Another Miracle in the Making

Pituitary Gland?

2012-01-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

I talked to the dr about my hormones the other day and she wanted to recheck my thyroid first to make sure it was still in range. She said if it wasn't, that would explain all my symptoms (since messed up thyroid levels can mess up your hormone levels as well). So, they did the blood tests and I found out on Friday that the TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) is low, the T4 level is low, and the T3 level is on the low side of normal. I found an interesting chart online which explains it:

TSH Chart and Explanation

So now I'm wondering if there might be something wrong with my pituitary gland. The internet says that it can get damaged from blood loss or child birth etc. Anyhow, the dr increased my dose of thyroid medication so I'm really hoping it will finally do something. I'm sooo over this whole being fat thing.

It has been 0 days since our last trip to the ER...

2012-01-18T11:19:00.000-08:00

Nola can say a few words now, besides mama and dada. She can say:
-tenk yee (thank you)
-hi
-yay!
-bye bye
-hello
-cat

She also knows how to 'cuddle' her stuffed animals and give kisses (open mouth of course) and she's slowly developing the ability to use utensils. She's become a VERY picky eater and will vigorously shake her head 'no' when I try to feed her, well, almost anything. Although this shouldn't really surprise me because growing up I was known as 'Two-Bite Leatrice' meaning I'd only tolerate 2 bites of any one thing before turning it away. If only I had that problem now...

She's recently turned into a little toughie too. She stands up for herself against Embry and when she doesn't like something, oh you will know! If she doesn't want something that's on her highchair tray she will wave her hands around violently until it falls on the floor. She has severe separation anxiety whenever I leave, or leave the room, or go upstairs...basically if I'm not easy accessibly, she'll cry. Makes it a little difficult to go anywhere without her, but I'm sure she'll get over it soon enough. Embry never cared when I left or handed her over to someone else, it is actually kind of nice to be wanted this time around. :)

Embry went to the ER this morning. She had pretty bad diarrhea all day yesterday and then when she got up this morning, she laid on the floor and couch for 2 hours asleep and looking not so hot. So when the dr's office opened up, I called and left a message for the Dr. When they called back they asked when she had peed last and I said 'sometime yesterday' and their response was, 'well she needs to go to the ER then.' So after calling Tony and having him come home from work, I took her in. We got into a room right away and she fell asleep, but then woke up heaving, so I shoved the garbage can in front of her and she was awake from that point on. The dr came in after what seemed like FOREVER. He was very nice and gave her a dissolvable anti-nausea tablet and 2 popsicles to try to get her to poo. It worked and we got a stool sample but not before I spilled Embry's pee and poo all over my hand (and the bathroom floor). They tested it and said it was just a virus. Gave us a script for more anti-nausea stuff and said to give her lots of fluids (no kidding) and if she keeps it down then it should do the trick. After 4 hours in the ER we were on our way home and she fell asleep in the car, so she took a nap once we got home. Her poo is much less runny now, which is great! The dr said these usually last 24-48 hours and that the flu vaccine only protects against the high fever/cough flu, not the stomach flu...which I personally think is totally stupid but whatever.

I feel like I might be coming down with something like a cold. My throat feels scratchy and my nose is runny and clogged. I'm hoping it goes away and soon! I have an appt with my pcp on Wed to talk about my hormones being messed up, because I think they are. It would explain so many things...the bone loss, the night sweats, the incredible weight gain, the excessive sleepiness, and the fact that my last three periods were pretty wacky. I always get all revved up to go in there demanding answers and then I get there and feel bad if I speak up, but not this time! I was right about the thyroid levels and I think I know myself enough to know that something's up, so she'll just have to go along with it or listen to me blabbedy-blab for hours on end until she gives in. So there!

New Year's!

2011-12-31T20:44:00.000-08:00

As I was perusing the aisles of Safeway in search of New Year's Eve staples, I had a thought...why don't we act like everyday is New Year's day? Each day should be a chance to make a change, to invite in the new and put the old in the past where it belongs. Think about it, everyday is a new opportunity to do something different, to make a resolution to become a better person in some way. Focusing on accomplishing something worthwhile for one day a year isn't enough, let's do it everyday! If you consider the fact that everyday Jesus puts our past behind us and gives us a chance to do things right, shouldn't we go through life the same way?

The past is the past. It will always be with us, but we don't have to live in it. Let's live for today, the here and now, and everyday we can wake up with love and hope in our hearts to make it better than our yesterday.

Christmas!

2011-12-30T18:32:00.001-08:00

Tony's mom, Allison, and Stefan got down here early on Saturday morning. First we played games, then we got ready and went to the candlelight Christmas Eve service at church. I did not realize that the children came into the regular church with us for this service, but they did really well besides Nola trying to grab our lit candles and the fact that they were dressed for playing, not for church, but whatever. Then we went to Winterhaven to meet up with some friends and show Tony's mom and sis one of the best things about Tucson. It was great!

Then on Christmas morning we opened presents!

Then Tony picked up his dad and brought him back and Doro and Allison went to pick up my niece Oasis and bring her over. Tony deep fried a ham, which was DELICIOUS and my mom and dad brought over a turkey (also great, esp since it's one of my favorite left overs to eat). Our friends, the Gibsons and my sister and kids also came over to join us for lunch. It was a full house and a wonderful time!

Here's Stefan, Vince (their dad), and Tony. They haven't all been together since last Christmas.

Then on Monday we headed out for some after Christmas shopping (leaving the boys at home) and headed up to Mount Lemmon to play in the snow. We tried and failed to find a sled beforehand so we used a campaign sign that someone had left up there for a makeshift sled most of the time. I did not go sledding since my track record of injuries hasn't been so good this year, but Allison and Oasis took Embry down the 'slope' and they had a blast. We also had fun throwing snowballs and eventually getting Nola to warm up to the idea of the cold stuff getting near her.

A good Christmas was had by all! And, I must add, it was way better than last year!

Christmastime is Upon Us

2011-12-15T09:09:00.000-08:00

and I'm oh so happy!

I'm happy to be spending Christmas alive and well this year. I fully intend to take advantage of all the fun things that are around this time of year. Starting with Winterhaven, we went last night. We took my sister and Colter along and it was fantastic. Not freezing cold, but cool enough and not completely packed like it has been when I've gone in the past. Embry had a major melt down for like 20 minutes after we posed her for a picture in an elf cut out. She cried and cried and wouldn't stop for anything. Finally she got over it, but geez, it was dramatic. We walked almost the whole neighborhood except for a few of the side streets. It was magical. The one huge disappointment for me was that either we couldn't find the wishing tree, or it was gone. :(

the dreaded elf cut out

...and the result.

We went to the Eastside Desert Mom's group Christmas party a week ago. I took my kids plus I was watching Haley and Isaac that day so my mom came along to help out. It was at the Rockin Star Ranch and the kids had so much fun on the pony rides. I was very proud of Embry for not freaking out on the pony, which I thought she would, but she tends to be braver when grandma is around. I also won a gift basket with some neat sauces and dip packets. The only part that was mildly disappointing was that Santa arrived and the girls had to go potty, so by the time we got out, Santa was gone. Therefore, we did not get a picture with Santa this year. I was going to take them to the free santa at walgreens this past weekend, but it ended up getting too late and the girls took a nap instead. There's no way I'm going to see the mall santa for a stupid $30 picture!

I went along with Kim to her work party last Friday night. We got to dress up (always fun) and go to the Omni resort in Oro Valley. They had yummy appetizers and desert and I got to meet a lot of the people Kim works with and they were so nice! I also won a raffle there and my prize was a Kindle Fire! At first I thought it was just a regular kindle, which is also freakin awesome, but then I looked at it more closely when I got home and FREAKED OUT when I realized it was actually a Kindle Fire. Oh, I'm so blessed.

We went over to Anna's house last weekend to celebrate the holidays with Anna and family and Kim and the kiddos. There was lots of good food, presents, and fun!

Then we went to the Young Married's Christmas party on Sunday night. Tony and I won the contest for 'best White Elephant' gift by giving the 3 wolf moon shirt. Our prize was a very large gummy bear, some yellow snow candy, bumpitz, and a $25 gift card to Target. Woot woot!Yesterday, I got to spend most of the day making Christmas goodies with Embry. We had lots of fun making buttercrunch toffee, peppermint bark (with dark and milk chocolate), and cowboy cookies. I am convinced there is no better cookie in the whole world. I layered them in some Christmas tins with tissue, tagged them, and delivered them today. I took one to the hematologist, Dr Taetle, one to the Caremore care center, and one to the nurses in ICU west. It was oddly easy getting into ICU and once I was in there I could feel my heart beating faster. I talked to a dr, a tech, and a nurse while standing right outside the room I was in for 10 days last year, it was so surreal. I didn't know any of the people I was talking to (I think I only remember 2 of the people from ICU and they weren't there) but they asked about my story anyway and I thanked them for keeping me alive. They told me how good I looked for having gone through so much and the whole experience cemented in my mind the gravity of what really happened last year. How dire the situation was and how far I've come since then, it really did happen. So, once I left I felt really good, like life was mine for the taking, but by the time I got to my car I was crying. I think mostly because I'm just so thankful. It's hard to express all the feelings I still have inside of me, and I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. I mean people must be thinking, 'geez just stop talking about it already, it was so long ago!' but it really doesn't seem that long ago to me. Anyhow, all in all, it was a good experience and I think I'll be going back every year from now on. They need to know that what they do does really matter and I need to be reminded of how amazing God is.

Thankfulness

2011-12-02T12:37:00.000-08:00

Let me list some of the many things I have to be thankful for this year:

Being Alive!
being able to hold my kids
walking
doing my own hair
cooking
cleaning
cuddling
having medical insurance
my warm cozy house that really feels like my home
feisty Embry
sweet Nola
a husband who's a provider and a friend
every breath
the love of my family, near and far
parents who love me unconditionally
hot water for baths
good books (and friends to discuss them with)
friends who love me in good times and bad
Mostly God, who gives me all these blessings and more

Nola Started Walking Yesterday!

2011-11-21T07:32:00.000-08:00

Embry's 3 Years Old!

2011-11-17T15:52:00.000-08:00

Another birthday has come and gone! This party was much easier to prepare for than Nola's was. I ordered subs and slushies from Eegee's as the main food source which cut down on a lot of prep time. The cake was fairly simple since I bought a cake decorating kit (including the cars, the trees, and the bridge) and then used colormist food coloring spray to color the cake instead of actually dying the frosting. I made deviled eggs and pasta salad for sides and my mom made her famous baked beans, pink stuff, and potato salad. I made a photo banner of Embry from ages 2-3 which turned out very cute and cut out some letters for the wall message and printed Dora and Diego characters I found online to hang up on the wall too. My mom spent a lot of time drawing all of the Dora and Diego characters to make 2 banners for the living room which were super cute! We rented a Dora jumping castle which is a whole story in itself.

The chance of rain was down to 15% (started at 60%) for the party and it was raining all morning leading up to the party. When the jumping castle arrived (early around 11am) Embry was so excited. She watched through the window as they set it up and before her nap I asked if she wanted to go jump for a few minutes. She ran through the house excitedly yelling about jumping in her Dora jumping castle and I followed. The second she got to the back door and I opened it, she froze and started screaming 'nooooo!' She really did not want to go in it. So I picked her up and took her in anyway where she proceeded to cry and cling to me like her life depended on it. She claimed she didn't want to get wet, but that really didn't make any sense because she LOVES water, so I'm not sure what her deal was. However once the party started and it wasn't raining anymore (and dada wiped down the inside of the castle with towels) she was more than happy to spend a LONG time jumping and screeching with delight. It did rain during the party, but all in all, it turned out pretty good. We stood under the porch to hit the pinata. None of the smaller children had any hopes of breaking it, but eventually I ripped it apart and dumped the candy out. All was well.

The day after the party, on Embry's actual birthday, Tony had taken the day off work so we went to McDonalds for breakfast and then to the desert museum. Embry loves the desert museum and she walked around holding one of our hands most of the time instead of being in the stroller. We got to see a lot of animals and Embry was very happy.
Then we dropped Nola off at my parent's house and took Embry to eat at Panda Express and then to Harkins to see 'Puss in Boots'. Embry really likes Shrek, so we figured this was up her alley. She had such a good time! She used a booster seat, never tried to get up, ate her popcorn, drank her fruit punch, and held our hands. It was PERFECT. It was a really great experience for all of us.
I watch my friends two kids on Monday nights so once we got home, I packed Embry up and headed to pick up her friends for dinner at McDonalds and about 2 hours in the playplace. Embry couldn't have been happier, it was fantastic.

We went to MOPS on Tuesday where I worked in childcare most of the meeting and both Embry and Nola picked up colds. So now they're sick and I feel bad for them, but since I just got over my sinus infection I'm really hoping they don't pass it on to me. I finished my antibiotics about 4 days ago and I still have a fever around 100 which will not go away. I called the rheumatologist and left a message to see if he wants to see me and the primary care dr was stupid and told me to take some tylenol and see if it goes away. Hello, am I an idiot? Of course I've been taking tylenol and I've had this fever for 2.5 weeks already, I'm pretty sure it's not just going away! Not to be a debbie downer, but Tony took off work for an hour this morning because I had a follow up appt with the podiatrist and the kids are sick, so Tony watched them while I went to the appt. Turns out they didn't put the appt into their computer and the dr was already running behind so they couldn't fit me in. I'd like to point out that it's not 'fitting me in' if I had an appointment and the dr's office staff didn't do their job correctly. Anyhow, vent over and I'm going to bed!

Nola's 1 year appt

2011-11-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

Nola had her 1 year dr appointment yesterday.
All is well, nothing really to report except her stats:

Weight: 22# 4oz (75%)
Height: 31" (90%)
Head: 44.5cm (>25%)

She got 4 shots (including her flu shot) and she was none too happy about it! She had a bottle afterward, in between gulping sobs.

I finally went to the dr today after 8 days of a temp around 100 and cold like symptoms. She thinks I have a sinus infection and gave me a Z pack of antibiotics so hopefully I'll start feeling better soon. This is all too reminiscent of last year at the same time when I had low grade fever that just wouldn't go away. I'm praying that this year has a different outcome!

In other news, I am so excited about Christmas approaching! I'm so very happy to be alive and to watch my kids grow up over the past year. Normally you just take that as a given in life, to watch your kids grow up, but really it is such a gift. Even on days like today when I take both kids to the dr with me and Embry WILL NOT stop saying 'Are we gonna go to McDonalds and eat and play?!' because she chose not to eat her breakfast and was hungry at 10am, even on days like this, I'm so glad I'm here. Anyway, the point is, this season reminds me of how precious life is and encourages me to savor every single moment.

I have a problem. A problem with presents. I love to buy them. I love to wrap them. I love to give them. The problem is the bank account does not share my love for presents. I have been getting much better with kid's birthday presents. I set a limit and I don't go over it. Although I still have a issue with spending too much on family/friend gifts. I think, 'oh they've done so much for me, I could never repay them, so a gift will show them how much I appreciate them.' I know for the most part it's not so, but I suppose it's the least I can do. What does money matter anyway, it's just a worldly good, but it's also one of God's gifts to us. Am I being a good steward of His money? I'm sure I could never be good enough no matter how hard I tried.

Nola's First Trick or Treat

2011-11-01T18:53:00.000-07:00

I went with my friend Anna and her girls and my sister and family to trick or treat around the neighborhood last night. I pushed Nola in the stroller up and down our street and then dropped her off back at our house with Tony. At one point, I was setting the stroller in front of neatly decorated house to get a picture of Nola and then I hear her whining and look over to see her slid down in between the seat and the snack tray so only her eyes were showing. Poor baby, I hadn't strapped her into the stroller because her ladybug costume was so poofy the straps wouldn't fit. Embry had a blast and got a good amount of candy too. She wore the same princess outfit that she wore for her first birthday party. It was too big then and a bit too small now, but it worked out and she was happy.
PS, Nola can now go from crawling to standing without holding onto anything! She's so proud of herself too!

Nola is 1!!!

2011-10-30T20:28:00.001-07:00

Wow Nola, I can't believe that you're 1 year old already! This past year has gone by SO fast and I'm so very glad that I got to spend all of it watching you grow into a speedy little toddler. I'm sorry that I had to miss a few weeks of your life at the beginning, and I know you won't remember it, but it makes me sad anyway. You'll never know how important you are to me. You're my little one. The sweet baby that helped me to see how very special every moment of life is, even the bad ones when we're cranky and just want to go to bed. You are such an amazing little girl who makes me smile even in the worst of situations. You make me so happy and I can't believe I've been given such a miraculous blessing as you. I'm privileged to be your mama and I'm so glad that I get to watch you grow up and become the person that God intended for you to be. I love you so much No-nos, my little one, you're my favorite one year old!

We had Nola's birthday party today. It went very well, but as usual, I always feel rushed during parties. I feel like everyone is just waiting for the next big event...the food, the cake, the presents. Anyhow, I LOVED the rainbow theme. Holy cow, it was great. It was a lot of work to figure out how to make all the rainbow food, but it was so pretty. I have to say, I'm never making a rainbow jello cup again, those things took like 12 hours. Nola liked her smash cake OK but I was inside cutting up the rainbow layer cake while she was eating her cake, so I'll have to watch the video to see what all happened there. She has been able to stay standing up without holding onto anything for about a week now. She does it more often everyday and I think she might actually start walking soon, probably within the month. She's such a fun girl, I love her so much!

28: A Year in Review

2011-10-12T17:57:00.000-07:00

Last October 10 was my 27th birthday. I had no idea what we did, so I just looked back and I guess we went to a movie. I was almost 35 weeks pregnant with little Nola. October 26 we welcomed our miracle baby Nola into the world after not having an epidural for my 12 hour labor. I'm just glad it wasn't any longer than that and I'm pretty dang proud of myself for making it through!I had her at almost 6am and 5 hours later I had my mom, Embry, Tony's mom, and sis visiting me at the hospital when I got the news that I had to have a D&C because I was hemorrhaging. Not the worst thing in the world, but not too great either. I wanted to visit with my family!In November we had family over for Thanksgiving, which was GREAT, except I wasn't feeling too well. Then in December they finally figured out I had a pulmonary embolism and partially collapsed lung. They started me on blood thinners, oral and injection, and sent me on my way. On Dec 16 I went to the ER where they thought I had internal bleeding, so they admitted me.

