Jokes

Evie' s current favorite joke (she thinks she's hilarious, btw): she randomly says whatever word happens to come to her mind preceded by "peanut butter"

For example: "peanut butter daddy!" *hysterical giggling* "peanut butter car!" *more giggling* "peanut butter POTTY!" *falls on the floor because she's so overwhelmed by her own hilariousness*

That girl...

Christmas 2013

Hello 3rd trimester! Hello Baby!

Getting bigger! Can't believe we still have a ways to grow!!

I'm 28 weeks today; we've made it to our last trimester! YAY! So excited that we're getting closer!

In the last week or so baby has been moving a TON, suddenly lots of elbows and knees I think ;) I think he must've had a growth spurt, because it's been really hard to feel him from the outside up until this point, and it's been mostly random little kicks. These days he feels like he's wiggling all over the place! Karl's kind of felt him a couple of times in the past little while, but he REALLY felt him last night for the first time.

It's also been really weird because movements I feel super well from the inside can't be felt from the outside, but some that I can't feel at all are very obvious from the outside. I blame my anterior placenta... It really is annoying some times.

I did my glucose test at my prenatal appointment this week and PASSED! THANK HEAVENS!! I am still anemic, though unfortunately, so I've got to get on top of that better :/ I also finally got my results back about the whole infection thing, and they were negative! Yay!

The other awesome thing about today was that we got to go to our fourth ultrasound and see the babe!

Perfect little profile :) Little arm under his chin. Love that little nosey and those lips!

Evie and Karl came, and while I was getting checked in they were running around the lobby. The old lady at the information desk came up to them and Karl was sure they were in trouble, but instead she gave Evie a cute little baby doll... I'm glad people think she's so cute, I don't think she'd get away with most of her antics otherwise! When I asked her where she got the dolly she told me that Grandma Janice (Karl's grandma) had given it to her, which I thought was funny and cute.

Evie was also SUPER talkative today (maybe because she slept in??), she kept running around saying "I wanna see the doctor!" She got tired of waiting in the lobby and tried to go back all by herself, and was terribly mad when I wouldn't let her. When we got back to the room and during the ultrasound she talked the whole entire time. She kept saying things like, "Mommy sick, got hurt, doctor help her feel better!" and she was really enjoying seeing baby brother up on the screen.

Speaking of baby brother, he is doing really well! Fluid was good and there were no signs of any problems caused by the fall yesterday, thank goodness! He's also growing really well (which is one of the things they were worried about last time), he's measuring a week and four days ahead and supposedly weighs about three pounds, three ounces at this point. I knew he'd been doing some growing recently!

All his little body parts are measuring well and looking good still, and his echogenic bowel is almost completely gone, which is great!

After the tech checked everything, she said, "let me just change over to the other machine really quick". I figured that must mean just a machine with a different frequency or something (ok, I had no idea what she meant, but I just trusted she knew what she needed to do), but suddenly, THIS picture came up on the screen:

All cuddled up :) 3D pic... A little weird, but cool all at the same time, lol ;)

I didn't know they DID 3D ultrasounds at maternal fetal medicine, and since I wasn't planning to spend 80 bucks to get an elective one, I didn't think I'd be getting one. We were surprised, but it was pretty cool! Karl thinks baby looks pretty alien-ish but I think he looks WAY more like a baby than in his alien-demon-skeletor pic... That was pretty creepy looking.

Another side note, we saw a different maternal fetal specialist today, and when came in to check us out, she informed us that she had been the one who had done our ultrasound with Evie. She thought it was kind of cool to see her now on the outside, running around and chattering up a storm!

