Nola is 5 Months Old!

I took Nola for her 4 mo check up on 3/29 (over a month late) and here are her stats:
weight: 14lbs 5oz (25-50%)
Height: 25" (25-50%)
Head: 39.5 cm (<5th %)
The dr said she should be rolling over between 4-6mos and that we should work on it with her. We hardly ever give her 'tummy time' because she spits up so much more (if that's even possible) when she's on her stomach, but we'll be starting that more now. Also, the dr prescribed her some Prevacid for her spit up issues. We upped her formula intake to 8oz every 3 hours, but she only keeps down about half of it. She gave her the dissolvable tablets and I tried to give her one this morning, hahaha, total failure. She kinda went like 'what's this?' and then started gagging and threw up all over the couch. So, we'll be dissolving it in a teaspoon of water from now on and then squirting it in her mouth with a med dropper. Much easier than cleaning the couch. I hope this helps because the poor girl is in a constant state of wetness. I mean really, I can't change her clothes as often as she soaks them and I know how gross it feels to sit in wet clothes. Bleh. Anyhow, I'll keep updating as to how it's working!

I finally got my hip mri done. After wasting a bunch of time making phone calls, I found out that the dr's office was waiting for my insurance to send them a pre-authorization before they sent the dr's order to the radiology place. Well the insurance co had sent the pre-auth straight to the radiology place, so they were waiting for the dr's order. I swear, NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING! Anyhow, so I went in yesterday morning (at 7, didn't get out till 9:25) and when the tech was getting me prepped I asked if she was going to do the dye scan. She said that since the dr didn't think I had an infection or anything that she didn't think we'd need to do the dye. Well after the first mri, she took me out and said, 'I think we better do the dye too.' This makes me wonder if she saw something on the first one that she thought might be 'wrong' and wanted a more thorough picture or maybe she just wanted to cover all her bases. They said it'd be 2-3 business days to get the results from the hematologist. I'm hoping to get some kind of answer because this amount of pain can't be deemed 'normal'.

I'm kind of sad knowing that I'll never be pregnant again.

Tony and I had our first counseling session through the peer counseling service at church. It was interesting and will probably be helpful. I think counselors have this ability to stare at someone in complete silence and not feel weird. I don't have that ability.

Allison's baby shower is this Saturday, so we'll be going up to Phx tomorrow after Tony gets home from work. I'm hoping to prep the food tomorrow so then it's ready to be cooked in Phx. I want to go to the Renaissance fair while we're up there, but we'll see if that actually happens.

19 weeks old

lounging in our pjs

(or banamas as Embry calls them)

My littlest girly is 19 weeks old!

Nola's still not rolling over. I've given up trying to move her along, I'm sure one day it'll just happen. In the meantime, Embry has taken to shoving Nola's butt off to the side and telling her to roll over. Nola has also figured out that she can make a lot of noise by screeching. I tried to get it on video, but so far, no success. She was supposed to have her 4 month check up yesterday, but it got rescheduled to this coming Tuesday.

We tried to get Embry to do a somersault, but she doesn't get it. If we help her, she does it, if not then she just rolls over to the side and yells, 'look at me, I did it!' Oh and she's almost always going poo poo in the potty now and when she does something right she says 'say yay for me!' Her imagination has exploded and she is constantly talking to her imaginary friends from Dora and Diego.

So I have to call my insurance company with my daily weight and blood pressure reading and I'm getting pretty tired of it. I understand they're trying to keep track of this to ensure I'm not retaining water etc but every time I report it, they call me back and ask me about my weight. Basically, they want to know why I weigh so much. Argh. I thought it was because of the steroids, but since I stopped those 2 weeks ago, I figured the weight would be coming off by now. Also our scale is messed up. I'll step on it once and it'll say 146, then 1 minute later it will say 152...I'm pretty sure that's not possible. While I'm on a rant, I'd like to say that I'm in a world of pain. It's my hips. You know how when you're pregnant you get really bad charlie horses? Well while I'm sleeping, that will happen, only it's in my butt, through my hip, and up my back. My house is in a constant state of disarray as well. Imagine how many times a mom bends down to the floor everyday? Well, I can't and therefore, whatever lands on the floor tends to stay there. I'm still waiting to hear about the hip mri. I should probably call them today and figure out what's going on.

Good news! It seems that Mello Yello (the coke version of Mt Dew) is becoming regularly available in the southwest. I found some at Walmart a few weeks ago and just about did a happy dance in the middle of the aisle. Then I went to the grocery store yesterday and behold, there was Mello Yello sitting in the soda section. YAHOO!

I missed a Week

Well, I got the blood tests back FINALLY and good news: no TTP for me! Woohoo! There was one blood test he didn't get so he had me go get some blood drawn for that (3 phlebotomists, 3 sticks in one arm, 1 in the other = good times) and he is sending me for an MRI of my hip. Oh, the ultrasound was fine, as I suspected. Good that there aren't any clots in there (esp since my inr has been low the past 3 weeks) but he's doing the MRI in case the bone has died in which case we'd discuss a hip replacement. So, we'll see. He's a funny guy. He told me that if I planned on having more kids that I should call him so he can go out of town, ha. :) I'm kinda sad that he doesn't need to see me anymore since he's actually a good doctor and nice, but I guess that's a good thing.

Nola is still insisting on rolling about 75% of the way onto her tummy, but she cannot get her arm out from under her. She's quite adorable. My MIL just left today after being here for 6 days and it was nice to actually get a proper amount of sleep. I got to sleep in today which is a good thing since the children refused to nap at the same time today (although Embry actually did sleep which is a rarity these days). Nola is also cooing a lot more and, dare I say, possibly spitting up less. I'm not sure though, it's hard to guage, but I'm taking her in for her 4 month appt next week anyhow so I'll ask the dr about it again. For now we've been continuing to put rice cereal in with her formula. The anti-spit up formula was nasty (all chunky coming back up) and also made her constipated so we went back to the gentlease.

I had my 'I'm Alive!' Party and it was awesome. There was a moment when I was walking downstairs and I could hear all the people chattering happily, see all the lights, hear the Christmas music, and I walked past the Christmas tree with a stupid smile on my face. I was just so happy to have recreated Christmas and spend time with all of my loved ones. Of course there were some missing, but it really turned out great. We played our version of Scribblish (hilarious) and Just Dance on the Wii (also hilarious), ate delicious food (ham, turkey, meatballs, wienies, potatoes, green beans, chocolate, french silk pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie...basically all you can imagine eating at Christmas), then set off fireworks in the backyard. They went a lot higher and were a lot louder than I had envisioned, so I'm happy none of the neighbors got upset...or at least didn't tell me that they got upset. :) Oh and for the most part, everyone dressed up pretty fancy which makes me oh so happy. I LOVE getting dressed up! Oh and I got my hair cut/highlighted the day before so that also made me feel good. Now the hard part: putting away all of our Christmas decorations!