December 21 I couldn't breath and the nurse called a code blue. They intubated me and determined that a blood clot had traveled from my leg to my heart. My heart was only working at 25% function. About 20 friends and family showed up that night to pray for me.
I missed Christmas. :( New year's was the first night I got moved out of the ICU and it was spent watching 'When Harry Met Sally', eating cheese, crackers, and sausage, and drinking sparkling apple cider. I got released on Jan 4th and finally went home. I spent 2 months doing physical therapy to strengthen my muscles enough to walk, do my hair, feed myself, etc. It was a very humbling experience.
I had my 'I'm Alive' party in March! I made up for missing the Christmas party and we celebrated the fact that I was still alive. In May we went on a horseback trail ride the day before mother's day and I got bucked off. I fractured 4 vertebrae in my lower back. I'm still suffering the consequences of that stupid horse. On my 28th birthday, we had a picnic in the park. I had my husband and two precious girls with me, it was perfect!

Since getting out of the hospital in January, I've gained 30 lbs. Made my pcp check my thyroid and lo and behold, it's low. Going to pick up some new meds now!

And the Madness Begins!

2011-10-10T13:34:00.000-07:00

We've been busy! First we took Tony's dad out for lunch for his birthday on our way up to Phoenix on Sunday 10/2/11. We went to Famous Dave's BBQ, it was our first time there, and we liked it quite a bit. Tony's dad made the mistake of ordering a burger that was supposed to be really spicy and then putting extra hot sauce on it and making it devilishly spicy. The rest of us did not do that and we thoroughly enjoyed our meals.
Then we headed up to Phoenix to spend the night and leave the kids with Dorothea. Of course I made everyone (except Tony) stay up too late playing games, but was well worth it in my opinion. I lost, but what else is new? We also had some yummy dinner from Filibertos. I love me some egg, sausage, and cheese breakfast burrito! Below is a pic of Allison, Tony, and Alex. Alex just moved back to Phoenix from Kansas City a few weeks ago. It was really good to see him again and spend some time with him. The last time he saw Nola she was just a few weeks old.

After we got up the next morning, we headed off on the 5 hour drive to Las Vegas. It was actually a relatively pretty drive with different desert landscapes to look at along the way. When we got into the outskirts of Vegas we tried to look for the 'Sister Wives' but had no luck. ;) We met my friend Kristy and her husband John at their hotel and went to eat at the Mandalay Bay buffet although we weren't super hungry since we had been snacking the whole drive up there in order to stay awake. I was impressed with how much food we were able to pack away even so.

Tony and I went out to eat at Serendipity that night while Kristy and John had a date to see the Lion King. The food was alright and we spent a lot considering it was supposed to be a cheaper restaurant. We met up with Kristy and John the next day and went to the Freemont Street Experience (I might be wrong about what that's called) which is the old Las Vegas strip that they put a sort of covering over. Basically it was casinos (surprising right?!) and shops so we just kind of wandered around and I found a few presents for people.

Tuesday night Kristy and I went to see Le Reve while John worked at the conference and Tony hit up the casinos. It was pretty fantastic, like a cirque de soleil show, but in water. There were lots of cool stunts and pretty props, but it left me wishing I was more flexible. I'm not entirely sure it was worth $120 each, but it was pretty special none the less.
On Wednesday Kristy and John had to leave in the afternoon, so we walked around with them for a bit and grabbed a bite to eat before they left. Shortly before they left, it started to rain. Apparently all the traction on the bottom of my flip flops had worn off because I was sliding all over the strip. It was terrifying. So I stayed put in between the M&M and Coca Cola shops while I made Tony go get the car to pick me up. I'd say that was a better option than breaking my hip. We came home on Thursday, got to Jamie's house around 4pm to pick up the girls, and made the drive back to Tucson. Thanks to everyone for watching our kids, we really appreciate it!

We've been wanting to try out this new biking/jogging/horse back riding trail just south of our house (by Tony's work). So we finally went on Saturday afternoon. I took the girls in the bike trailer for the first time and they really enjoyed it, Nola even fell asleep. I was ready to give up about halfway through the trail (it's 2.6 miles) and turn around, but Tony had me go another 1/4 of the way. I survived and I have a really sore butt to prove it! I'm hoping now that it's cooling off, we'll be able to go every other day and I won't have to pay to join a gym until it get hot out again in the spring.
Then yesterday (10/9/11) we had Nola's dedication at church. Lots of our friends and family came along to support us and most of us went out to eat at Culvers afterward. We basically introduced our families, said the dedication vows, and read what we wrote on our 'homework assignment'. Here's what I wrote:

My wish for my girls is that they grow up to put their whole trust in God. I don't want them to fear the future or dwell in the past, but to realize that God's infinite wisdom and love will guide them through any hardships that come their way. I wish for them to be independent, passionate, kind, caring, and responsible. But most of all, I want them to know how much they matter - to me, to their dad, to each other, and especially to God. I want them to know that they are valuable, important, and loved wholly and unconditionally.

Oh and today is my 28th birthday!

Nola is 11 Months Old! (almost)

2011-09-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

Nola turns 11 months old tomorrow! Eeee, that means only 1 month until her birthday! I decided to go with a rainbow theme and let me tell you, it's hard to find rainbow birthday party supplies! I'm pretty excited about making a rainbow cake and I've got until Oct 30 to get everything together, so it should be fine.

We decided to go to Las Vegas for 3 nights Oct 3-Oct 6 because my friend Kristy and her hubby John will be there for a conference. The girls will be spending 2 days with grandma Dorothea, 1 day with Aunt Allison, and 1 day with Jamie. I would have rather gone on the weekend, but we have a mandatory meeting for Nola's dedication at church on the 2nd. Then we'll be heading up to Phoenix so we will only have a 4 hour drive on Monday to get to Vegas. Have I mentioned that I LOVE Las Vegas? It would only make sense because I'm so naturally drawn to all things sparkly and shiny right?! It's practically a whole city made of glitter! :D Kristy and I are going to see Le Reve which is an acrobatic water show. I saw some of it on Regis and Kelly earlier this year and vowed that if I ever went back to Vegas, I'd be going to see that show. Our hotel is super cheap (got a good deal online) but the shows are always expensive so we're going to try to get tickets the day of and see if they're cheaper. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It will be nice to spend some time with Tony away from the kiddos too. We've been having a bit of a rough time lately which me not feeling too well and more responsibility falling on Tony at work and at home, it's just been more stressful than normal.

I've been doing more playdates which is always fun. I find that the kids are (generally) much better behaved when we're out of the house. There's more to look at, a change of pace, and sometimes I even get to talk to adults! However, a few weeks ago I met up with a friend from young marrieds for lunch with the girls and Nola (who's normally the calm one) screamed and cried pretty much the ENTIRE time. It was maddening! I just kept apologizing and saying 'really, she's not normally like this!' I had no idea what was wrong either which is the most frustrating thing in the world. I fed her, she screamed. I held her, she screamed. I gave her toys, she screamed. Impossible.

I got certified in first aid and cpr yesterday. It makes me feel a little more confident about a) having a pool and b) having a child who chokes a lot and c) living in a region with rattle snakes and scorpions. Turns out scorpions aren't nearly as dangerous as I thought they were, which makes me feel less paranoid.

I made the girls picture appointments for Friday. I also made an appt to get my hair cut. I'm kind of nervous, but I think it needs something to make it bearable while the short hairs are growing out. This is what I'm going for:But obviously my hair is straight and I could NEVER stand having my bangs that long.

Oh I should say that Embry's hand, foot, and mouth disease is all gone. Has been for a while, but it was a bummer for her. Tony got it too, but only very very mildly and for about a day. I swear he's got the best immune system ever. Embry was quite miserable while she had it though, not fun for any of us. Nola (and I) never got it, so WOOHOO!

As far as my health goes, I started taking probiotics which I think are really helping my tummy troubles *yay*! My back is the same-ish. I've been having more headaches, blah. There is a very troubling pain in my right groin area (like the inside of my hip maybe) when I stand up or walk or sit or lay...so pretty much any change in position will get it going. Maybe I should go to the orthopedic guy again, but I'd really rather not. It could just go away on its own, but then again, maybe not. I keep telling Tony it feels like my crotch is gonna break.

A Recap

2011-09-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

Nola turned 10 months old on Aug 26, which is just unbelievable to me! I know I was kind of out of it for a bit there, but it really seems like she can't possibly be that old yet. We finally got signed up for the next baby dedication at church, so we'll be doing that for Nola on Oct 9. That happens to be the day before my birthday, so I think it's reason enough for a party! :)

Then she'll be a year old on Oct 26, time for another party! Then 2 weeks later Embry will be 3, time for another party! I think I'm going to do a rainbow theme for Nola's and of course Dora and Diego for Embry and we'll definitely have a jumping castle for that one because Embry's been talking about it for about 4 months now. She's obsessed. I have no idea where she gets that trait from. ;)

Embry completely regressed with the potty thing a few weeks ago. It is maddening. She is now getting better again, but she was peeing in her pants (which forced us to go back to pullups ie $$$) pretty much every time she peed. Now she's doing better, which means she's had the same pull ups on since this morning without incident. She's peeing in them overnight now too though which is really disappointing because she had been dry at night for at least 6 months. Ah well, I'm sure it's just a part of toddlerhood that must be explored before moving onto the next stage. Lucky for me though she never pooed anywhere but in the potty and is now even using the big potty so we don't have to do that yucky poop transport from little potty to big potty. That can make even the strongest of stomachs turn.

We went to Phoenix over labor day weekend. It was super fun but also utterly exhausting as always. Nola woke up screaming twice the first night which was extremely stressful for me because I hadn't gone to bed till midnight (I was up playing games) and she was sleeping in a pack n play in Allison's room with Allison and Micah so I was really worried that her death cries would wake up the other baby. Anyhow, I fed her both times and she went back to sleep. The second night she was totally fine, so I'm not sure what he problem was, but she got over it pretty quick. We went to the Sea Life Aquarium in Tempe the first day and met up with Tony's mom, Allison, and Micah there. I had expected something really sucky, but it far exceeded my expectations. Embry LOVED it! She got to touch the starfish and stick her head in the tank bubbles and watch all the different sea creatures, she thought it was just great. I had fun too! Tony's brother Stefan came over that night and we had dinner. We got to see my friend Jamie while we were there and also Tony's friend from high School and her husband. Oh and we went to downtown Tempe with our friends from young marrieds who just moved up there. Embry got to play with Noah and it was just the cutest thing. :D Makes my heart happy.

MOPS started this past Tuesday. It felt so comfortable being back in that room with all the other moms that I share so much in common with. Although I have to say, cutting the time down to 2 hours really made it feel rushed for me. Maybe it was just because it was the first meeting and it won't feel rushed when there is a speaker and the regular layout, but it seemed like a lot to cram into 2 hours. We did squash books for a craft which I actually didn't do a whole lot of prep for at all, that was my partner in crafts, so woohoo! Now we have 3 crafts left for the year and I'm halfway prepped for the next one, just need to cut out some stuff on the cricut and we'll be all set. I'm also making the new baby onesies. I made about 10 to start off with, 5 for boys and 5 for girls, so I'm ahead of the game in that regard.

Where has the time gone?

2011-09-06T13:49:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it's been almost a whole month since I last blogged, yikes! I guess I'll do bullet points so I don't have to think of transitions :)

Nola:

she's crawling like a pro.
Her favorite chew toy is any cord she can find.
She's toppled one of the surround sound speakers and the tv tray over on top of herself, but she's easily soothed so neither was a big deal.
She enjoys going to the recycling bin over and over again to take out dangerous objects like soda cans and plastic wrap.
She has the cutest smile EVER! I just want to eat her face with those big cheekies and little baby teeth!
We found out she hates bubble wrap being popped near her. Embry found this quite enjoyable, but Nola was very upset so the bubble wrap is currently in a 'time out' in the laundry room.
She got the two front side bottom teeth about 2 weeks ago.
She pulls up to her knees on everything, but has only pulled up to her feet 3 times that I can think of. Once on Embry's purple chair, once on the toy table, and once in her crib (which was super cute and I wish I had my camera to take a picture).
Her most common 'words' are 'Ga', 'nnnnnga', 'hoyuhl' (both she and Embry made this same sound), 'eh eh eh eh eh' (like a machine gun), and 'udl udl udl udl' (like a wookie).
We started giving her a sippy cup with water like a month ago and she really doesn't understand that she needs to suck on it. She just bites it and well, that's about it.
She's started taking 2 solid naps each day. One around 9am and then another around noon. I like it A LOT.
It has gotten so much easier to feed her which is a humongous blessing! We give her almost all stage 3 foods and don't have to put any of them in the food processor first. Occasionally she'll gag, but hasn't thrown up from it in about a month. She even eats yogurt with chunks in it and gnaws on french fries etc.
However, she throws up 1-2 times a week. Like her whole jar of food and her whole bottle and it smells and it's really gross. She'll be all fussy and then she'll throw up and then she'll be super happy. So I'm going to have to ask the ped about that at her 1 year check up.

Embry:

I love her, but she sure does know how to push my buttons!
She moves at the speed of slow.
Unless she's with her friends and then she's like a tornado.
She hates naptime, but she still stays in her room for 2 hours/day. Sometimes she takes a nap, sometimes she plays, but either way, I sleep.
She's definitely started to test her boundaries.

Me:

I'm dang tired.
The neurosurgeon said I have 2 months to decide whether to get the kyphoplasty done. He found a different bone glue that is more like bone rather than super rigid, but he'd rather not use it since it hasn't had any long term studies etc.
My back has been hurting more again. It's somewhat ok when I'm up and going, but after I sit or lay down for any amount of time, it's pretty bad.
The hair that fell out is now about 1-2 inches long and it's driving me nuts. I'm thinking of getting my hair cut short just so it will blend in better. That's what I did last time this happened, but I look even fatter with short hair.
I am fairly certain I'll be joining a gym within the next week. I need to do something about my body, it's gross and it's affecting my mentality in a bad way. We'll see how my bones feel when I try to work out, I hope it all goes well.
I was really sick last week. I hated it. I had a lupus headache (like a migraine) and pretty much couldn't move from my bed for a 16 hour period. I had a headache for 2 days before that, but not severe, then I went to take my nap and it just got horrible.
My stomach has been messed up for about a month. It's like it was before I got pregnant with Embry. It sucks, but maybe it will help me lose weight?!

Tony's 26!

2011-08-11T07:55:00.000-07:00

Nola being the super cutie that she is!

And we're only 1 year apart in age for a mere 2 months once again. This fact makes me feel like less of a cradle robber. ;)

Ok so I started this post about 2 weeks ago and all I got down were 2 sentences. I guess I'll finish what I started and say that Tony's birthday weekend was pretty fun. We went up to Phoenix and stayed at a resort for Saturday night. We took Embry over to play in the pools and then dropped her off at grandma Dorothea's house to spend the night with Nola. Tony and I ate dinner at Carrabbas even though we tried to eat at the Heart Attack Grill, but apparently it closed down. Sunday morning we had a breakfast buffet, went to the waterpark (I went down the slide WITHOUT getting injured, huge success), packed up and went to spend Sunday night at Tony's mom's apt. All of us: Doro, Allison, Micah, me, Tony, Embry, Nola, and Stefan went out to eat dinner at the Mellow Mushroom which is a pizza place that Tony's been wanting to try and it was dang good. Except all the kids were super cranky which was a tad stressful.

Embry at the resort water park.

Tony and Nola outside of the Mellow Mushroom

Our air conditioner broke AGAIN, this time the outside unit, and after talking to the home warranty place, they finally decided it would behoove everyone if they replaced the whole outside component. This was great news, and they also said they'd get it done within 2 days which was way better than the 30 day installation estimate they gave us at first. They replaced it on Tuesday 8/9 and in the meantime, my mom and I replaced the drywall that was cut out and the baseboards that were removed. We had a bit of snag replacing the carpet padding because it was felt and not foam (which is what they have at Lowes and Home Depot). We also cleaned the carpet and stretched it back out. We were going to have the entire downstairs tiled and had everything all set, then realized we just couldn't work that much of a cost into our budget so we put that on the back burner for a while. Hopefully we'll be able to get it done sometime in the future, but for now the carpet is going to have to suffice.

My physical therapy is completely done. I hate to be a debbie downer, but I've been feeling worse lately. My back/hips/joints in general all hurt and my intestinal problems are back (which were pretty much non-existent when I was pregnant/nursing) and my headaches are returning as well. I know I can deal with all of these things, I just can't help but think of how much more fun life would be if I didn't feel this way.

My dad has early Alzheimer's which means he asks the same question multiple times. My favorite common question is when he says to me, 'Are you getting fatter, or are you pregnant again?' This stings double fold because not only am I already painfully aware that I've gained weight (and ALL of it in my stomach) but also because there's no way I'd be pregnant since we can't have anymore kids. He asks it every time he sees me, without fail.

This brings up another point, how do you get motivated to do cardio and weight training when you're in constant pain? I'm kind of confused about the whole thing because I want to be more active, but I also think I shouldn't be pushing myself too hard. It's a double edged sword.

Anyhow, I hosted my sister Jen's baby shower yesterday. It was lots of fun and I can't wait to meet little baby Kindra soon!

Jen and I and the cake I made.

Embry and Colter had so much fun playing together!

Nola's 9 Mo Stats

2011-07-30T21:18:00.000-07:00

at Nola's 9 mo appt

Weight: 20lbs (75%)
Height: 28.5" (>75%)
Head: 43cm (up to the 25%, woohoo!)

The Dr said her ear infection is all gone. I mentioned that she gags on EVERYTHING! I'm talking we can't give her stage 3 baby food unless it's pureed in the food processor or else she will gag and throw up all over. It's quite ridiculous. We tried giving her puffs twice and both times she gagged. The Dr said to try mashing up bananas with a fork and keep giving them to her to try and get her used to different textures or thicker foods. We'll see how that goes. I mashed up some mandarin oranges the other day and after they were in her mouth, she'd blow raspberries until it all came running down her chin. Not a success, but at least she didn't vomit!

Embry is insane. She won't stop talking about her birthday party coming up in a mere 4 MONTHS! She'll tell anyone who will listen about how she's going to have a Diego and Dora party and everyone's going to sing, 'Happy Birthday to Embry, Happy birthday to meeee!' and then she demonstrates how she will blow out her candle. She's completely potty trained but she's started this new thing where she'll just pee in her underwear enough to get them wet so then we have to give her new ones to wear. It's annoying as all get out.

We've been swimming a LOT lately. Partly because it's fun but mostly because our AC is still not working. The first time the AC guy came out (on Wed) he said he fixed it but he never actually opened up the bottom half of the AC unit in order to see the real leak. Needless to say, it was still leaking the next day and the same AC guy came out, so I showed him what was leaking and it was obvious he had no clue about it before that moment. So turns out they had to order the part and send out an install guy to determine how long it would take to fix and how many people they would need...which they didn't do till Friday. On Friday they told me they couldn't fix it till monday morning and also that the home warranty doesn't cover any reclamation or coolant disposal fees which are $400. Also, the home owners insurance tricked me and instead of paying a $1000 deductible to fix the water damage, we're signed up to pay 1% of our insured amount which is about $2300. This is a bit ridonkulous, honestly.