While I thought this was going to be our final ultrasound this pregnancy, apparently we still get to go in one more time to follow up, just in case, at 34 weeks. I guess I'm happy we get another chance to see him, especially since there aren't any major concerns at this point, but I do feel like I've spent an awful lot of time at maternal fetal medicine! Oh well, I'm just going to be glad I get to see him so often :)

Labor & Delivery, Revisited

We got to go to the hospital a couple of times with Evie, and she was fine, but I really was hoping not to have any reason to do that this time around. My plan was to only have to go to labor and delivery once for the "big day" and to come home with a nice healthy, full term baby. No emergencies, no false alarms, just be there for the birth of my baby and not a minute extra.

Yeah, I'm apparently terribly at following through with my plans. Fate and the lovely winter weather seem to have had something different in store for me...

It all started this morning.

Karl was doing the grave shift and wouldn't be home 'til 12 and I was trying to get Evie ready for church by myself. We were late, of course, so we left the house intending to get there in time for nursery. It had been snowing a little bit, so we were trying to be careful, but it didn't seem that bad--it was warm enough that a lot of the snow was pretty melty. Evie and I got almost to the corner of our street, but that section of sidewalk hadn't been shoveled and it looked like there was enough snow that I didn't want Evie trudging through it in her little church shoes and getting her feet wet and frozen off. So I picked her up, put her on my hip, and we kept going.

Bad idea.

It looked like it was just a bunch of left over snow from the last couple days, so I expected it to be maybe a little slick where the snow had gotten packed down or something, but I took about two steps and suddenly found myself flat on the ground. This was a full out splat kind of a deal too, not one of those falls where you have a chance to kind of catch yourself or fall on your backside, I was just instantly on the ground. Since I was holding Evie, I'd tried to save her and ended up falling sideways onto my hip and arm with her landing on top of me.

Not fully comprehending what had just happened, I tried to right myself while still holding Evie, took kind of a half step, and ended up falling again.

Next to the sidewalk there is kind of a stone retaining wall, and when I fell this time I started to fall towards it, which also happened to be the side I was holding Evie on. All I could see as I started to go over was Evie's head going right towards the rock wall and I was also scared I would fall on top of her, so I desperately tried to get us going in the other direction and ended up right back where I started. This time I managed to land on my knee, hip, and almost kind of caught myself with my hand...

After going down a second time, I started to get smart and set Evie down before trying to get us both upright. I was in a lot of pain, but I got us both up and steady and had a chance to look and see what had happened. Apparently, what I thought was just some crunchy old snow was actually just a thin layer covering a big sheet of ice. Evie and I individually managed to finish crossing it (carefully) all right, but I guess having Evie and baby throwing my weight off was enough to send us sprawling.

I considered taking Evie right back home after that, but we were about half-way to the church and I knew if we didn't go to nursery, I'd have to carry her home, LITERALLY kicking and screaming (which I definitely wasn't up to), so we just went to church and I sat with her in nursery for the last two hours. Since Karl got off of work at the same time church got out, I had him come pick us up and drive us home (seeing as I could barely walk and I couldn't pick Evie up). Maybe this wasn't the most brilliant course of action, in retrospect, but it seemed like the best plan at the time.

We got home, I was in a lot of pain and had a few contractions, but I was fully prepared just to suck it up and ignore my injuries. I didn't though... I'd already used up my brilliant choice for the day. I called the midwife, kinda hoping she'd just tell me to rest and I'd be fine, but she wanted me to go straight to the hospital.

Karl, having been awake for more than 24 hours at this point, was having a hard time staying awake, so I called my parents (who were in the middle of church) and they came down. Evie went home with my dad to hang out with her aunties, and my mom and I headed to the hospital.

What they worry about with falls or similar trauma, is either the placenta detaching and causing fetal distress or that it will cause productive contractions and labor. We got all hooked up to monitors to check on baby's heart rate and contractions, and they did some blood work to see if baby's blood had gotten into mine (indicating a placental abruption).

Baby's heart was great the whole time we were there, the only problem we had was that the nurse would come in, get us all set up with the monitor, and not long after she'd leave the room he'd roll away so that the monitor couldn't pick him up anymore. Then the nurse would have to come back in, search forever to find him, and get us all hooked up again. He did this a few times... Naughty baby!!

