all the kind thoughts and prayers. I'm sure we will need all the help we can get in the next couple of months. Love you all!

Thursday, January 18, 2007

big weekend

Well I did it! Sean's mom arrives today and she really wanted me to wait until after she got in town before I had the baby, and I did it. I'm actually surprised I'm still pregnant with the way I've felt for the last month, but this just proves that my body must make a very nice home for the baby. Hopefully it won't be long now before I have the baby because I don't want his mom just sitting around bored and waiting. I'm sure she'll enjoy spending time with the other two grandkids in the meantime.
Tomorrow is my brother's and my cousin's birthday and they have both been convinced the entire pregnancy that I will have this baby on their birthday. I keep saying our family doesn't need another Januray 19th baby, but they think it's a great idea. It will be interesting to see if they are right.

back to the hospital

Yesterday I started feeling pretty crappy all over. I had severe body aches and the chills like you wouldn't believe. I didn't think much of it until I remembered that running a fever this late in pregnancy could be a sign of infection in or around the uterus, which is not good for the baby. So I took my temp, which was 100.2 and called my dr., again. He said I was probably just coming down with something, but we would probably be better off to go to the hospital and make sure there was no infection. My mom came over to stay with the kids because we had no idea how long we'd be at the hospital.
After getting checked in and peeing in a cup, which I'm really getting good at now, they determined I was severely dehydrated and also had low blood sugar because my liver was producing keytones, which is what your body makes when there is no sugar to burn for energy. So I got an IV and they ran a bunch of tests on both me and the baby. Everything came back normal and the baby was doing fine, jumping around in there as usual. They sent me home and said I probably just have some kind of virus. So today I feel awful and I'm just hoping I can recover from this before going into labor. I was sick with a pretty bad cold when I had Emma and Nathan, and being sick and in labor is not fun.

Monday, January 15, 2007

39 weeks

I'm not officially 39 weeks until tomorrow, but I changed my appointment to today since Sean was off work, so this will be this week's update. We had to go to my dr.'s other office, and when they weighed me I had gained more weight than I should have. I'm chalking it up to a different scale so I don't freak out. Everything else was normal and I'm now dilated to 3cm! Yea for more progress! The dr. asked if we had a name for the baby yet, and when I said not for sure, he gave me a very strange look. I asked if it we needed to decide on one and he said, "yeah, I think so." I don't think he's expecting me to be pregnant much longer, little does he know what my body is capable of! haha!
We also talked about the ice storm that hit this past weekend. He said it was pretty bad where he lives, and was shocked when I told him we got almost no ice. Then I asked if he lost power and he said, "yes, we just it back about an hour ago." And then the power went out in the office. It came back on and then went off, and then came back on for good. Kind of weird.
I'm hoping this baby will get here soon. I've dilated more than I ever did with Emma or Nathan before labor, so hopefully my body will do this on it's own.

Friday, January 12, 2007

amazing news

I'm sure a lot of you heard about the Amber alert for the kid missing here in missouri. This happened about 45 minutes from our house. Today they found the missing boy, and at the same place they also found a boy who has been missing from our area for 4 1/2 years! Both boys were from rural areas and they disappeared without a trace. I can't even imagine what these boys have been through but its amazing they have both been found alive.

crappy weather

Tonight we are supposed to get a bunch of freezing rain, again. For those of you not in St. Louis the weatherman said today that this storm might even be worse than the one we had in early December. They also said major power outages are expected again. Oh goodie! Now I can be 9 months pregnant with no heat trying to sleep on an air mattress in my living room! ok, I know that the weather people are often wrong, and I'm really hoping this is one of those times. Or, maybe I'll get lucky and go into labor so I'll at least get a hospital bed and some heat out of the deal.

frustration

The frustration has set in. I know it's still not my due date, but I'm so uncomfortable I'm ready for this pregnancy to be over. I've done everything I can think or that I've heard to try to speed things up but so far nothing is working! I'm definitely not interested in drinking castor oil, YUCK! It rarely works, and just makes you sick, so I'm not that deserate yet. I'm hoping since the weather here is supposed to get really crappy I'll go into labor this weekend. I am trying with everything I have to will my body into labor, but I don't think it's going to take. It sucks that the dr. said my body is making progress, but clearly it's just not enough.