Good news though is that I'm probably going to lose a few pounds of water weight with all the sweating I've been doing.

Nola is 9 Months Old!

2011-07-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

and she started crawling on Saturday night (7/23/11)!!! Of course, I wasn't here either! I had been really encouraging her to crawl the day before because she was soooo close. She'd get on all 4's and then pull both knees forward under her tummy, then fall onto her stomach and start over. She was actually going places with that method, but it looked like an awful lot of work! Then I went with My friends Sarah and Anna (Hi Anna!) to a cabin on Mt. Lemmon from Sat-Sun and Nola started crawling Sat night. Go figure. She was really really slow at first, but now she's stepped it up a notch and gets into all sorts of things. So far, she immensely enjoys ripping magazines and shoving the pieces into her mouth. It reminds us of when Embry would shove sand in her mouth at the beach so fast we couldn't keep up with her little fists of fury! I took some 9 month pics of Nola today, here are a few of them...

This last one is Nola on the left and Embry on the right in the same pose at about the same age.

Our night at the cabin on Mt. Lemmon was a lot of fun. We played lots of games (Qwitch, Ruckus, Nab-It, and Skipbo), enjoyed the weather, tried to go to 2 restaurants at the top of the mountain which didn't work out, and did a lot of cutting with the cricut. I had a nightmare where I was moaning out loud and luckily Anna woke up and in turn woke me up to save me from my dream. I also had a dream where Anna's cell phone was ringing, but her ring tone was Anna saying, 'Annaaaaa! Annaaaaaaa?!' L to R: Me, Sarah, Anna

Our Mercury Tracer won't start so we bought a new car, well new to us anyway. It's a 97 Honda Accord that Tony's friend at work was selling. We're still trying to figure out what we want to do with the non-functioning Tracer in our garage. I got the title switched over on the Honda today and I was so very tempted to get Tony a personalized license plate that said 'IBMer' but he didn't seem thrilled when I mentioned the idea to him. Also, we noticed that the floor in our hallway was wet on Sunday night. After calling the home warranty people, we had some plumbers come out and they discovered our AC unit in the garage was gushing water. Turns out there was about 1/2" of water all under our stairs, so now we have our baseboards and some drywall ripped out and a bunch of air movers and a huge dehumidifier in our living room/bathroom. Now we're waiting for the actual AC company to come out and fix the problem. They said they'd be here at 5pm or after and it's now 8:30pm and I've called the home warranty place twice and still haven't gotten an ETA from the AC people.

In other news, I'm doing much better, which I'm quite hesitant to say in case I jinx myself or something. Seriously though, my back is a LOT better since starting physical therapy at the spine center and I think the extra time it's had to heal has helped as well. My INR was in range when I was checked last week, so that means I get to wait 2 weeks between appointments. Oh, and another thing that made me feel oh so good was that CULVERS OPENED IN TUCSON! Unfortunately Tony wasn't able to join us for dinner there last night (opening day) because he had to be here when the guy was out setting up the fans for our wet floor, but I brought him back a butterburger and some cheese curds. I did get some pictures though...

I also performed a sneak attack on Embry while we were in the bath last week and I cut her hair. I was so tired of it looking all scraggly and thin, so I trimmed the top part that was longer than all the undergrowth. Now it lays, curls, and looks a lot better and thicker. :D

Healing?

2011-07-14T19:55:00.001-07:00

It always kind of throws me off when a doctor uses the word 'healed'. I mean, they're not supposed to do that right? I feel like it's taboo in the scientific medical world where all things must have a logical explanation to chalk something up to healing, but that's what the new rheumatologist just said to me.

First of all, he called me himself, at 7:30pm no less to discuss the results of my follow-up hip xray. That's pretty awesome. He said that he looked it over and the bone infarcts in the femoral shaft were gone and furthermore, the deterioration (or avascular necrosis) of the femoral heads (my hip joints) was completely healed. I mean holy cow, I'm having a hard time not sitting here smiling like a dorkus all alone at my computer screen!

On top of this (which I'm so trying to not get my hopes up about) is the fact that he said the ANA -antinuclear antibody- test the hematologist did in March (which is the main test for Lupus) came back negative. He said it could mean a number of things but the main thing he referred to was the fact that labs have recently switched to a much cheaper and not nearly as reliable method to test for ANA which gives false negatives for about 10% of patients. Ever since being diagnosed in 2003, my ANA has consistently been positive up until this test in March, so he's going back to look at my old lab reports. You can imagine that immediately my mind starts thinking 'oh gosh, what if it's gone? What if I'm all better? What if my life can be normal again?' Great and now I'm getting all emotional about it...lame! So, like I said, I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but what if...???

On the not so great side he said that once you have compression fractures they don't really go away ever...which is not what the neurosurgeon said, so I'm a little confused. And he said my level of vitamin D is good at 36 which I'm about to look up what exactly '36' means. He'll also continue to be my rheumatologist so I'll see him every 6 months for check ups, woohoo!

New Teeth, Holiday, and Physical Therapy

2011-07-09T11:45:00.001-07:00

Nola's top two front teeth finally broke through in the past week. First it was her left, and then her right came through a few days later. We thought she had a runny nose/fever from teething, then it turned into a cold, then it got slightly better, then she had a fever of 102.5 and kept waking up at night crying. So I took her to the dr the next day and voila, she has an ear infection in her left ear. We started her on amoxicillan that night and so far she seems to be getting slightly better. At least no more waking up in the middle of the night crying, so that helps everyone out! * Edit * I forgot to add that she says 'mama' all the time now! It's so great, it's mostly when she's frustrated, but I totally eat it up and respond with a lot of, 'yes darling?' and 'mama's here!' Also, she was weighed at the dr and she's 19lbs 4oz at a little over 8 months old. Mmmm, I love her!

We had a lovely 4th of July except we kinda missed the big fireworks. There was a super monsoon that started around 4pm which happened to be when we were supposed to be over at our friend Herb's house for some festivities. We waited out the bad part of the storm (ie horizontal rain) and then trekked out for the party. It was pretty low key which was nice and the kiddos had a great time playing together while the adults got to play a few games. Tony managed a huge come from behind victory in Farkle and then us stragglers (me, Tony, and Herb) played a game of Qwirkle. It was really fun and I think I might have to buy it. ;) Of course, I lost as usual. So since I didn't want to end the game early, we left around 9:20 while the fireworks which I thought started at 9:15 had actually started at 9pm. Basically we saw them while we were driving trying to find a good spot to park and then right when we found one (at the eastside PCC campus) they were doing the grand finale. :/ We came home to set a few off in the backyard, but Embry was not too pleased when Tony handed her a lit sparkler and then did a nice freak out when he set off a firework fountain by the pool. That was the end to our fireworks for the night and we called it quits and went to bed.
I had my first Physical Therapy appt for my back/hips. It was basically just an evaluation and he said we're gonna work on strengthening my core muscles. I'll be going in twice a week for 4 weeks, which is good, but kinda difficult to get someone to watch the kiddos that often especially when my sis and her family are moving down here soon. Oh that reminds me, I got a call from the rheumatology office saying that my levels of vitamin D are normal. I guess that means I just keep taking the same Calcium+D that I've been taking since 2003, but that doesn't really make sense to me since if it hasn't worked very well so far then why not switch it up? Anyhow, I'll wait to get the hip xray done and see the results of that before I get all huffy about anything.

New Rheumatologist

2011-07-02T23:06:00.000-07:00

The guy's name is Michael Mericic and he's supposed to be a rheumatologist who specializes in diseases of the bone in rheumatology...he even had a lovely book displayed in his exam room which he wrote. Overall I liked him. He's nice and he seems to know what he's talking about. He actually kinda reminds me of the hematologist, which is a good thing. Here's a breakdown of what he said:

There doesn't seem to be any clear reason why my bones aren't as strong as normal. He asked about my past steroid use and besides being the hospital I've never taken more than 20 mg at a time for about 3 weeks at a time...so that would not cause it. Also, the steroids used in the hospital wouldn't show any damage for years to come, if at all.
The CT of my hips shows white (bone is supposed to be gray) on both femoral heads and about a 4 inch section at the top of both femurs. That could either mean there's fluid in the bone, the bone is dead, or it was damaged at that point but has repaired itself.
The CT of my hips (which was done prior to being bucked off the horse) also showed that my L4 vertebrae had a compression fracture. Weird seeing as the scans of my entire spine while I was in the hospital in Dec were completely normal except for a vertebrae in my neck. So what happened between Dec and April to my back?
He ordered blood work to see how my body is absorbing vitamin D and a repeat hip xray.
They don't give bone medications (like fosomax or boniva etc) to women who are pre-menopausal. I didn't catch why, but seemed like some hormonal thing.
He didn't want to check my estrogen levels (even though I mentioned it about 3 times) because it fluctuates throughout the month and since my body doesn't show any signs of a hormonal imbalance, there's no reason to think my estrogen level isn't normal.
He also does not like Benlysta. Or rather says there's no reason to like it yet. Basically, he said the studies showed that most of the time there is no or minimal improvement and since they don't know the long term effects, it wouldn't be worth it to risk taking it. Also he said it's about $35,000/year.
He doesn't like the idea of kyphoplasty. Basically that was because the blind studies showed the same improvement with the procedure and the sham procedure. That just goes to show how much power your mind has over your body.
He'll let me know about the blood work and xray and figure out what step to take next.

The Neurosurgeon Follow-Up

2011-06-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I went to see him yesterday and overall it was a good visit. I told him I was still in a whole lot pain and he said, 'well, you broke your back.' Makes sense, although I thought it would have been feeling much better by now. He told me that he could do kyphoplasty for L2, L4, and L5 (L3 is not too bad). Basically they blow up a little balloon inside each fractured vertebrae which creates a hole which they fill with bone cement. Problem though is that you're much more likely to fracture adjacent vertebrae in the long term because the cement doesn't have any 'give' where a bone would normally be a bit smushier than cement. Also since I'm so young, I'd obviously have more time to develop said fractures. I asked how old the youngest person he did the procedure on was and he said 'like 50's'. Ok, so yes, I'm the exception.

I basically told him I was having conflicting feelings about what to do because since I have 2 small kids, I don't want this amount of pain to be the 'norm' for me. I mean, I don't think it's fair to my children and it's certainly not going to fly with me for very long. However, he said he could still do the surgery if it's not better in 2 months after trying to strengthen the muscles surrounding the fractures (and core muscles to straighten my spine) through physical therapy, so that's the option I'm going with. I'm hoping it will all get better before my next visit with him, but if not, I'm prepared to go ahead and get it fixed. I guess sometimes you just have to give it your best shot and if things don't work out, then go with the flow and see where it takes you.

Nola is 8 Months Old!

2011-06-26T21:13:00.001-07:00

Almost 8 Months Old!

2011-06-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

In 2 days Nola will be 8 months old! Time sure does fly! She's cutting her front left tooth. Tony says he can see it poking through and feel it, but I still haven't confirmed that. She was super fussy on Wed and then started getting a runny nose on Thurs (which I figured was from teething) and now she's got a full blown cold. Poor baby. I'm listening to her cough on the baby monitor right now. :/ She still isn't crawling, but she scoots around on the floor well enough and she can stay sitting up without falling over for a LONG time. She also now loves to go swimming and splash in the water when I take her out of her floatie. Pulling hair is one of her favorite hobbies and she especially likes to pull Embry's because Embry will cuddle her and give Nola the perfect opportunity to grab a fistful (or 2) of hair. She also enjoys pulling the cat's fur, but they usually don't stick around long enough for her to get much.

Father's day was this past Sunday and I think Tony enjoyed himself. Embry gave him the airplane she painted for him at Color Me Mine the pottery place and I gave him a card and a photo collage of him and the girls. We went to church that morning and then came home to eat KFC with my parents and go for a dip in the pool. Then we had cake that my mom made and some ice cream and that's about it.

Tony with the girls on Father's Day

We finally met our nephew, baby Micah James, on Sunday (6/19/11) when tony's mom and sister came down from Phoenix to visit. He's so cute! I've always had a thing for Asian babies and he's half Philipino, so needless to say, he's adorable. Embry totally loved him, as she does all babies, but she kept going up to us, pointing, and saying, 'That's Micah! He's my cousin!' Nola obviously didn't know who he was, but she seemed to enjoy being around another baby. It made me a little sad to think that she'll never get to be a big sister...

Me and Micah

Embry, Nola, and Micah

Photo of Micah in the backyard

Anyhow, I hosted my first playdate for the year yesterday. It was so fun! I didn't realize how much I missed having my mom friends over and their kiddos. I used to really stress about being judged for the state of my house, or the grease splattered behind my stove, or the ring around the toilet bowl, but I've come to realize two things:

1) these are not the things that really matter in life, and,
2) we're all just trying to do our best to make it through infant, toddler, and mommyhood. So even if we did have a second to check out our friend's glass tabletop for fingerprints and jelly smudges in between wrangling a spazzing 2 year old and comforting a teething baby, we wouldn't care because we're all just doing our best and that's all we can do.

Back to the playdate- we went swimming! It's been getting super hot here (like 110) and there's not much to do except stay inside or SWIM! It was lots of fun getting all the kiddos in the water and splashing around. Embry had a good time dumping cupfuls of water in her crocs over and over again and we all enjoyed some popsicles in the sun afterward. I'm going to attempt to host one every 2 weeks or so and see how it goes.

Nola and Ryan before swimming

Embry with her popsicle after swimming

We'd like to plan a weekend trip to Phoenix sometime soon as well. We have a thing from livingsocial for a night's stay at a resort up there that also has a waterpark, so Tony and I were going to drop the kiddos off with Dorothea and have some fun on our own. Of course I feel guilty not letting Embry join in on the fun, but she's too small for any of the slides anyway so what would be the point?

My back and hips still hurt like coo-coo-ca-choo-coo (one of our favorite phrases in this house), but I go to see the neurosurgeon on Monday and hopefully he can help me somehow. My back is also doing some weird popping kind of thing when I twist or turn in certain ways. I have super news though! The new rheumatologist's office called and said that they were going to go through my insurance even though they're not contracted with them, so woohoo! I got myself a new (and hopefully good/knowledgeable/caring) rheumy! I go see him on July 1, exactly 1 week from today. :)

Oh also, the white car is like messed up. It's something with the fuel pressure being too low so it's having trouble starting. It'd cost like $700 to fix it and the stupid car is only worth about that much money, believe me, I checked KBB...so we're kind of wavering between trying to see if Tony's dad can fix it (although that would only save us the labor costs and the parts alone are like $400), driving it like it is until it really goes kaput, or searching craigslist for a small (and hopefully not too expensive) Toyota or Honda. I'm sooo done with American cars. Sorry, but they just suck like hard core. Also, the 'maintenance required' light came on in the van. Hoping that just needs like an oil change, that's considered 'maintenance' right?!

Huh?

2011-06-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

I got a call from the neurosurgeon's office today to say that the Dr looked over my x-ray and that there is 'no change' in my vertebrae since my accident. So naturally I go, 'uh, what does that mean?' and she (the assistant) says, 'I'm not really sure. Did he talk to you about any follow up treatment or anything?' Uh, no. I have an appt to see him again on the 27, so I guess we'll figure out what all that means then.

I never really thought about what it would mean if my back actually didn't get better. I just trusted it'd go back to normal in 6-8 weeks and I'd be back at it...going to playdates, taking the girls places, going swimming, etc.

The new rheumatologist said he'd see me once and the office manager won't allow him to set up a payment through my insurance. So I guess that means he'll see me once and that's it. I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to achieve by seeing him once, but I'll give it a shot.

Nola seems to be really close to crawling, but I thought the same thing about rolling over and that took FOREVER! So obviously I'll post if anything develops on the crawling front, but as of now she's just up on all 4's and rocking back and forth. She can also stay sitting up for a while by herself if I put her there but she can't get up to sitting on her own yet.

It's Over

2011-06-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

Before Surgery

The surgery went well.

I asked the dr beforehand about what happens if the filter caught clots while it was in there and he said they'd know because when they tried to close it, it wouldn't close and then they'd leave it in forever. Well, as you can tell, that didn't happen. I woke up just as they were finishing up and I know I was still a little out of it because I asked the same question a number of times (where there any clots and can I see the filter?) and I could have sworn they told me to leave the orange iodine on for 96 hours, but that's not true. So before they took me out of the OR, they showed me the filter and it was probably roughly about 3 inches long, metal wires like an umbrella, with no wire mesh. It had quite a few small clots stuck to the wires and I asked if I could keep it to which they said no, I'm not sure why though, do you think they recycle those things? Ewww...

After Surgery

Then the nurse asked me to sit up and my pillow fell down and this is what was underneath. Yuck.

So it appears that everything's fine. It hurts to move my neck, or swallow, yawn etc and the seatbelt in the van hits my neck in exactly the spot of the incision. I'm not supposed to lift anything over 20 lbs for the next week, not like I'd do that anyway with my back. By the way, my back is feeling MUCH better! I'm not taking any pain pills anymore, even at night, and I'm not taking too many tylenol during the day. Don't get me wrong, it still hurts, but nothing like before.

Surgery is Tomorrow

2011-06-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

And I have to admit, I'm a little scared. From what the nurses and dr's are acting like, it seems that removing an ivc filter is a routine procedure. I mean, it's outpatient for heaven's sake! The part that gets me though is that they don't do any testing beforehand (like an ultrasound) to see if the filter has actually caught any clots. If it has, then the clots should come out with the filter, but I've been hearing of some exceptions and well, I seem to be the special exception these days. I'm going to talk to the dr about it tomorrow in pre-op and hopefully he'll reassure me. Last time, when they were going to put the filter in as I was laying in the pre-op room, I said to the nurses and the anesthesiologist, 'Please don't kill me.' I'm still not sure if I was joking or serious, probably both.

Today I made a long list of my username/passwords for all the cites Tony would need in case I died and which bills get paid out of what etc. I also got to go scouring the filing cabinet for my living will and medical power of attorney to make a copy to bring along to the surgery...I kind of feel like I'm preparing for my demise. Although, there's a whole lot more I should do if that's the case! Anyhow, the girls are out with my parents because the nurse said I shouldn't watch them for 24 hours after the surgery. I just got back from dropping them off and while I was on the porch saying goodbye to Embry she wouldn't say she loved me. Then once I got in the car she started yelling, 'bye mommy! I love you!' and waving...so cute! Then apparently Nola will only eat our vegetable baby foods if I'm the one feeding her, weird, but true. She gagged a ton the other day when Tony tried to feed her summer vegetables and my mom keeps telling me she doesn't like the green beans, but she eats both of them just fine for me!

Anyhow, wish me luck and I'll try to post afterward to say how it all went!