My blood work came back fine, and since his heart rate was good and there were no other signs of a problem, it looks like my placenta is fine, which is very relieving!

I was having contractions, some of which were very, VERY uncomfortable, but luckily we got them to subside enough that they were okay sending me home after a few hours. I was given strict instructions that if I noticed a decrease in fetal movement, bleeding, any signs that my water has broken, or if my contractions increased or got worse, that I was to come right back in.

Luckily, since I was released, I haven't had any further issues. I'm just super sore and bruised up, can hardly walk, still can't carry Evie, and I feel like I've pulled about every necessary body part involved in the walking process... But I'm great :)

I guess I should look on the bright side: baby is ok, I got to spend some quality time with my mother, got some super cool accessories (gotta love hospital bracelets), and Evie did really well at my parents' house all day. My one complaint is that they managed to collapse one of my veins while trying to "fix" me, so I ended up coming out of the hospital with more injuries than I went in with. *sigh* The phlebotomist who was stabbing me said, "oops, I guess we should be more careful with your little veins next time." I would have appreciated her being careful the first time, buuuut what can you do...

My beautiful, sore bruise. Not from the fall... but from the hospital.

I am super grateful for all the prayers and good thoughts, and I'm sorry if I worried anyone! I will definitely be a whole lot more careful from now on. I guess I really didn't realize how much of a difference being big and pregnant makes when attempting everyday tasks!

Honesty

All right, I think it's time for a little honesty here... not that I've been lying to you or anything, it's just, I think it's time to face the fact that my public persona is only a half truth. 

Then again, whose isn't?

I guess there are always those whose social media lives are basically a second by second feed of the inner workings of the deepest parts of their minds, but most people fall into a much more private category I think. 

On the other side of the coin there are those who barely share ANYTHING personal via the internet... and in all honesty, they're probably the ones who are best off in this mad world.

In between the two lies the majority of social media users. You'd think this would be the happy medium, the best place to hang out, but it just doesn't seem that way to me. Not anymore.

We are the ones who only share the best parts of our lives with our virtual social networks. After all, who really wants to hear about the crummy stuff?

And you know, it might not be that we are purposely withholding the darker details of our lives, I mean, a lot of times that stuff is pretty personal and maybe doesn't need to be out there for all to see, but it ends up creating a very interesting, if unintentional, culture. 

Suddenly we are feeling inadequate, and even if we would have wanted to share a struggle or a failing, we are now too ashamed to admit to the world that our lives are not quite as shiny as everyone else's. 

I don't know, my brain is mushy from chronic lack of sleep, so maybe I'm completely wrong on all this (and perhaps I'll wake in the morning to discover with horror the gibberish I've thrown out for all to read), but I guess that my point is, I'm not perfect. I have a good life and there are many amazing things in it that I want to share with the world because I'm so happy or proud, but I also struggle... and I wish I didn't feel so abnormal for struggling so much. I wish I didn't feel like my entire social support system would despise me if they knew my short-comings.

Every once in a while I catch a glimpse of what some of my Facebook acquaintances are really experiencing, and I'm often taken aback. To finally see a glimpse of weakness or struggle in the midst of the perfect pictures and humorous statuses... it's almost astounding. You think you know how wonderfully these peoples' lives are going (obviously much better than your own),so to realize that just maybe they are in a similar boat to yours is momentarily earth shaking. 

I suppose maybe the answer is just to distance my self from social media in general... I don't know. I just wish there was a way to find a little bit more honesty in my virtual life...

Birthday #2!!!

My dear little Evie-Cakes is two years old... I can hardly believe it!! Due to the unfortunately small size of our apartment, we had to have two very small parties with just our family... maybe next year we should celebrate in June!

I wish I had gotten more pictures of people, but I was kind of running around like crazy trying to take care of things both times, because that's how I roll.