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

38 weeks

Went to the dr. again tonight. He checked me and I'm at 2cm!!! He said that with all this past weekends happening he wouldn't be too surprised if I went into labor soon. We reviewed my charts from when I had Nathan, and at my last appointment before having him I was dilated to 2-3cm. Even though I was induced with Nathan, when they hooked me up I was having contractions every 12 minutes or so, so I'm hopeful we are moving in the right direction this time. I'm still not sure I'll know it when I am in labor right away, but I know eventually there will be no doubt. I am so happy that I'm making progress and the dr. seems hopeful it won't be long now. Since this is baby #3 I think my body finally has it figured out. I lost the 1/2 pound that I had gained last week, so that's good news. No more weight gain. If you are like me you are all looking forward to the post that says the baby has arrived.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

more excitement

I had some minor bleeding last night. After a screw up with my dr.'s after hours line, my doc called me back and said we should probably go to the hospital to get checked out. This was at 10:30. Luckily the kids were still up, we're such bad parents, so we threw them in the car and headed to the hospital. We got there and I put on the hopistal gown and they hooked me up to all the monitors. Meanwhile, Sean and the kids went and filled out the registration paperwork and then sat in the waiting room until the dr. had checked me and determined everything was fine. He did say I was dilated to 1cm, yippeee! They said it was likely bloody show and nothing to be concerned about. They also said to take it easy, but I'm not really limited on my activity either.
The kids thought it was great fun because there was a baby in the nursery for them to check out and a tv in the waiting room. Then as we were leaving the ARCH helicopter was there and the kids were quite fascinated by that.
We are still just waiting, which is all we can do right now. The dr. said I could go into labor tomorrow or it could still be a couple of weeks. I love how direct they are!

Saturday, January 6, 2007

minimal progress

so this is not a pleasant topic, but I wanted to update everyone on the progress here. I lost my mucous plug yesterday. For those of you that don't know exactly what that means, consider yourself lucky! This doesn't mean I'm any closer to labor, or any further, but it is a good sign that my body is getting ready for labor. It also gives me more hope that this time I may actually go into labor on my own, and hopefully sometime before or close to my due date. I am also hoping this will mean that at my dr. appointment on Tuesday he will say I'm making some progress and am starting to dilate.

I pretty much have everything ready for the baby at home. All the clothes are washed, and the sheets are on the bassinet. Now I'm having a freak out that we will end up with a baby of the opposite sex than we originally had planned for. Tonight we bought a baby book so we can get the footprints in it when the baby arrives, but I wouldn't buy anything gender specific just in case. We installed the car seat base last weekend, so all we need now is a baby!

Emma is really getting excited, and Nathan.... Well I'm still not sure he knows what he's in for, but he's been more whiney and clingy lately. I don't know if he is aware that things are about to change drastically, or if we'd be going through this anyway. I'm getting pretty excited too. I can't wait to meet our new family member and see how the kids react to having a new baby in our house all the time.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

funny story

Last night after my appointment we took the kids by the hospital so they could see where mommy and daddy would be when we go to have the baby. The hospital I am delivering at is pretty small, and therefore not really busy. All the babies were in their mommies' rooms, so we were showing the kids the nursery and looking at some pictures they had up. A nurse stopped by and was talking to us and asked what we were having. I told her, and then added at least that's what they tell me. She said that very day a woman delivered who was having a boy, only it turned out it was a girl. SURPRISE! I can only imagine what a shock that would be. So even though the ultrasound tech spilled the beans, you never really know!

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

37 Weeks

Had another dr. appointment today, but I have no news for you. He didn't do a "full" exam, so I don't know if I've made any progress. I go back in a week and he said he would check then. The good news is I only gained 1/2 pound this past week. Yea me! I'll spare you the details, but I know for a fact that my body is getting ready, but there are no signs of how soon labor will actually arrive. Only 3 weeks to go!

On a side note Sean and I and our kids all have birthdays linked to the 3s, so I'm convinced I'll either have this baby tomorrow, the 13th, or on my due date, the 23rd. I know this sounds crazy, but all the important events in our lives have come on dates with 3s, so why should this baby be any different.