Care Package Etc

2011-05-27T16:13:00.001-07:00

After getting home from the long awaited appt with the neurosurgeon, what to my wondering eyes should appear? But a priority mail box from a friend not so near. It was filled with lots and lots of fun stuff from my friend Missy and her family and it made me feel so loved! Here are its contents:*not pictured: a wonderful card with messages from Missy, her husband, her brother, her sister, her mom, and her dad! Oh and Lindor Truffles!

Neurosurgeon Visit: It went well in the regard that he was very informative and showed me my mri and ct scan from the hospital. He showed me the part where he saw bleeding around L3 vertebrae and pointed out that it was actually a clot (go figure, I can't get away from those suckers!) and it was right in the vertebrae fracture line so he was worried that if it continued, a chunk of that vertebrae would have actually broken off. Let me say I'm glad he caught that one because that sounds pretty painful. When he was scrolling through the testing I had done from the hospital and radiology ltd, he was like 'oh you got a dexa scan?' Which is the bone density scan I had just done 2 days earlier and I asked if he could look through the results of that since none of my drs had called me about it yet. So after he showed me the other stuff, he read through the dexa scan and kept saying 'Ooh. Oh. Oooh.' Like not in a good way. Then he said that I have Osteopenia. Specifically the 'socket' part of the left hip was like -1.8 and the 'ball' of that hip was around -2.4. Normal is 0, anything between -1.1 and -2.4 is Osteopenia, and anything lower than -2.5 is osteoporosis. He agreed that the bone loss could be part of the reason that my vertebrae got fractured from my fall into the soft sand. He said since I'm so young (I seem to be hearing that a lot lately) I could probably reverse the bone loss with tons of supplements and I need to have my level of vitamin D3 checked. He said it would be a good idea to do strength training to improve my bone strength and that I could start trying out yoga and really low impact things like a recumbent bike in about a week. Oh and big news is, I get to try to take care of the girls by myself starting Tuesday! Nola is about the heaviest thing I should try lifting at this point at about 16 lbs, wish me luck! Silver lining in all this is that the rheumatologist that my hematologist wanted me to see is willing to see my now even though he's not contracted with my insurance. So yay for getting away from the sucky rheumatologist I have now!
Rheumatology Visit: eh well, you know, it sucked as usual. I don't like this guy. Basically he just checked my head for lesions because my hair has been falling out in masses since I was in the hospital the first time. No lesions. I told him I wanted to get on Benlysta (the first lupus drug to be approved in over 40 years with some amazing testimonies to it's effectiveness) as soon as humanly possible. He said that he doesn't know exactly what the point of their trials were and he's seen no reason it should be used over the other treatments they have like using cellcept or other extremely harsh meds. Hello!? Benlysta actually stops your B cells from attacking like maniacs and allows your body time to heal itself! Just the thought that at some point in my life I might be able to feel 'normal' again makes me giddy. Other than that, it's dang expensive, like 2k/month and I'm not sure my insurance would cover it.

Today was our 6 year wedding anniversary! We took the kiddos out to my parent's house at around 11am and left them there to spend the night. They're so adorable! I just want to love on them all day long! Embry says the cutest things and I laugh all the time at the crazy stuff that comes out of her mouth. Recently as a response to her doing something good, she says, 'You will be so happy for me!' The other day Tony was wearing his pajama shorts and she goes to Tony, E: 'are these your shorts?'

T: 'yes those are my pajama shorts.'

E: 'that's your butt in there!' while pointing

The cutest part though is how much she accentuates the 't's on butt. Argh, so cute!

And Nola, well, she's just adorable. I love her big cheekies and her little rosebud lips. She's got her two little bottom teeth now too which makes for even cuter baby smiles. She's doing 360 rolls all over the place and she's kinda started to figure out how to scoot herself backwards. She laughs at things Embry does all the time, it's so cute!

Anyway, I got on a tangent there. The anniversary was good! We had lunch at the Olive Garden and then did some shopping where we found great deals on workout clothes for both me and Tony. I also got a few new tank tops because not only did I need some in general but with this back brace all of my tops are super tight to pull over it and try to hide it. The shopping was hard for me, hard to stand and walk that long, but we took many breaks to sit and rest. Then we went to see 'Thor' which, surprisingly, I really enjoyed. Then we came home and our wonderful friend Katie made us a delicious pot roast (seriously, one of my favorite meals) and we watched 'Beyond Borders' from Netflix which was quite depressing, but I got an anniversary foot massage, so it was worth it.

I've been thinking a lot about life lately. Why certain things happen...I guess I won't know for a long time. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy every second I have with those who I love, especially my kids. Recently a girl that I knew from school in Wisconsin lost one of her 6 month old triplet boys. They don't even know what happened, he just stopped breathing, I mean how terrifying must that have been for her? I can't even imagine, I don't want to, but I know it's been weighing heavy on my heart ever since I read her blog. I don't know why these things happen, but I've been making sure to love on my babies so much more because of them. Please stop by Melissa's Blog and pray for her and her family or leave a word of encouragement. Life is precious, please don't waste a moment of it.

The other night, Nola was uncharacteristically whining in her crib long after she had gone to sleep. I decided that maybe something was wrong, so I went into the nursery and checked on her. Besides having a wet diaper, she was fine, so I changed her and then sat and rocked her for as long as my back could stand. I hadn't gotten the chance to do that with her yet. I went into the hospital when she was 6 weeks old and when I got out, I could barely hold her. Then she started sleeping through the night so she never needed me. Then this horse accident happened and once again I wasn't allowed to lift her. Things happen, people get busy, but I'm determined to remember what is important in this life and make time for long snuggles and saying 'I love you' and really meaning it.

Nola is 7 Months Old!

2011-05-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

Good News

2011-05-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

My echo cardiogram came back perfecto! It's pumping at 55-60% which is perfectly normal. My hospitalist said it must have been divine intervention that kept me from dying back in December...truer words were never spoken! Also, my chest CT looked good. There's a bit of residual fluid and scarring at the bottom of the lungs, but that's to be expected and they'll just keep getting better with time.

It's Lost

2011-05-17T21:27:00.001-07:00

I feel like I've lost my funny.

You know, I used to see all these things, day to day things, and think, oh gosh that's funny! I need to blog about that! Sometimes I still get it back. Like when I was standing on wobbly legs in the middle of a wash, Tony pretty much holding me up while I wiped my snot on his shirt, and I looked at him, whined, and said 'why did I have to get the stupid horse?' Or when the nurse tripped on something in my room, let an explicative fly, looked at me and apologized profusely. I don't say, 'oh it's ok, no worries!' Instead I say 'that's it! You're fired! Where's security?!' I guess in situations where there seems to be no imminent light at the end of the tunnel, I turn to humor because, really, what else can you do?

I used to laugh...a LOT. Now, I guess life just doesn't seem that funny anymore. I'm kind of in a funk of wondering why these bad things keep happening to me when I try to hard to do the 'right' thing and yet I see people all the time being 'rewarded' (or what seems as being rewarded) for doing the 'wrong' thing. I don't want some amazing life with lots of money and a huge house and hours spent lounging by the pool while the maid washes the windows, I just want a normal life. I wonder all the time how incredible it would be if I was healed. I mean, if I could run around with my kids and roll on the ground and laugh...I don't think that's a whole lot to ask for, but the thought of other people having that ability and not fully enjoying it, well it's turned me into a grouch.

In no way am I perfect (hahaha, let's all take a moment to laugh. Ok that's long enough.) and I don't deserve anything more than anyone else, but geez, can't a girl catch a break?! Now is the part where I get mad at myself for feeling this way because I'm blessed in a million ways, more than I could ever name. When I first called my mom from the ER when I found out about my back, she said 'why does this stuff have to keep happening to you?' I know it was a rhetorical question, but all I said was, 'well it could have been A LOT worse' so all I should feel is thankful that I'm still alive and didn't get trampled or hit my head on a rock or gotten paralyzed.

When I think about it all in the short term I'm reminded of how far I've come since Dec when I was literally on the brink of death and I think, 'it's only 6 weeks. If I make it for 6 weeks, then everything will be ok.' I now realize that I never asked if there was going to be any lasting damage from this injury, but from the way the drs talked about it, it seemed it would all just repair itself. I guess the only thing to do is pray about it and trust that God knows what he's doing.

Dear God,
I just want my funny back. You know what I mean. I love you.
---Leatrice

2011-05-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

Here is a print out of my CT scan. You can see the 4 vertebrae above the tailbone are not square, they're squished. I've lowed my dose of pain meds, but quickly found out that if I try to lower them too much it becomes quite unbearable. I'm having mixed emotions about all of this. I'm upset that I was only 'normal' for like a month and then got sent right back to not being able to function again because of some stupid horse. I'm sad that I don't get to watch my kids or play with them when they are home, but also happy that I have so many friends and family that are willing to watch them during the day when tony is working. I really appreciate all the help and we definitely couldn't make it without the help, I just wish I didn't need it in the first place. Every morning when I wake up, I think, this will be the day where I am all better! Then I try to get out of bed and realize, nope, not today.

Anyhow, I saw the hematologist today and he said my blood tests came back normal. He wants me to see this certain rheumatologist that is also a bone specialist. Of course he's not contracted with my insurance, but the hematologist talked to him and he said he'd see me for free if I have an abnormal bone density. That means I'll be going in for a bone density scan sometime.

Nola is babbling a lot more. She's making ga, da, ra sounds and just being cute overall. She loves playing in her jumperoo (she's fallen asleep in there a few times recently) and scoots herself backwards in her walker. We've been giving her baby food before giving her formula and she seems to like most of it pretty well and is actually swallowing it. She hates the meat ones, although they're only in the level 1 baby foods so we're thinking they don't taste too appealing. Tony took her to her 6 month dr appt last Tues (5/10) and she said we could stop the acid reflux meds since she was spitting up less (although I don't really understand that) and she prescribed some nystatin cream for her diaper rash. I obviously didn't get to go since I was in the hospital, but Tony brought home a paper with her stats:
Height: 27" (>75%)
Weight: 16lbs 3oz (50%)
Head: 40.5 cm (5%)

Embry has been doing pretty well going on the potty with all of this shuffling around from house to house. I was hoping it wouldn't derail our progress. She's had a few 'accidents' here and there, but we figured out that if we send along her potty chair, she tends to do better. She sure is getting a lot of time to play with her friends through all of this!

Horse back riding = pain

2011-05-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

Here's the deal: I got bucked off a horse on Saturday and the only picture I got was of Tony's backside while he was trying to get on his horse. Really this is quite ridiculous.

The Story: We bought some tickets through living social a while back for a 90 minute horseback trail ride at Pantano Stables. I wanted to go for my birthday last year, but I was 8 months pregnant and in a bit of pain, so I decided not to. The tickets expired on May 13, so we needed to use them last weekend. We dropped the kiddos off with Danielle at 7:30am on Saturday and drove over to the stables. We were riding with about 7 other clients (4 little girls and 3 adult women) and 2 'wranglers' that work at the stables. We were the last 2 to get on our horses. While one of the women was mounting her horse, she said she was an experienced rider and wanted a horse with a little bit of spunk. Naturally I say, 'I'd like a horse that's exactly the opposite of that, like if he was any slower, he'd be going backwards!' They gave Tony and I what they deemed as tame horses and we were on our way.

There was a wrangler leading the pack and a wrangler behind me bringing up the rear. We went down into the wash to start the ride and I asked the wrangler if he'd seen many rattlesnakes out there on the trail rides and he said, 'well, me personally, no. -pause- but this is my first time doing this.' Turns out he normally drives the stage coach out at Old Tucson but the stables were busy that day so he came over to help out. A girl that was riding about 4 horses in front of me had one of those horses where they just mosey along and try to eat any tree or bush in site, so the wrangler rode up next to her to make sure her horse didn't get too far behind.

All was well, we zig zagged from the left side of the wash, to the middle, the left again. I noticed that when my horse went downhill, he would sorta trot for a few steps, which was fine with me, whatever. Then we crossed over to the right side of the wash, went uphill a bit, and made our u-turn to start the ride back. Before we started going downhill again, my horse started to poo. Earlier in the ride, the wranglers said to stop if the horse needed to pee, but to make them keep walking if they were pooping. I let him stop for a few seconds to figure out what he was doing, then made him keep walking. Then we got to the hill down into the wash and after he took the first couple steps, he bucked and I went flying. It was uphill on our left, and downhill on our right. I flew out of the saddle towards the right side while yelling 'aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh.' I did a sort of sommersault/roll mid-air and hung onto the reigns while I was in the air. I could hear Tony calling my name as I was flying. I closed my eyes and landed on the back of my right hip and rolled onto my left side. Somewhere in there I let go of the reigns. As I was on the ground I could hear the horses hooves beating on the ground and I just kept thing 'oh God don't let him step on me!' Luckily he didn't.

The wrangler that was supposed to be behind me got off his horse and came over. There was blood mixed with a clear fluid (I'm guessing maybe snot) dripping out of my nose and I had those prickers all over my clothes. Luckily I landed in the 'soft' wash sand. If I had landed further down there were a lot of rocks and if I had gone off the other side it would have been closer to the ground, but also on very hard ground. The wrangler asked if I could move and if I wanted to try to stand up. I didn't really think I should move in case my back was hurt, so I was getting a little agitated and said (in a not so friendly way) 'call 911, doesn't anyone have a cell phone?!' Tony said something about my hips and kept asking if he could get off his horse. I told the guy I have bad hips and he wanted to to roll onto my back, so eventually I did, which hurt SO bad. Then I went back to my side, then to my knees, and I stood up with the help of a wrangler and Tony. An employee drove his truck down through the wash to pick me up. That truck ride was a bit bumpy and really painful and when we got back to the stables, the fire truck with emt's arrived right away. They put me on a flat board, put on a neck brace, and taped me down the the board (including a huge chunk of my hair). My bp was quite high, like 190/130 and eventually the ambulance got there and took me to the hospital.

I was in so much pain on that flat board, I can't even tell you. It was definitely worse than giving birth without an epidural! I asked everyone (the emt's, the ambulance guy, the nurses in er) if I could have pain meds. The first 2 didn't even have any and then some guy (I'm not sure if he was a nurse or what) in the ER said, 'well first we're going to get your IV in, then we're going to do some x-rays, then maybe we'll talk about pain meds'. I swear I almost slugged him, jerk. Then my actual nurse came over (super nice) and I asked her and she said, 'oh I'm giving those to you right away!' and had them in her hand.

Once I went to CT, they got me off the flat board (yay) and saw that my L2-5 vertebrae (lower back) have compression fractures from the impact of the fall. Later they did an MRI which showed that there was bleeding around L3 so they needed to stop my blood thinners. Doing so would mean they'd have to do surgery to put in a temporary clot filter in my groin area. I did that under conscious sedation and I'm happy to say I don't remember a thing. Then they gave me 2 bags of plasma to help clotting and another 2 the next night.

I have a back brace to wear while sitting or standing for the next 6-8 weeks. I'm supposed to keep as much pressure off of my back as possible which means to picking up the kids or cookware or doing any housework or anything that could make me twist. It's supposed to heal on it's own in about 6 weeks, but I have an appt with the neurosurgeon to see how it's progressing in 2 weeks. The hematologist also said that one of my clotting factor blood tests came back funky, so he repeated it and I have an appt to discuss that with him next week. I get to inject myself with low dose blood thinners for 14 days and then they'll decide if they're going to take out the clot filter and start me back on the pill blood thinners again.

I got out of the hospital yesterday and I'm feeling better today. I just have to make sure to stay on top of my pain meds. I was getting quite nauseous in the hospital with the pain killers (they started with diloted, then morphine, and now I'm on oxycodone) so I'm taking some anti nausea meds too.

Nola is 6 Months Old!

2011-05-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

Nola turned 6 months old on April 26! Her 2nd tooth started coming through a few days after her first. It's the other front bottom one. She seems to be in a better moood now that they've both popped through the gums. Yay! She's done a couple of 360 rolls too, so I'm sure she'll figure out soon that she can get into stuff if she rolls far enough. I'd say she's still spitting up about the same amount, maybe a smidge less, but I don't think the medicine is working as it should. She has her 6 month appt next week, so I'll ask about it then. She's doing really well overall and is sooo smiley! I love her!

Embry has been sick for about a week, but is markedly improved today. Her poo finally solidified (yay!) and she hasn't thrown up for about 36 hours, so I'd say she's over whatever it was. It started out as what I thought was a 24 stomach bug. She thew up at night and then not again for 4 days, then we tried to go camping this weekend (which she was SO excited about) and halfway up the mountain she threw up all over the back of my seat. Then 2 more times at the campsite and then I took her home to spend the night at our house where she got sick 3 more times. My mom came over the next morning with Nola (who she was going to watch at her house while we were camping) and stayed here with Embry. She got sick 3 more times while I was gone that day which prompted Tony and I to finally give in and come home from the camping trip. All in all, it was pretty much an utter failure. I guess we just weren't meant to go camping last weekend. Did I mention that the campsite was about 2 hours away? Oh well, maybe next time it will work out. That's life with kids: unpredictable.

Good news is my hips were feeling significantly better the past week or so. Although after going on a 'hike' (as in, I turned around 1 mile into a 5 mile hike) they're not feeling quite as good. I am hoping for the best for the hip thing, that was pretty bad for a while. I had my repeat chest CT scan today and should get the results in a couple days. I was supposed to have my repeat echo cardiogram too, but they called and rescheduled it for tomorrow since one of the techs was out today. I was actually supposed to have it last week, but then Embry got sick.

My Hip

2011-04-22T10:59:00.001-07:00

The dr said this:
-the bone on the inside of both of my femurs has died, but it should regenerate on it's own based on my age
-the femoral head of my left hip (the ball part) is deteriorating but since it's not causing me a lot of pain, they're not doing anything about it
-my right hip is fine structurally, so he thinks it's bursitis and is sending me to physical therapy to teach me how to stretch it

Overall I didn't like him. Might partially be due to the fact that last time my dr told me to go to physical therapy to solve my pain issues, I ended up almost dead. Either way, he seemed condescending and I didn't want to ask him any questions or tell him about my other areas of bone pain because he didn't seem to give a rip. I asked if they shouldn't monitor the left hip to see if it deteriorates more and he said 'well if you start experiencing more pain in that hip then you should let me know.' I said, 'so it doesn't matter how much pressure I put on it, walking, running, that's all ok because you said it isn't going to break?' and he replied, 'well you shouldn't be running anyway due to your other health issues, but walking and regular activity would be fine.' So I take this to mean, I've just got to deal with the pain and move on.

23 weeks old

2011-04-21T17:45:00.001-07:00

Nola at 23 weeks with grandpa Don

Me with Embry, Me with Nola

Embry, Me, Tony, Nola
(all about about 6 months old)

My appt with the orthopedic specialist is tomorrow morning, bright and early at 8:30. I'm excited because I'm hoping they'll have a good solution as to how to fix this pain. I'm also a bit nervous because I've gotten the response 'well, there's nothing we can do, so live with it' a lot in the past and I'm really hoping they don't say that. I forgot to mention about the pulmonologist, he said that he wants a repeat of the lung function test in a few months because it showed that the rate at which oxygen is going from my lungs into my blood is 52% and it's supposed to be at 100%. He thinks it's just because the test wasn't done very long after the whole incident so things might not be up to par just yet. Anyhow, I'm also slightly concerned because now my left shoulder, left hip, right knee, and right ankle are feeling about as good as my right hip. It's all very mysterious because remember before, like back when I was pregnant with Embry, I was getting those steroid shots in my shoulder and hip? Well, funny thing is, it's the opposite shoulder and hip now. Needless to say I'm not sleeping very well. It takes about 3 hours to fall asleep and then I roll from side to side about 15 times during the night, no joke. Tony has been giving Nola her 5am feeding so I can sleep, but I change her diaper, so after that it takes me another 1-2 hours to fall back asleep. Blah blah blah. I'll try to make a post tomorrow afternoon to update on what the dr says.

Nola is getting her first tooth! I found it yesterday on 4/20 after much feeling around and staring into her mouth while she tried to push my fingers out with her tongue. It's the front bottom left one (just like Embry) and it really helps to explain why she's been so fussy for the past week. I was really hoping she didn't actually turn into a fussy baby for good because I always brag about her being the good one. I tried to get a picture, but it didn't work out too well because the flash on my digital slr broke and I can't get the normal flash to pop up on it. She's also trying to sit up on her own. She does it in her bouncer and her swing now, she tries from laying down, but can only get her shoulders up so far. Due to the teething, she hasn't been taking very long naps which makes things a little difficult for me.

22 Weeks Old

2011-04-10T16:07:00.000-07:00

Soooo, I don't mean to sound like a broken record here but my gosh, my hip hurts! I'm not sure how I'm going to make it till my orthopedic specialist appt on the 22nd much less do all the things that need to get done between now and then. I'm sure I'll manage, but I'm pretty sure it's just getting worse. Tony told me to call the dr but I don't know which dr to call since the one who ordered the mri is the hematologist and he doesn't need to see me anymore, my primary care dr I've only met once and she probably doesn't know about the hip yet, and the people at my insurance co clinic are hospitalists so they can't do anything. Even if I did call someone, I'm not sure what I'd say anyway...'Hi, I'm in a lot of pain. Help.' Update: called to see if they could move up my appt, they said no.

I went to see the pulmonologist last week and he said 'I'd be very very scared if you had to have surgery.' So if I do need a hip replacement, he doesn't want me to go on the heparin drip (like I was in the hospital) because he thinks that might have been part of the reason my platelets kept dropping. He also wants me to get a removable blood filter in case I were to clot while I'm off the blood thinners to keep the clots from going to my heart. He also ordered an echocardiogram and a chest ct. He said that when I had the first chest ct done, it showed some other foreign objects in my lung other than the clot, but he did say that sometimes a clot can make it look like there's more junk in there than there is. So basically he wants another one to make sure nothing else is in there. Needless to say, it wasn't a very 'inspiring' appt, but I'm glad he's actually making an effort to get stuff figured out.

Nola can roll over! She went from front to back and then the next day went from back to front. Now she seems to be doing back to front a lot and gets mad when she's on her stomach for too long. Her acid reflux meds are super hard to get her to actually swallow, so I think I might call and ask for the liquid stuff. She's still spitting up as much as ever. I think I might try real baby food soon and see how that goes. Update: asked for liquid prevacid instead (after trying to scrape all the dried disolvable tablet out of her neck folds this morning).

21 weeks

2011-04-04T10:42:00.000-07:00

The results are in: the hip bone has died. The hematologist said he thinks the bone might be able to regenerate from the inside-out, but it's not his area of expertise so he's sending me to an orthopedist. They can't get me in until the 22nd, so I guess I'll find out then what the plan of action is. The hematologist sounded like they'd need to figure out whether the bone is still sturdy enough to last or not. So at least now I know why I'm in so much pain!

We went up to Phx over the weekend for Allison's baby shower. It was fun, but Embry got sick on Sunday so we came home early. No Renaissance festival, oh well, it would have been super hot anyway. Tony's mom and sis are moving into a 2 bedroom apt in June, so I'm not sure that we'll be able to go up and visit them much after that. They should be down here for Easter which is coming up pretty fast.

Tony and I went on a 'date' to the Old Spaghetti Factory while we were up there. I was not impressed with the food, but the atmosphere was neat. Our 'homework' assignment from our counseling session last week was for Tony to tell me what he felt while I was in the hospital and for me not to say anything, so we accomplished that. I feel like a weight has been lifted now that I know what he was thinking, that was really weighing me down.

Nola is still not rolling over although I've been working on it with her, so should be anytime now! She tried rice cereal and wasn't too impressed, but not opposed to it either. She did however spit most of it up a couple minutes after I was done feeding her. Haven't seen any results from her acid reflux med yet, although it says it could take 4-8 weeks to start working. Embry is doing really good with the potty...I'd say she's pretty much potty trained, fingers crossed!

Nola is 5 Months Old!

2011-03-31T09:58:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

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!

Nola is 4 Months Old!

2011-02-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

g
Nola turned 4 months old on Saturday! She's getting to be such a big girl! I need to take her in for her 4 month appt but I know I have to do it late since her 2 month appt was done late. I'd like to know how much she weighs though. I think she looks pretty average myself, but I can definitely tell that her head circumference is super small. I put a headband on her that Embry wore as a baby and it wasn't even stretching the elastic enough to stay on. I have to say, she's quite the 'easy' baby. She really only fusses when she's hungry (and then WATCH OUT! It's a cry of death), needs her diaper changed, or is tired. She has started to get a little bit more squirmy lately though. If you sit her in the corner on the couch or something, she'll stretch her legs out straight to scootch herself down into more of a laying position. She does the same thing when you set her in your lap. She's also grabbing at a bunch of her toys now and kinda putting them in or towards her mouth. I have pretty much abandoned the mittens except she did gash her face pretty bad last week, but I feel that she likes to be able to grasp things at this point. Tony can make her laugh, but of course, I can't. It was the same with Embry...I guess my humor is an acquired taste. ;)

Tony's aunt came down from Maryland Fri night - Sun afternoon. She was in Vegas for a vet conference and stayed a little longer and drove down to see us. It was fun having her around! We played games, went out to eat, went to the desert museum, and watched a movie. I thoroughly enjoyed the desert museum since a)it was free with our pass and b)we got to do the long loop and see the cat canyon etc. Last time we went, we only did the short loop because it was right after thanksgiving and I was not feeling so hot. It's good to be well again!

Speaking of that, I feel like now that I'm pretty much 'back to normal' (whatever that means), that all the effort of friends etc going out of their way to see me, spend time with me, etc is just sort of fading. I mean, it feels like not many people actually think anything happened, or remember, or choose not to remember. Even for me it feels like nothing ever happened except then I go into the dr and am reminded, 'oh yes, I almost died so they're going to take extra special care of my health'. It's a weird transition for me to go from what seemed like everyone caring a lot to some people caring a normal amount. I'm not complaining or upset or anything, I'm just making an observation. It's also come up between me and Tony, like we'll be arguing about something and I'll just blurt out, 'I think life's a little too short to be arguing about this!'

Aaaanyhow, I'm excited that tomorrow I can get rid of all these empty milk jugs that have overtaken my shed (and a good chunk of my and my mom's time) because we'll be using them for the craft at MOPS.

I've gained 15lbs since I got out of the hospital. This is really making a dent in my self esteem. I'm pretty sure it's from the steroids and the best part is my face is super fat. I don't really notice it in the mirror, but when I see pictures, I'm like, 'woah, holy crud, what happened?!'

Still haven't gotten the ttp bloodwork back, or got called schedule the pelvic ultrasound, or got a call to reschedule my rheum appt. Oh and my inr was still low at 1.7 last week. I go in on Wed to have it checked again.

16 Weeks Old

2011-02-21T21:16:00.000-08:00

My hips hurt like the dickens. This scares me because before the ICU, I was saying my hips hurt a lot and then after I got intubated they found a bunch of clots in my pelvis. So I told this to the lady who was filling in for the blood dr today and she's sending me for an ultrasound of my pelvic region to rule out more blood clots. I had taken antibiotics for this sinus infection thing and so last week at my coagulation check my INR was low (too thick), but that should be all fixed now. We'll find out on Wed when I got in to get the INR checked again. Anyhow, my dr appt today was rather pointless since the actual dr wasn't there, the TTP blood work is not back yet, and I took both kids with me. They also both decided to poop within like a minute of walking into the waiting room. We were the stinky people sitting in the corner.

Last weekend, I threw a surprise party in Phoenix for Tony's mom, it was her 50th. It turned out to be really fun and I think everyone had a good time. Dang, she's a hard person to surprise though. Especially when you need to cook food for 20 people in her house but she won't leave! Hehe.

The girls seem to be over their colds now (fingers crossed), Tony's fine, and my nose will not stop running. Other that that and the hip thing, I'm good. Oh, pretty sure my hair's falling out again. Let's add insult to injury eh?

Oh, this is a big deal...Nola started laughing! It's so cute. She's trying to roll over too, I'll keep you posted about when that occurs. :)

15 Weeks Old

2011-02-14T20:22:00.000-08:00

15 weeks old
on 2/14/11

Nola is 15 weeks old (or there abouts) and today was her first Valentine's day. I'm sad to say, we did nothing special except for the fact that I dressed the girls up and took pictures. Couldn't let the day go by without photos!

Nola is sick. She's got the cold that the rest of us have. Confirmed by the ped this morning and of course making me feel like I was wasting everyone's time by being paranoid, but whatever. She'll cough and cough for like 5 minutes straight and turn all red, it was concerning me. I also mentioned how she spits up EVERYTHING. I swear, she consumes maybe 10% of what she eats, it's ridiculous. So the ped gave us a sample of formula that has rice cereal stuff in it to see if it will stay down better. 3 feedings and 5 soaked bibs later, I'm gonna go with no, but I'll keep trying. Although, good news, when I was in the appt, I got a voicemail from my old OB saying that she got my note and she would call again until she actually got to talk to me. YAY!

I'm still sick with this cold thing, or whatever. I'd say it's more like sinus infection/bronchitis. I just finished my antibiotics today, so hopefully I'll stop snotting all over soon. Embry is also still sick, but not nearly as bad as before and she's about halfway done with her antibiotics for her ear infection. I got in to see the main hospital dr tomorrow and to give more blood for the hematologist (which hopefully the lab won't mess up this time). Then I need to sign forms to get all my medical records from st joe's hospital sometime too. I'm not complaining, but I am SO TIRED. I told Tony today that I needed to go to bed at 5:30. Now of course it's 9:30 and I'm still up, but you get the idea.

Oh funny story. So I can kinda pick embry up now, like to my waist height, but it's really difficult. So we went to a friend's bday party at a restaurant on Sat night. She was totally fine until I tried to leave. I had my purse, her backpack, and tony's burger in my arms. Then she decides to lay down in the middle of the walkway (inbetween the soda machine and the condiments), close her eyes, and say 'I go sleep now, ok?' I had to laugh. It was pretty hysterical. I got her to stand up a couple times only for her to get back on the floor and do the same thing over again. Then finally I picked her up and hauled her out the front door, no easy task, and scolded her. Needless to say, she went straight to bed when she got home.

Oh and Tony's surgery on Friday went very well. The most painful part seemed to be getting shot with the lidocaine air gun. And, bonus, I got to watch! Ok that sounds weird, but I love stuff like that, surgery that is, or medical procedures in general. Interesting stuff and oddly, Tony wouldn't let me take a picture of him with the drape over his lap. I can't for the life of me figure out why ;)

3 & 1/2 months Old

2011-02-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

Nola is 3.5 months old now. I realized today that I need to have her 3 month pictures taken...cue the cha-ching sounds symbolizing dollar bills rolling out of my pocket. Buuut it's just not fair to have professional pics taken of Embry every 3 months and then not of Nola. I already feel guilty for not getting her weekly pictures done while I was in the hospital. I also can't find any pictures of me on life support, not a single one. I'm feeling a little disappointed tonight so this is probably not going to be a very uplifting post. I just got called home about 5 minutes after leaving for a girl's craft night because Embry was throwing up all over the place. She's been sick for a while with a cold, but then on Saturday I cancelled a playdate at Chick-fil-a and a trip to the zoo because she was running a fever. Later that day I took her with me to run some errands (first time taking her alone since the hospital) and she was fine until we got to Costco where she cried 'mommy mommy, I need go poo poo!' and then threw up all over me in the check out line. I also feel bad for my response which was to ask the cashier and cart person for some paper towels that I had just bought and they didn't respond so I yelled 'paper towels please! I just got thrown up all over!' which wasn't very nice but it seemed like if there ever was a time to yell, that would have been it. Then of course, I apologized about 300 times before leaving. Embry kept saying on the way to the car, 'I'm ok mommy, I'm ok' which was very cute, but overshadowed by the smell of vomit soaking through my shirt. On the way home I just kept thinking, at least I'm alive to smell it...

Then Sunday she seemed a lot better and didn't have a fever and hardly coughed at all so we took her along to a superbowl party. She did great there and acted like her normal self. Today she had a fever again and then got all riled up when I left tonight and like I said, threw up all over. Pretty sure she's just getting way too upset and coughing and then throwing up. At least I hope that's what it is because I've got some weird cold thing going on too and I really hope that vomiting does not come along with it. The nurse practitioner at the clinic wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic in case it turns into something more, we don't want to take any chances. I also got my blood pressure patch reduced again. One more reduction and it'll be gone, woohoo!

Nola still seems to be doing fine and hasn't caught anything yet, fingers crossed. She's smiling a bunch now and almost laughing. She's enjoying her swing more and wasn't liking her playmat very much this past week, but I think that might have been cuz it was off in the corner. I think she might have red hair, but Tony doesn't see it. We have red heads on both sides of the family so it's a possibility although it is a recessive gene.

Today was my first day at home alone with both kids, at least until my parents showed up at 11am. It went really well and I even got some stuff accomplished. That would be due to the fact that Nola was very well behaved and Embry was watching 'Dora' pretty much the whole time. She's obsessed. I mean you have to literally yell her name to get her to turn her head away from the tv when Dora is on. She's also learning lots of spanish, as in, the other day she comes up to me and counts to 10 in spanish on her fingers. It's ridiculous. I mean it's good, but I really don't like her watching that much tv. Then again, I used to watch (and still do) a LOT of tv and it's not like I'm a dummy or something so I guess it's not really that bad.

So, this whole hospital thing...it kinda feels like it never happened. I went through some of the bags that hadn't gotten unpacked a few days ago and I was sitting there holding the Christmas lights that were hanging in my room, thinking, 'geez, all that really did happen'. I just can't wrap my mind around it. I kinda feel like everyone expects me to be doing all the same stuff I did before I went to the hospital too. I'm sure it's nothing to do with anyone else and it's more just the way I perceive it, but that's probably part of the reason I don't feel like I was ever actually sick. Then I'll laugh and get a sharp pain in my side and remember, oh yes, something did happen to me.

I never got the results of the TTP test back. The lab messed up and said they never got the order (even though I handed it to them, they took my blood, then they called my dr to make sure they ran the right test). So the dr is getting it set up so I can go into his office, have my blood drawn, and have his people deliver it right to the place that runs the test. They're supposed to call me to schedule a time, but I haven't heard from them yet. The dr said he's not too concerned though since my other blood tests look good and I'm not feeling bad or anything. I made an appointment with a new primary care physician for this friday, so wish me luck that this one is better than the last one...not hard to be! Tony also goes in for his surgery that day, so I'm hoping all goes well with that and it's quick and painless like everyone says it's supposed to be. I'm sure he'll be fine, but he's normally the one that's always good and healthy around here so it'll be umm interesting to have roles reversed for a while.

We went to Phoenix last weekend which was a lot of fun. I was a little sad that I didn't get to go in the pool or hot tub since that was something I was REALLY looking forward to, but I opted to take a nap instead...aren't you proud of me?! I got to see some family that hadn't seen in quite a while and catch up a bit. It was really nice. We went out to dinner for Allison's birthday and we played games and watched 'Easy A' (one of my new favorite movies, thanks Kristy!) We ate at Culvers a lot (yum) and met Jamie there for lunch one day. I wish we could go up there more to hang out, but it's pretty much just going to be a weekend thing from here on out since Tony's vacation time is pretty much spent for the year. We'll be going up next weekend for Dorothea's birthday, but we can only stay one full day so it will be quite a short trip. :(

Progress

2011-01-19T05:42:00.000-08:00

I'm slowly but surely getting back to 'normal' whatever that means. However I woke up this morning with what seems to be a head cold and I'm pretty scared that it could turn into something worse. I am NOT going back to the hospital!

So, for progress, I can now:

go up and down the stairs, alternating feet like normal, without someone else's help
get into the tub and bathe by myself, getting out I still need help
take a shower alone
get up from the toilet without assistance (this is a biggie and makes me so happy)
walk without help or a walker or holding onto something
DRIVE (this is fantastic and on the way home from being discharged from the hospital I was so scared thinking of how I was ever going to drive again. I've come a long way in 2 weeks and I'm so grateful to God for his amazing healing hand).
Do my hair. Apparently I had a very bad ponytail while on life support, so now it's time to get back to looking cute, ha. Oh, ps, if you have any pics from the hospital (esp any of me on the ventilator) please email them to me. Thanks.
Hold Nola and put her over my shoulder to burp, although not for an extended period of time
Get up from pretty much any seat without help and without holding onto anything except my knees, YAY!!!

Nola is doing great! She slept entirely through the night on the 18th and has normally been only getting up once to be changed and eat and then going back to sleep. I am also sleeping better, so we're all a lot happier. She had her 2 month check up on the 18 with her new ped and she weighed 10lbs 15oz, was 23.5 inches long, and her head circumference was in the 5% at 37.5 cm around. Embry also had a check up and was 26 lbs, 33&3/4" tall, and her head circumference was 48 cm. Nola got 4 shots and a nasal drop thingy and she cried for a minute or so, then she took her bottle and all was well again. She did have some swelling at the injection sites later, but Tony gave her some tylenol and she was fine. Oddly, while we were there and I was filling out paperwork in the exam room, I overheard a nurse and the dr talking about how one of their patients was the step-son of Pam Golden (my amazing OB who basically saved my life on more than one occasion). So being the nosey person that I am, I piped up and said, 'oh Dr Pamela Golden? Is there any way I can get a hold of her?' and proceeded to explain what all went on and how she was the one who thought I might have a blood clot etc etc. They said I could write her a note and they'd try to get it passed along to her, so that's what I did. I really feel the need to thank her, it's not very often you find a dr like her and she needs to know how much it means to me that she actually cared.

Speaking of Drs...my pcp's nurse called me on Tuesday and said that she meant to call me earlier but their computers were down and she didn't have my #, but that Dr. Morris wanted to schedule a post-hospital appt with me. Ha. I said, 'well, I actually won't be seeing him anymore' and she just said 'ok, I'll let him know.' She seemed somewhat surprised, but I think she kinda caught the drift of what all went down and having kids herself I'm sure she wouldn't want them to receive the same kind of care that I did in that situation. I just don't want anyone else to get treated the way I did, get the brush off, and then end up on life support, or even worse, die. It's just not right.

Good news is that my insurance rocks and the bill for having Nola and the bill for this whole stint in the hospital were less than HALF of what I expected them to be. Another miracle I'm sure because God knows we could use some and he's definitely providing for us. :) I just pray that medicare doesn't go down the tubes with the health care bill cuz dang, I'd be up a river without a paddle. Then again, life's too short to worry, so yay for having good health care right now. Booyah.

My friend Kristy came to visit from WI last week and it was FANTASTIC! We used to do EVERYTHING together, we were pretty much inseparable and it was nice to feel so comfortable around someone. She's 5 mos pregnant and it wasn't an easy road to get there, so I was super excited to see and feel her baby belly and suggest that she name her baby boy Rourke just because I like it. :) We did some major shopping at the JBF sale, Target, Container Store, etc and she went through my maternity clothes (since I definitely won't be using them again) and picked out a few items. Needless to say, her suitcase was a little full upon her departure, but at least she got it zipped! We watched movies, went to MOPS, went to book club (she even read about 70% of the book with just a few days notice), went to Phoenix (to visit with Jamie), and went to girl's night. I'm so glad I'm able to get out more now because being cooped up at home is sooo not my thing!

Speaking of not using maternity clothes...we had the consult with the urologist and I think we've decided not to bank Tony's sperm before hand. We figure if there's a 97% success rate for the vasectomy reversal, then if someday he falls into the 3% it doesn't work on, he's just not meant to have any more biological children. As far as us having more kids, we haven't ruled it out. I've always pictured myself as a mom of 3 girls and Tony wants more kids (a boy in particular, but just more than 2 in general), so we're still throwing around the idea of adoption. We've always felt called to adopt (Tony's mom was adopted and I've wanted to since before I was married), but with the recent health issues I'm not even sure if it's an option anymore, even as foster/adopt. Either way, it wouldn't become a 'real' thing for quite a while so I'll keep you updated as we investigate further. I love babies and I LOVE being pregnant, so I'm kinda hurt that I never will be again. It's very trivial, but it still kinda stings.

The formula feeding is going really well. Nola doesn't seem to be having any issues with it and besides one small episode of leakage, things on my end are holding up rather well. I'm not so worried about mastitis anymore and I feel fine in that area, so yay.

The dr said to watch for any hardening under the skin in the 2 areas where I had the pic lines (my groin and my right bicep). Well, I found a very small hard lump right at the incision site to my groin pic line, but of course it was over the weekend, so I'll be calling them tomorrow morning to ask them about it. The arm one seems to be healing up rather well, but I doubt the bruising will go away for a while since I'm on blood thinners, but whatev. Till then I'll just look like I've been beaten and am addicted to nicotine because of this lovely blood pressure patch, good times.

I pretty much stopped doing the breathing treatments and I haven't gotten the results of the latest chest x-ray back yet. I go in to see the main dr on Wed so I'll know then what it showed. The x-ray lab actually gave me a dvd of the images, but I can't for the life of me get it to run on my computer. :/ It actually made my heart jump when the x-ray technician told me I had to strip down and put on a hospital gown for the visit...hospital gown, no thank you, I've had enough of those to last me a lifetime. So of course, I took a picture.

News

2011-01-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess I should say something about Gabby Giffords. Being pretty involved in campus politics at the U of A, I was kinda 'in the know' about stuff. She always seemed like a nice person, never did meet her, but did a paper on how she was the youngest person elected to congress. Oh right, I remember, that was for the legislative internship I applied for in Phoenix. So basically I researched her since district 8 was our district. Obviously this whole thing is just tragic and shocking. I'm praying for her full recovery, God works miracles and he's been in the business of doing some great ones lately, I know he can work through Gabby too. About the shooter, who knows if he even went to the U of A, but I seriously pray he was not part of college republicans. Politically this is gonna have a lot of fallout and I'm sure those of us who are 'normal' (ie not extreme) will get lumped in. We need to remember to pray for those who become victims in this situation in other ways besides physically. May God be with all of them to comfort and guide.

Now then, moving on... guess what? I got my present for the next Mother's day, Valentine's day, Birthday, Christmas, Sweetest Day, recovery, being well again, welcome home, etc etc etc. And it is .... this camera. It is my DREAM video camera. I am so excited! Oh, our regular one (that I got in high school) totally conked out before Christmas. It'll only work when it's plugged in. We've been using the small digital camera to take short videos in the meantime. I hope I can figure out how to work it. Plus for Christmas I got an extended life battery and piggyback battery along with some chargers that coincide with this camera.

Healthcare

2011-01-08T06:15:00.000-08:00

This is obviously of utmost importance to me and I thought it might be important to some of you as well:
Health care Bill Repeal
House of reps is supposed to vote on Wed.

Much Needed Update

2011-01-07T06:20:00.000-08:00

Nola: we got her into the new ped's office earlier this week. Doro took both girls. They said she has excess mucus in the back of her nose/throat area and we can use saline and suction a couple times a day to get gunk out. It's normal. Didn't ask about the bump, but it doesn't seem to bother her so I'm going to say it's ok for now. We have an appt for both girls on jan 18 so we'll find out more then. And, Nola was 11 lbs.

Confusion: Got the meds figured out. Think the prednisone (steroid) taper is too fast. Have Rheum (lupus dr) appt on monday with the last guy I saw (who said come back when you're not pregnant). The main dr has been talking with this rheum about my situation already so she wants me to see him again even though the referral for the one I wanted to see actually came through. I'll talk to him about the taper on Monday.

The in home nurse came and the PT guy. Nurse will be back tues and PT is scheduled for 2 times a week for 8 weeks but can be changed based on progress. I have appts with the main dr for next week as well as a counselor through my insurance for me to just talk through things.

My back has been hurting. Some is the same as what I went into the hospital with and when I take a deep breath (which I can tell I have diminished lung capacity) I can feel some like zinging around the whole area of the main lung clot. I was told in the hospital that all the clots had dissipated, but I'm wondering if that's true or if there's residual damage in that area or something. I will as the main dr for a chest xray next week.

I fell this morning trying to leave for the dr. Basically my legs just gave out. Everything was fine, but I didn't realize that could happen. Oh and I've decided not to try the stairs again until the new railing is up. We have delegated the buying to our good friends and we're so thankful for the help.

Getting organized on having help here (or having the girls somewhere else) is going well but is a lot of work. I know people want to help it's just a matter of logistics. Issue I'm having is tues-fri 17-21. I want to give people as much notice as possible, but Doro won't know if she can do those days until Thurs (the 13th) and I don't want to suddenly cancel everyone.

I've decided to take this one step at a time (aren't I punny?). If I look at it as a whole, it's just too much. One thing at a time and it will get done. Oh and I got the checkbook figured out and all the mail gone through.

One thing I have to think about is my pcp and the first er dr who sent me home without xrays etc and if we should seek retribution regarding this whole thing. I love law in itself, but the idea of a lawsuit scares the crud out of me. Please pray for direction on this matter.

Ok that's all for now. Time for me to try and get some more shut eye.

Well, Here it Comes

2011-01-05T02:37:00.000-08:00

I think I'm on the verge of a mental breakdown. What the heck is going on? I feel like the only thing I should think for the rest of my life is 'look at me, I'm alive! Here I am, I'm alive!' yet here I sit at 3:30 in the morning, not gotten a wink of sleep, worrying. When getting discharged today I was barraged with about 40 papers listing medications, notes for other dr's to fill them in, instructions, but like half of what I need is missing. I feel like I was given way too much information at one time to process yet not all the pieces are there. We filled the prescription which was about 10 diff things, yet none of them were a blood thinner. The orders said not to fill the one blood thinner and in my mind, I was on more than one, so where are the rest? I called the insurance company, luckily got through to the dr after hours and she got a blood thinner filled. I was given a huge batch of meds this morning, I don't know which ones, yet I'm still supposed to take all these meds tonight before bed? Aren't I duplicating meds, especially the steroids which are very sensitive to dosage. How come nobody went over all this with me? Then I lay here wondering, how is my body going to process these 15 pills I just took? All at the same time? Shouldn't they be spread out? What if I actually do go to sleep, will I wake up? The last thing I want is to go back to the hospital, but shouldn't someone be monitoring this more closely? I went from getting my vitals checked 6 times a day to getting them checked, oh right, not at all. Then on top of it all, they restarted some of my old meds and none of those were in the prescriptions either...so am I supposed to take those or not?

Every single muscle in my body aches. I feel like I ran a 10k. I can't even move my arm to pet the cat without pain. Still, I have to use what seems like all of my body strength in order to get up to go to the bathroom. Everything is sore. EVERYTHING.

Nola has a bump on the back of her head, like a squishy nodule. She also is constantly snorting and like gasping for breath. Something is not right. I called a new ped and set up and appt for her and embry to be seen but the earliest date was the 18. Should I call and see if they can see her sooner? Do I go along even though it's going to be incredibly difficult? But I need that information. I need to know what's going on with my baby.

I have no clue, absolutely none, as to what is going on with Tony. I feel like such a burden. We need to go to counseling. On top of this, I had a talk with the dr before leaving in which she said basically there is no way I should ever be pregnant again. I guess I knew this. I however can't take any hormones or get any surgeries which means that it will be up to Tony. He's only 25. This seems too young to do something so drastic, so final. I mean, what happens to him if something were to happen to me and he'd want more kids down the road?

There are a million things to get done. Bills sitting there waiting to be opened, probably already past due. It's like a never ending list of dr's to see. I have no idea who I'm supposed to call and when and then when I'm supposed to see them and why.

This whole thing is hitting me all at once. Up until now, I kinda felt like it all happened to someone else. Now I realize that I'm the one hobbling around. I'm the one laying here watching the seconds tick by for 5 straight hours waiting to rest. I'm the one that is missing 2 weeks of their life. What happened? I want answers. I kind of know the medical side, but what about the emotional side? What did people think? Where were there minds and hearts? I know none of this. How is this going to work? How is anything going to get done? How will I make it down the stairs in the morning? Who's going to put all this junk away? Will I ever fully recover? The dr gave me a lecture about how the normal heart runs at about 65-70% and mine's about 45%. What does this mean? I thought, 'oh good, it'll be like a month and I'll be back in the swing of things.' Is that even remotely realistic?

I just don't know what to think. It's all so overwhelming. I am happy to be alive, but my gosh, what is going on?

All the Praise goes to God

2011-01-02T21:49:00.000-08:00

oh goodness, where do I even begin? I'm sure most of you already know most of this story from updates on facebook and through email, but I feel I need to document whatever I can, which actually isn't much more than hearsay.

Basically, I guess you could say, I almost died. From my last post, you know I was in the hospital with a blood clot and fluid in my lungs. Well, I actually only remember about 3 days of that (dec 16-18) and then waking up in the ICU getting a bone marrow biopsy with a breathing and feeding tube keeping me alive (which I believe was about dec 28).

I guess that everything hit the fan on dec 20. My parents came up to the hospital to see me and it's a good thing they arrived when they did. My mom walked in with a little christmas tree and apparently I was trying to find the nurse button, completely soaked, eyes rolling back in my head, turning blue, couldn't breath, so she threw the tree on the floor ran in the hall yelling for help and about 20 drs poured into the room and shoved them out and called a code blue. They intubated me, did a ct scan that showed a 'huge' blood clot that had traveled to my heart and was keeping it from actually pumping. The drs told my parents and tony that they could use a really dangerous drug to try and break up the clot which would probably cause other internal bleeding or basically my heart wouldn't be able to pump. Then apparently I stabilized enough to not need the drug. They moved me to ICU on life supports and found blood clots in my legs, pelvis, lungs, and heart...also pneumonia and fluid around my kidneys/liver. My bp was sky high (210's/120's) and my platelet count was extremely low (30's and spos to be in the 200's) even with multiple platelet transfusions.

Eventually I guess I started to stabilize enough for them to start lowering the sedation. This is when I started waking up. It took a few days of me being 'awake' to get the breathing/feeding tube out. Being awake with that in was extremely horrible and I couldn't talk to ask any questions of what happened, so I just kinda had to wonder what was going on. I kept gagging on the tube and blowin chunks because of it, it was really horrible. When I woke up, I had no idea where I was, or what happened, it was like 2 weeks of my life was just missing. I do remember a few things while under sedation, it's very surreal. One really good 'memory' was swirling around in a shopping cart at Target with my brother getting after Christmas sales and a very bad 'memory' was going to a group home hospital setting where I was in a wheelchair, doing a bell craft and then people started fighting outside and I couldn't reach the phone to call tony no matter how hard I tried. I was aware of there being the possibility of seeing a white light and I was determined that if I did see something of that sort that I was going the opposite direction. I somehow knew my time on earth wasn't up yet. These 2 'memories' seem so real I would swear they actually happened and they were the first 2 questions I asked tony once I got the feeding/breathing tube out.

Apparently a lot of people came by while I was in icu and I don't remember one bit of it and for that I am very sorry. I feel so horrible that I can't remember all of the love and prayers that poured over me during that time. I also feel extremely overwhelmed with all the help and just giving and caring that people have done for me, my family, my husband, and the girls while all this has been going down. I mean, there's no possible way I could ever express my thankfulness, it would literally be impossible.

As of today, the news is that God has restored me completely. The dr's said there was no way my heart could ever repair itself and it is 'back to normal'. My lungs are 'back to normal'. All clots are completely gone. All fluid in my lungs is completely gone. All of my blood counts are in normal range and my body is completely restored. The dr's are basically baffled. They're saying it was a lupus flare and really have no idea why any of it happened or how it has been completely fixed. God is so amazing, I can't ever begin to explain the amazement that fills my heart through this whole experience. I'm just in awe. I'm so thankful to be alive and vow to not waste one second ever, ever again. Life is just too precious.

The main thing now is doing rehab and getting strength back. My legs look pretty funny. Where there would normally be my pretty large calf muscle (I'm no spring chicken) there is a skinny, flimsy, jello like piece of flab. So, I'm now able to stand and walk with a walker, but still need some assistance actually standing up. Seems like this is going to take a lot of work and humility, but I sure am motivated to get home to my kids and resume living. Life is just too short to be hanging out in a hospital bed waiting around to move. Let's do this!

In the Hospital

2010-12-17T04:18:00.000-08:00

So last night I was pretty sick, puking and whatnot and of course I had a fever the entire time which would not go away. So once the dr's office opened, I called them and told them about my fevers and new sickness. The nurse called me back and said that the dr wanted me to go to the ER because I might be bleeding in my GI tract. Well, I asked what he said about the fevers and the nurse said he didn't even mention them so I told her to ask him. She called me back while Tony was driving me to the ER (my favorite place on earth) and said the dr said they'd evaluate my fever in the ER. Wow, he's really helpful.

Once at the ER they took me in right away and the dr was nice and helpful. She ran blood tests, a urinalysis, and did a chest xray. Basically my blood count has dropped since I had Nola, so that leads them to believe I am bleeding internally somewhere. It could be around the lung, but they can't tell that yet because it's in a bunch of fluid and collapsed. It could also be somewhere in my GI tract, but they don't want to put me under anesthesia while I'm having trouble breathing to begin with in order to do the tests to find GI bleeding.

They admitted me and told me I'd be here at least a couple of days (sat is the soonest I could go home). I talked to a pulmenologist and the GI guy. The lung guy is giving me some vitamin K supplements to get my blood level up so they can suck the fluid off of my lung in the morning. Then the lung should re-inflate pretty instantaneously. He thinks I have an infarction which means the blood clot got lodged in a vessel which caused a bit of the lung to die which was irritating and caused all the fluid to build up and collapse the lung. He said this would cause my fevers if it was the case. He also said once the fluid is gone (which he said was a LOT whereas my dr said it was hardly any) I will start feeling better almost right away. :) I don't want to get my hopes up, but yay! Also once the lung is inflated then I'll start hacking up whatever was stuck in there and they'll be able to tell from that if it was actually infected (pneumonia) or not.

Then while my lung is ok and I'm off the blood thinners, the GI guy wants to do some endo-something where they put me under and run a camera down into my stomach to check things out.

So that's what's on the agenda for today. Hopefully nothing will hurt too bad and we'll get some answers. Thanks for your prayers.

Nola is 7 Weeks old

2010-12-14T15:29:00.000-08:00

7 Weeks Old

Taken 12/14/10

The girls with Santa on 12/13/10,
Embry wasn't very happy about it.

Well, we figured out what's wrong with me, my OB was right and deserves an award for best Dr ever because she actually gives a rip. After I left my 6 week ob appt and had told her my symptoms, she calls me right away and says that it is very unlikely but it might be a blood clot in my lung and I should have my primary dr look into it. So I called the dr and told him what she said and he replied that my symptoms did not indicate a blood clot whatsoever, but he'd send me in for a blood test which if was negative then it was unlikely I had one and if it was positive, it was probably a false positive. I had the blood test done on Thursday I believe. Yesterday the dr's office called and said it was positive and if I had any significant shortness of breath (which I'd been having for like a week already) that I should go to the ER (where of course they will do absolutely nothing). So they scheduled me for a contrast dye CT scan for 12:30 yesterday. Once it was done I was laying there and I could hear the tech whispering and then leaving and coming back in a bunch, so I figured something was up. Then he came over finally and said that their dr was on the phone with my dr discussing the results and he wanted to talk to me before I left. Then the dr came in and said that my dr would be calling me within the hour to discuss the treatment and I was like 'treatment for what? Or can you not tell me anything either?' (Because when I was talking to the tech before the test I asked if he could tell me anything afterwards and he said no). So the dr goes, 'well your right lung has a blood clot in the lower right quadrant, it has some fluid in it, and it's partially collapsed. Your doctor is going to prescribe some medications and call you with further instructions.' Then the tech made me a copy of the scan on a cd, which I just looked at, and woah, like half of my right lung is completely collapsed...no wonder I can't breath.

The dr wasn't in the office, so I talked to the nurse. The dr prescribed an oral blood thinner and a twice daily injectable blood thinner. I asked the nurse how I was spos to know how to give myself shots, so I waited for the script to get filled then took it to the dr office where the nurse injected me. Holy cow, that hurt. I was like, 'I thought they weren't spos to hurt in your stomach?!' and she said things like insulin don't but since this drug is thick, it hurts like the dickens. Great, and I'm spos to do this to myself twice a day for 10 days?

I went in to see the actual dr this morning and I made it pretty clear that I was really ticked at him. He started out saying that he was so surprised since my symptoms didn't indicate a pulmonary embolism. So I said, 'well I didn't tell you all my symptoms of shortness of breath and rapid heartbeat etc because the second time I came in here for my back pain you guys called me beforehand and asked if my pain had changed at all because if it hadn't then I didn't need to come in again. Implying that I would just come in here for the heck of it. I wouldn't come in unless there was something really wrong so there was no way I was going to call you when my symptoms started changing again.' He didn't really have anything to say about that. I also told him that I had called and talked to the nurse when I was in so much pain and crying on the phone and she told me if it was so bad, I should just go to the ER and I told him what a disaster that was. I asked if I could take percocet with these meds because I can't sleep unless I take it since I can't sleep on either side or toss at all, all my joints are in pain, and he goes, 'where'd you get percocet?' Like I'm buying it on the black market or something. I told him I had some left over from having Nola, some left over from my root canal, and that the oh-so-helpful ER dr gave me a prescription for some too. He wrote me out a prescription for more and since I can't take NSAIDS (like naproxen or ibuprofen for joint pain) while on blood thinners, he told me not to exceed 4000 mgs of tylenol per day (since percocet also has acetaminophen in it). This brought up the fact that I've had fevers over 102 everyday for at least the past week. I asked if this could cause fevers and he said only really low grade fevers so if mine persist, then I should come back in. Um, right, I can tell you're really concerned.

He acted like I might be on the oral blood thinner for a long time, but he's sending me to a hematologist to test me for blood clotting disorders. He said the hematologist would go over the risks of stopping the oral meds in order to run the tests, like if I'm off the meds then I'll suddenly develop more clots. Oh and the meds don't help the current clot to dissolve, supposedly it will do that on it's own, the fluid will be reabsorbed, and the lung will re-inflate. The meds are just so I don't produce anymore clots.

Oooh we also had a nice convo where my mom says, 'how is she supposed to take care of 2 kids like this?' and he goes 'you should be able to take care of them just fine.' So I say, 'umm for 3 weeks I've been telling you how much pain I'm in and now I can barely breath on top of it, it's a little hard to take care of my kids.' I mean really, is he even listening at all?! I get my blood retested on Fri to see if I can stop the injections, then again on Monday. I'm really hoping I can stop them sooner than 10 days.

Oh, Nola's face/chest/back all have that rash which I thought was baby acne. Apparently it's something dermatitis which is a type of eczema and we're supposed to put Eucerin cream on it every night and it should get better.

So in other events, I took the girls to the mom's group Christmas party with the help of my mom. Luckily we were in the first group to see Santa cuz I really wasn't feeling too well and we left right after that. Embry was very excited to see santa while waiting in line, but once she got up to him, she put on her 'sad face' and tried to get away. Nola was perfectly content probably cuz she didn't know what was going on. I got a picture and that's all I cared about, so whatever.

Nola is 6 Weeks Old!

2010-12-09T16:55:00.001-08:00

6 Weeks Old

Yep, I'm late, I know. Although this time it's not due to laziness, it's because I've been sick. Went in for the HIDA scan yesterday which was ok except it took 4 hours instead of 2 hours because they needed to prove that I wasn't pregnant. I told them there was no way I could be seeing as I just had my 6 week OB appt on Monday, but they needed a blood test. The lab took forever to process it. Then it took quite a while to find a vein for the IV since I had been fasting they were all collapsed. They had me lay flat on my back on this hard plastic thing for the 1.5 hour test and it was excruciatingly painful. Plus, I was freezing and when I finally got home my fever was 102.4. I've been getting fevers like that everyday for the past week. This morning I called my mom around 7 to see if she could come over to help me since I was feeling so horrible and I ended up puking and taking quite a few percocet to make it through the day. The problem with taking percocet when I don't have anyone here to help me is that it makes me so tired I have to go to bed. So I spent half the day sleeping and half the day sitting downstairs feeding Nola and pumping. Oh, bonus is that I have to pump and dump until Saturday because of the radiation they put in my IV for the HIDA scan. I just want to know what's wrong with me and get it fixed. I'm very scared that they're just going to say something like, 'oh it's arthritis, you just have to deal with it.' I can't possibly imagine living the rest of my life like this.

So, onto Nola. She's doing good. She's not fighting about taking the bottle or drinking formula which is a relief since we have no other options for a few days. She has developed quite the case of baby acne, but it probably didn't help that we didn't bathe her for like 2 weeks since I can't do it by myself with 2 kids while I'm sick. She seems more interested in her bouncer and her swing and particularly likes the vibrating feature on the bouncer, but then it broke. We replaced it with one from craigslist for $15.

Nola is 5 Weeks Old!

2010-12-01T17:17:00.000-08:00

5 Weeks old
Taken 12/1/10

Oy, this week has been one for the books. There is something wrong with me. First it was just my back, then it was only the right side of my back and right shoulder with something weird going all spazzy when I ate. Then since I could only sleep on my left side, that whole side ended up getting very sore from arthritis. The dr sent me in for an ultrasound of my gallbladder which looked totally normal and now is trying to get me in for a HIDA scan which checks the functionality of the gallbladder instead of just looking for stones and infection. Problem is, we have to wait for the insurance to authorize it and in the meantime, I'm in pain. Lots of pain. I've tried ice, I've tried heat, I've tried stretching, I've tried massage...anything is just a temporary fix, if a fix at all. Yesterday out of desperation, I went to the ER. The dr there pretty much sucked. He said he didn't think it was my gallbladder so he wouldn't do the HIDA scan and he thought it was muscular. Basically they did blood work and a urinalysis (which just showed my potassium and sodium are low) and sent me home. It was rather infuriating.

I can't believe Nola is over a month old already. I swear, I feel like I just got home from the hospital with her. Nola seems to be sleeping slightly better and we're trying out a new plan. Tony gets up with her once during the night to feed her formula because I'm thinking she might sleep longer that way. Last night was the first night trying it out and it went fine, so we'll see if my plan has any merit. Either way, I'll be getting more sleep because I'll be skipping a feeding during the night and that alone is a huge blessing. Weird thing is that since having Nola, Embry has been waking up screaming at night, like she's having a nightmare. She probably gets that from me because I have nightmares all the time...poor thing.

The first month or so that Nola was home, she was pretty easy going. She hardly ever cried and just kinda whimpered when she needed something. I thought maybe she'd be the laid-back baby that Embry wasn't...I was wrong. She's started crying a TON over the last week or so. It seems that the only way to keep her calm (and sometimes that doesn't even work) is to either feed her or hold her. Oh, but a good thing is that she enjoys riding in the car most of the time. So the crying thing has not helped my daytime sleeping ability. Today was the first time in a week that I've gotten a nap, and boy was it heavenly!

Ha, I almost forgot, Nola had her first Thanksgiving! It was lots of fun besides the fact that I was upstairs half the time trying to fix my back. Anyhow, Tony's mom, Allison, Alex, and his dad came over as well as my parents, Donny, Oasis, and Maisie. The food was delicious (thanks to Tony, his mom, and my mom...cuz all I made was the monkey bread) and we got some really cute pictures of the family outside. I also got a picture that I have envisioned for a while...our girls with both sets of grandparents! :) Then that night Tony's mom, Allison, and I went over to our friend's house to play games which was hysterically fun, I love games and friends. The day after Thanksgiving Allison and I went to do a bit of shopping and then Saturday Allison got the flu that Embry had and so did my mom. Then Donny and Oasis also got it as well as tony's mom. Apparently it's a very strong strain. Saturday before Tony's family left we took the girls with Alex and Doro to the desert museum which was really fun and I can't wait to go back!

Nola is 4 Weeks Old!

2010-11-23T17:27:00.000-08:00

4 weeks old
on 11/23/10

It was a big hassle to get retested in the carseat on 11/18 (her due date). I had an appt to come into the hospital on the 18th at noon and after my mom came in and all 4 of us went to the hospital, they said they had no idea what I was talking about. The lady who was down at the newborn checkup with me (which we had 2 days after we left the hospital) said she vaguely might have remembered something about the fact that we talked to someone from the nursery who said we should come back on her due date. So, she said she'd get someone to do the test for me (mind you this is already 1.5 hours past our appt time) and then all the nurses were busy with deliveries or feeding babies. We finally started the carseat test at 2:30 and realized that the Graco carseat straps wouldn't tighten enough to be safe for travel. She said they could still do the test in that seat but I wouldn't be able to take her home in that one. So I took my mom and Embry home (cuz it was way past her naptime) and picked up the chicco carseat to take back to the hospital. The carseat test was over by the time I got back and she had passed! Woohoo! They had also weighed her and she was up to 7lbs 3oz already! I said it must be all of the halloween candy I've been eating while nursing at night trying to stay awake. ;) I gave them the carbed back and said good riddance and finally left to run errands.

Other news is that Embry has the stomach flu, again. She started throwing up at 11pm last night (of course I was up feeding Nola, because when am I not?) and so I heard her whining on the monitor and sent Tony to see what was going on. I set up the guest bedroom for them and had him sleep in there with her for the rest of the night. She threw up about 8 times over the course of 12 hours and we thought she was over it for a while because she had a cracker and some bread and kept it down for a few hours, but then it reappeared around lunchtime. She took a long nap (like 3 hours) and seems to be doing better now, but we'll just have to wait and see. Tony stayed home with her today while Nola and I stayed in our bedroom all day to avoid getting sick. I'm not sure what this says about us hosting Thanksgiving on Thursday because I'm guessing even if she is all over it, she's probably still contagious for a while. Hmmmm.

I was thinking that Nola was doing really well sleeping at night, then it backfired on me. She went for about a week doing 3-5 hour stretches between eating and then a few days ago she started eating every 2 hours again. This is ridiculous! She eats for an hour at time, so I'll be up for an hour doing that, then sleep for an hour and then she's up again to eat. Really, is someone supposed to be able to survive on one hour stretches of sleep?! I think not.

Sunday morning I had some insanely bad back pain. It started in my spine near my bra line and radiated around to the front of my ribs. I took some percocet and it got better. I went to the dr yesterday and he said it seemed muscular, which really doesn't sound right to me, and is sending me to physical therapy. That means a lot of hassle and if they just tell me to do stretches for an hour while I'm there and I go to all the work of finding someone to watch the kids etc, then I'm just going to tell them to forget it. I can stretch at home, thanks.

Nola is 3 Weeks Old!

2010-11-16T17:11:00.001-08:00

3 Weeks Old

Taken on 11/16/10

So this week has been a bit interesting.

Embry's birthday was Sunday so we had her open her presents from us and then Tony and I took her to lakeside park and to see 'Despicable Me' while my mom watched Nola. We thought it would be nice to spend some time with her alone since Nola's been getting a lot of attention since she came along (obviously). The park was lots of fun. We had a picnic and played with Embry on the playground. Then went down to feed the ducks, which she loved! We left and went to the cheap theater to see the movie. Embry was pretty good until the last 1/2 hour. Then I let her out of her stroller and she would not sit in either of our laps or in a regular seat, so I went to the back of the theater with her and let her go up and down the steps where nobody was sitting for about 20 min. During this time a teenage boy and his fam (mom, dad, and sis) quickly gathered all their stuff and left the theater while reeking of puke, come to find out, the boy had thrown up all over the floor and seat where he was sitting. Anyhow, then Embry was just non-compliant and needed her diaper changed so I took her out of the theater and to the bathroom.

This was when my headache started getting really bad. I had a slight headache for a couple days but thought nothing of it since that's normal for me. So when we got home I pumped and that was weird because the one boob that normal gives the most milk hardly gave any and it kinda hurt. I figured it was just extra full from not being home to feed nola, maybe clogged or something. So then I went upstairs to take a nap. Over the next couple hours my fever went from about 99 to 104.3 and I was sweating, shivering, ached all over, and my boob was hurting like no other. I told Tony I thought maybe it was Mastitis and he looked up the symptoms and how to help it and it seemed like it all matched. Then I called my OB and told her what was going on and luckily she didn't make me go to the hospital cuz I'm pretty sure I couldn't have made it down to the car without being carried. After figuring out that our walgreens, frys, and safeway pharmacies all closed before 6pm on Sunday she called in a prescription for an antibiotic to a Walgreens further away.

This posed another problem since Tony can't take both kids in the car with him alone since someone is supposed to be watching Nola in the carbed. So he reluctantly left her upstairs in bed with me and took Embry to pick up my prescription and a heating pad. It all worked out ok and luckily Nola wasn't fussy when she was with me alone. I took a bunch of tylenol, naproxen, ibuprofen etc to get my fever down and it started going down slowly overnight so it was only slightly elevated the next morning. My mom came in to help watch the kids yesterday when Tony was at work which was a lifesaver and then I was alone with them today. I'm feeling better now, but not 'good' so it's a bit trying to deal with both of them at one time.

Today went all right. Nothing really majorly horrible happened, but I swear, Embry could outlast the energizer bunny any day of the week! She just never stops, NEVER. Although I decided to take my nap downstairs (where Nola was finally asleep in the pack n play rather than moving her upstairs to her crib) and I got to sleep for about 2 hours until some guy knocked really loudly on the door and rang the doorbell. This woke me up, woke Nola up, and Embry was either already awake or woke up because then she kept yelling for me to let her out of her room. I never answer the door when I'm home alone unless I already know who's coming so all that was for nothing anyway because I didn't answer the door.

Nola's due date is this coming Thursday. I bet she's about 6&1/2 lbs now, but maybe they'll be kind enough to weigh her at the hospital when we're there on thursday. Her 2nd carseat test is at noon on Thurs. Can't wait. I'll be really glad to get her out of that stupid carbed, but there is the possibility that she won't pass the test again and then I'll be very disheartened.

Added to all this is the fact that Embry has decided to be potty trained right now. Starting when Tony's mom was here after Nola came home she slowly began to use the potty. As of now she's going pee-pee in it about 3-5 times a day and she's gone poo-poo in it once of her own accord and once when I quick threw her on when she was kinda already going. She's making quite a bit of progress and not needing much prompting to do so. I'm very happy for this, but the timing could have been a bit better (like before I had a newborn to look after as well), oh well.

Nola is ok at night time. She tends to wake up when I put her down in the pack n play after feeding her. Usually once a night I'll stand there and rock her until she is sleeping, put her down, and then tip toe back into bed praying she won't wake up. Tony was having us get up every 3 hours to feed her (since she's preterm) but we've been sleeping through those alarms lately. Even though I haven't been getting much sleep, I still don't feel quite as, um, off kilter as I did with Embry at this point. I guess having a toddler to take care of actually keeps you slightly sane?!

Nola is 2 Weeks Old!

2010-11-09T20:41:00.001-08:00

2 weeks old
on 11/9/10

Tony's mom left yesterday morning. Tony went back to work this morning. My mom came over at 7:30 am to watch Embry while I got to sleep in, which was very nice. She'll be back tomorrow morning for the same thing except she's bringing my dad along too. I don't think I'd be nearly as tired if Nola would just eat and be done with it, but it seems like it takes her an hour for each feeding. That means I'm up for an hour every 3 hours, meaning I only get 2 hours of sleep at a time. I'm tired.

Embry is really testing us. It's driving me insane. My mom and I took the girls to get pictures taken at Target today and Embry was less than cooperative until I bribed her with the promise of candy. Then once my mom left after Tony got home, Embry tried to do everything possible that would be 'bad' and I think her sole purpose was to send me to the insane asylum. She's cute, but dang, she's strong willed.

I'd like to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but I can't just leave the house in a state of disarray and actually get to sleep at night. So, up I stay, putting things away, doing little things that need to get done. Not to mention the entire list of things that I had to do before I had Nola, well...those things still need to get done. Oh and add in, thank you cards for my birthday, for the baby shower, and for Embry's birthday, plus Christmas cards and baby announcements. Tony's mom helped with the announcements while she was down, so those are actually mostly assembled and just need to be addressed/stamped/etc.

Embry's 2nd birthday party was on Sunday. It was lots of fun! I feel like when I host something, I never actually get to talk to people as much as I would like, oh well. Embry actually behaved rather well during the whole thing which was very impressive considering she declined to take a nap that day. The Elmo jumping castle/slide combo was a big hit and Embry played on it till the very moment they had to take it away. Only problem was that the little kids (and myself) had a very hard time getting up the rope/ladder to go down the slide. Basically an adult would end up pushing a kid up over the top instead of having them try to climb up, it worked out ok. I'm pretty sure I over-did it a bit though, feeling better now, but I think bouncing is not recommended for someone who had a baby 1.5 weeks earlier. Yes, now you can all say, 'I told you so.'

Birth Story and 1 Week Old!

2010-11-04T11:27:00.000-07:00

Mama and Baby Nola

Baby Nola makes kissy lips a lot

Nola and her parents at Sears before her first photo session on 11/2/10

Nola is 1 Week Old!

Hanging onto Grandma Dorothea's Hand

Birth Story: (warning, I'm not leaving anything out, so reader beware, it's gonna be graphic)

I had my baby shower on Sunday, it was absolutely FANTASTIC! I can't believe how much work must have gone into making it so special and I felt incredibly blessed. It was Hello Kitty themed and everything was so cute! Then when I got home that night, I tried out my new Moby wrap and put Embry in it. Oddly, she really liked it and I decided to take a 'jog' around the kitchen/living room and jokingly said 'oooh, let's make baby Nola come out to meet us!' I didn't really realize how true those words would become, God has such a funny sense of humor. On Monday morning at 8:30 I went in for my normal NST. Tony's mom and sister Allison were still here to watch Embry for my appointment. The NST was ok, Nola wasn't quite as active as they would have liked, so they had to buzz her with the soundwave machine a couple of times to get her heartrate elevated properly. At the end of every NST, they take your blood pressure before sending you home. Mine was slightly elevated. It had been getting slightly higher over the previous few weeks, but was never actually 'high'. They turned me on my left side and took the blood pressure again and it had increased (we're talking maybe like 130/85 or something like that, so not incredibly high). The nurse decided to call my dr and let her know, to which she said she wanted me sent to triage to be monitored and have some blood and urine tests done.

I was wheeled over to triage where they took my BP every 15 minutes and it kept getting higher. They also did a urine test which showed no protien spilling into the urine (or an insignificant amount) and a blood test. The blood test came back and showed that my blood platelets were low, really low, and apparently they make your blood clot. So the nurse decided to run the test again to see if maybe it was a mistake. They said they like to see the platelet count above 150, but they'll accept it above 100...mine was 47. The nurse then told me that I would definitely be staying for at least 24 hours get a 24 hour urine collection (to see how much protien spilled in 24 hours) and that if I did end up having a baby, I would not be able to get an epidural because of the platelet count being so low. To that I said, 'you've got to be kidding me, that is my absolute worst nightmare come to life.' She also checked my cervix sometime while I was there and it was 2cm and 60% effaced which was quite an improvement from the Thursday before when I was 1cm. I was having some random contractions while being monitored, but nothing consistent.

Dr Golden said to admit me to labor and delivery for at least 24 hours. Tony had showed up slightly before this decision was made (he had to pack a bag etc since I hadn't gotten that far yet) and I got wheeled over to L&D. It was already around 5pm and my dr showed up and said that since my BP kept increasing and my platelet count kept dropping, I would have to be induced and that I definitely would not be able to get an epidural, but I could have IV narcotics (fentenol to be exact). The anestesiologist wouldn't do an epidural because when the platelet count is low, the likelyhood of blood leaking into the spinal fluid (rather than clotting around the catheter like it normally does) is so much higher. I asked if there were any other options at all, like ANYTHING! She basically said, no. I could have had a c-section under general anesthesia, but they wanted to minimize all bleeding and cutting someone open doesn't really bode well when you're blood isn't clotting. So, I just went with it and said ok, cuz really, what else could I do?

They gave me some IV antibiotics (since they hadn't gotten the result of my GBS test back yet), IV steroids, and then started the incredibly evil IV magnesium sulfate for high blood pressure. Then the dr broke my water around 7pm. I have to confess, I think this might have actually been one of the worst parts of the whole experience. I literally scooted backwards on the bed until my whole head was pressed into my chest because it was smashed against the head of the bed while I was saying 'ouch ouch ouch!' and clawing into the nurse's hand. After that, the water leaked out very slowly, the dr left to go get changed, and the IV pitocin was started probably about an hour later.

The contractions steadily got more painful as the hours passed, but were never nearly as bad as I had expected. Even once I was ready to push, I could still handle them with breathing and holding onto something (ie, the bed rail). I was even able to get some sleep between contractions for a while. At some point I threw up quite a bit, but I'd only had 'clear liquids' so it wasn't too terribly bad. Around 4:30 am, I was having strong contractions really close together and I looked over at Tony and said, 'ummm, I literally can't NOT push!' So I started pushing involuntarily. The nurse got the dr (who had gone home after breaking the water and changed and stayed the entire night at the hospital in case I needed her for anything...now that's a good Dr) and switched the bed out to 'pushing mode'. They checked me and sure enough the head was right there, so pushing commenced.

We had them bring in the mirror so I could see the progress and Tony got all the cameras set up on the tray for when Nola arrived. I pushed for about an hour, but it was an incredibly weird experience. At first it wasn't so bad. The dr gave me some lidocaine shots down there in the perineal area and the pushing didn't necessarily hurt for a while. Then it got pretty bad. My back basically felt like it was breaking in half. I kept asking if they could do anything else, like anything, to get her out. I asked if they could use the vacuum, they said no cuz they didn't want me to tear (ie bleed) any more than necessary. I also told them that my IV narcotics must not be working, haha, always a jokester. I was completely exhausted and inbetween contractions I would fall asleep and actually have little dreams until the pain got so bad to wake me up again for more pushing. The nurse (who was awesome) and the dr kept saying how close I was to getting her out and I repeatedly said, 'are you kidding me?' as in, I could see how close it was and I knew I still had a long way to go. I kept remembering on those birth shows how everyone says to just push through the pain, so that's what I did. I figured she had to come out eventually and it was up to me to make it happen. At 5:54 am, I finally got her head to come out (which was sunny side up), then pushed her body out and felt complete immediate relief from pain.

They set her on my chest for about 20 seconds and she wasn't crying too much, so they took her over to the warmer to get her stimulated. I pushed out the placenta (which was super easy after pushing out the baby) and then the dr gave me two stitches for a small tear. Everyone said that I did a really great job and that I was super nice and I am pretty proud of myself. It actually feels really surreal, like did I actually have a baby without an epidural? Me? I did that? And I didn't yell or scream or hurt someone? Wow.

After the birth I continued to bleed quite a bit for about 5 hours. I kept passing clots which is what they want to avoid after delivery. Then around 10 am, Tony had left to go pick up the family to visit us and I looked over at the nurse and said, 'I'm not feeling so well, maybe I have to poo.' So she grabbed the bed pan and put it under me, then I said 'ummm, I'm gonna need that bucket' and proceeded to throw up the pancake breakfast I had about 2 hours earlier. While puking, my stomach muscles would contract and just pushed tons of stuff of my uterus. The nurse wisked Nola out of the room while this was going on and I was apologizing saying I couldn't help it and I kinda saw this look of, well, horror on the nurse's face. While this was happnening, apparently my BP was down to around 60/35. After I was done, there was a pool of blood at least a couple inches deep in the bed pan. This was not good.

About 10 min after my mom, Embry, Tony's mom, and Allison arrived to visit the nurse came over to me and told me that they needed to do a D & C on me right away to clean out my uterus. The Dr explained everything to the family and said that they were ready for me in surgery and they needed to take me back. It was kinda funny though cuz the nurse stated it like I had an option, when really, I didn't. So I was like 'oh um, ok I guess.' Then they wheeled me out. This was rather heartbreaking because Embry was scared and screaming 'mamaaaaaaaaa' and I could hear her as I was wheeled further and further away and I could hear my mom trying to comort her. Oh, I just wanted to give her a big hug, poor baby.

The surgery went well, but seemed to take longer than expected and I had to stay an hour in recovery alone. I was put under general anesthesia for the surgery which meant I had a breathing tube and when I woke up they pulled it out and I couldn't talk and kept gagging on the mucous in the back of my throat. I managed to croak 'ice chips' to the nurse who kept telling me she couldn't give me any. I swear, I could have strangled her. Then she proceeded to smash my uterus (which just had a bunch of stuff scraped out of it) while watching blood come out and saying 'I'm not really sure what I'm looking for (smash uterus smash uterus) maybe we should get the labor and delivery nurse up here.' Um yeh, no kidding freak face, get someone who knows what they're doing instead of hurting me for no good reason! I was clearly ticked at her and everyone knew it. The L&D nurse was super gentle and nice and said everything was fine and gave me ice chips as soon as we were away from the post-op nurse. Oh, I could have kissed that woman. Apparently the dr got out a huge handful of clots and possibly leftover membranes which was sent in for evaluation.

After the D&C they cut my dose of Magnesium Sulfate in half and then stopped in completely 24 hours after delivery. This really cut down on the nausea and I started feeling much better. My platelet count slowly started to increase and was up to 80something by the time we left the hospital on Thursday. Although my blood count was incredibly low due to all the blood loss, so I was told to eat a lot of iron and the dr now wants me to start an iron supplement. My blood pressure was stable shortly after delivery and has stayed that way since. Woohoo!

Coming Home:
As we were trying to leave on Thursday 10/28/10, Nola had to have a carseat test since she was preterm. She failed. I guess her oxygen level dropped too low while she was in the carseat for an hour being monitored. So they loaned us a carbed which is huge and has to go sideways in the backseat, so the end of that story is, we bought a van. It's an 02 Honda Odyssey with 86k miles, 7 seater, dvd player, and navigation system. We got in from craigslist, the guy seemed kinda shady on the phone, but we ran the carfax and it was fine, so we ended up buying it. I like it a lot, the carbed fits really well, and we can all go places as a family now :)

When we finally got home from the hospital at 6pm on Thurs night, we had an incredibly bad experience. Embry basically did an hour long screaming freakout. I think it was a combo of her missing us and then not getting all the attention once we got home. Anyhow, once she went to bed she was fine and then the next day all was well. She does want to cuddle with me when I feed Nola which doesn't work out so well most of the time. We've let her hold Nola a few times which she LOVES but then when we try to take Nola away, she freaks out and screams, 'miiiiiiiiiiiiine!' Embry really does love her baby sister though, it's very heartwarming.

The First Week:
Nola had a check up at the hospital on Sat (10/30/10) and weighed 5lbs9oz which was up 5oz from the 5lbs 4oz she weighed when we left the hospital on Thurs. We tried to get them to redo the carseat test in our other infant carseat but they said she can't be retested till her due date, so I made an appt for 11/18, bleh. Then she had a dr appt with her regular ped on Monday and was up to 5lbs 13oz which was an ounce more than her birth weight so yay!

I had a 1 week post delivery appt with my OB on Monday which went fine. I told her my back hurt the most since delivery and she said the prescription strength Ibuprofen should help with that. My BP was normal and she had me go in for more bloodwork which showed that my blood count is still really low (=even more exhausted than I'd be otherwise) and that my platelet count is up to 155...soooo I say, BRING ON THE EPIDURAL! Oh wait, it's a little late for that now, oh well. I asked if this same thing is likely to happen if I were to get pregnant again and she pretty much said yes. Not that the low platelet count is necessarily correlated with the high BP, but she'd be surprised if I didn't get pregnancy induced hypertension again in subsequent pregnancies. So, that means we're gonna have to think long and hard about having more kids. She asked us about birth control and we figure if we were to get pregnant without trying really hard, then it must just be meant to be and who are we to question God's plans?

Nola is doing really well and she is just a perfect little baby. I love her so much, I can't even describe it. When you have a child, you think you can't possibly love anyone as much and then when you have another one, your heart just grows to accomodate an overwhelming amount of love for both children...it really is amazing. Nursing is going really well, no complaints there, my milk came in the Fri after we got home from the hospital. Nola eats about every 3-4 hours which is pretty standard and I'm so thankful for all the help I've had since coming home. I'm trying not to think about what will happen on Tuesday once tony's mom is gone and tony goes back to work, but I'm sure I'll manage somehow.

This whole experience has just reaffirmed for me how much God loves us. He is watching over us all the time and I am so greatful for his grace and mercy. I think of how much I love Embry and Nola and then just try to imagine how much God loves each of his children, it's simply amazing.

Nola Madison is Here!

2010-10-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

In short:
Nola Madison arrived at 5:54am on Monday Oct 26. She weighed 5lbs 12oz and was 19" long. She had a full head of dark brown hair and looks very similar to big sister Embry.

I will have to write this blog post later since it is already 10pm, but I know some people don't have facebook and might want to see pictures...so here they are!

We had some good pics taken in the hospital before we left and here is the link to those:
newborn photos Password is: 626001341572772
I normally would never order anything like this because it's a rip off, but I loved them, so I got a few.

36 Weeks

2010-10-21T22:29:00.000-07:00

We went pumpkin picking last Sunday at Apple Annies and got a million great pictures, so I'm sharing our newest family picture. :)

36 Weeks
Taken 10/21/10

Good news came today! I'm 1 cm dilated! Woooo! Ok so I know this means absolutely nothing, but I'll take anything I can get at this point! I had my normal NST and then went to the OB who I told about all my pain issues. Basically Nola's head is up against my cervix (which is a good thing except for all the pressure in the nether-regions) and then her body is curled on the right side of my stomach with her butt smashed into my ribs. This means that my back is in a lot of pain and is the reason I feel like I'm being suffocated when I have a contraction. I told the dr that she probably wouldn't like it, but I've been self medicating with percocet that was left over from my root canal so I could actually sleep at night. She said it was fine and actually wrote me out another prescription for it since I was running low. She did my group beta strep test which means I'll get the restults in a few days. I asked her thoughts on tearing vs episiotomy and she said she hardly ever gives an episiotomy, so that was the right answer in my opinion. She did want to schedule another ultrasound for around 11/11, but we're both kind of hoping I don't actually make it that long.

We had our ultrasound on Tuesday morning. It went really well and I got an adorably cute 3D pic of Nola's face. I can't wait to meet her! During the U/S I had the tech look at my cervix and it was completely closed and she tried to jostle Nola in order to get her head to move off of it and she wouldn't budge. So apparently I've dilated 1cm in the last 2 days. She estimated her weight to be 6 lbs and the cysts in the placenta are pretty much all considered 'venus lakes' now which are apparently completely normal. The tech said Nola's head was on the small side but her belly was measuring like a week ahead of schedule. It also looks like she has pretty chubby cheeks from the 3D shot...so I guess we'll have to wait and see!

My baby shower is this Sunday. I'm so excited! I can't wait to hang out with everyone and just get to chat and eat and have fun and relax. Tony's mom and sis will be here tomorrow morning and leave on Monday morning, so hopefully that means more nap time for me...but I have a ton of stuff to do anyhow. Let's make a list:
1. sew halloween costumes (umm let's state also that I have no idea what I'm doing)
2. move bookshelf into Embry's room and paint it pink
3. move embry's name letters into her room and hang them
4. put up Nola's name letters in the nursery
5. finish unpacking 0-3 month clothes in nursery
6. put away all of Embry's laundry (in other words, like 50 outfits)
7. wash, peel labels from, and cut up the rest of these stupid milk jugs :)
8. prep the angel ornament fabric (cut into 2 size circles with pinking shears)
9. cut cereal boxes into 3.5"x3.5" squares
10. finish decorations for Embry's bday party
11. put together gift bags for party
12. get stuff for Embry's bday cake and figure out what in the world I'm doing
13. sew hello kitty bib, boppy cover, burp cloth, swaddle blanket, and carseat handle cover
14. take Embry's 2 year pics

35 Weeks

2010-10-15T19:18:00.000-07:00

35 Weeks
Taken 10/14/10

Ok so let me just say, my back is killing me. There's got to be a nerve getting pinched or something. I've been taking tylenol, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to need something a little stronger than that. The bonus is I'm having lots of contractions, so I'm not much good for anything lately. To prove that point, I have about 6 loads of laundry waiting to be put away in my bedroom. It's kind of ridiculous. Oh and in additon to my cankles, my hands are now swelling too. Dr said it was fine and normal.

The NST's are all still normal, last fluid check was 12, and we have (probably our last) ultrasound on Tuesday morning before mops. That means Embry will be attending an ultrasound for her first time, wish us luck! I'm assuming she'll be fine since it's an eclosed area, but I've seen other moms bring their kids along for their NST's and everytime I imagine what a disaster it would be if I brought Embry to one of those. Hmmm, maybe Nola will be a super calm child...hahaha.

I had an OB appt on Thurs, everything was fine, but I thought she was going to start checking me and do the group beta strep test and she didn't. She said she'd start checking me next week (at 36 weeks) which I guess is the norm, so whatever. My body is definitely ready to be done with this pregnancy, but in my mind I know what comes next (ie, no sleep, total exhaustion, wanting to kill someone) and that kinda makes me want to never give birth. Oy.

I had my 27th birthday on Sunday. It was pretty uneventful. We went to see 'Life as we Know It' on Saturday night which was good, although I think she ended up with the wrong guy. Here's a pic of us before going to the movie.
Tony and friends from young marrieds spent pretty much the whole day on Saturday getting this swingset and setting it up. The getting it was the easy part, the setting it up is what took forever. I was very glad for all the volunteers though because it would have been almost an insurmountable task otherwise. We're still working on it actually. My mom came over the past 2 days to sand it and then stain it and Tony will be moving the rest of the rock to the front yard this weekend and then laying down the rubber mulch. We also had 2 people give us estimates for making a walkway from the grass to the swingset and enclosing the pool area in fencing. The iron fence is slightly cheaper, but not by much and the mesh fencing won't match the current fence, is slightly more expensive, but I think it's much sturdier and it has a lifetime warranty. I think eventually we'll have to replace the current fence anyway because it's all wobbly and then we can do the whole thing with mesh so it will match. I want the pool and swingset separated before Embry's birthday party on Nov 7th...so that's a tight timeline. I'll have to post a picture when the whole project is completed, but let me just say, Embry LOVES it! I'm sure we'll get way more than our money's worth out of it.
So I need to get Embry's 2 year pictures done and I think I want to try doing them myself. This proves to be a lot of work. I got a large piece of white blizzard fleece to hang from the back porch and use as a backdrop, but I'm worried about it getting dirty and also about how to make Embry not run all over the place. I think it's more than a 1 person project. I really want to get some maternity and family pics taken before Nola arrives, but that's going to be complicated and expensive. Maybe we'll just go somewhere like Target and hope for the best.

34 Weeks

2010-10-07T22:28:00.000-07:00

34 Weeks

Taken 10/7/10

My contractions are becoming more frequent/intense. I'm guessing they're braxton hicks, but what the heck do I know? Basically my stomach/back get all tight and I feel like I'm being suffocated. It's not a pleasant feeling but I wouldn't really say it 'hurts' either. Anyhow, so I thought I was going nuts and just imagining stuff until the NST's this week finally started picking them up! On Monday it showed I was having moderate contractions every 5 minutes while I was there. You'd think someone would have been like, ooh why's that going on, but my nurse didn't even mention it while the other nurse said 'oh, looks like you're having contractions' to which I said, 'yes I feel that.' Then at my NST today, I only had one but it was a huge one, like to the top of the contraction box and lasted for about 1.5 minutes. Anyhow, if they're not concerned then I'm guessing it's nothing to lose sleep over. Especially when I'm gonna have a newborn in about a month.

Eeeeeeek! I'm gonna have a newborn in about a month!!! I don't know if I'm ready for this. That happens to be a popular question these days...'are you ready?' The answer: 'of course not!' Are you ever really ready for something like that?! You can't possibly be prepared because there's no possible way to know what it's going to be like, or what your baby will be like, or how your daughter will like/dislike/act as an older sibling. There are tons of variables and the most I'm hoping for out of it is to get some sleep...which in itself is a rather tall order. I'd like to sleep when the baby sleeps, but unless there's someone else here to take care of Embry, well then, I won't be sleeping unless they're both sleeping at the same time. Just thinking about this is stressing me out.

We got Embry a play house, which she loves, from a neighbor's garage sale last weekend. Good timing too because I'm sure we'll be spending lots of time in the backyard now that it's starting to cool off. I really don't like all the dramatics of leaving the park when we go to play at the park. I really love watching her have fun, but leaving is a whole other story. I can hear it now, Embry buckled into the carseat, screaming, 'sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide! *sniffle sniffle* sliiiiiiiiiiiiiide!' Yep, I don't like it. Sooo, we bought a swingset off of craigslist. It's pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Here's a link to it on the toys r us website. We got it used (18 months old) for $450, so really, how could I possibly pass up a deal like that? Now the issue is getting it disassembled, into a truck, across town, and set up in our yard. Oh and moving all the rocks that are now occupying the area where it will be placed. Then after that is all done, we'll have to figure out something to do with the pool fence so the swingset and grass area can both be accessed at the same time without entering into the pool area. Luckily some of the guys from our young marrieds group have volunteered to help Tony on Sat morning with all of that stuff so at least it will be set up and ready to play on. The fence thing we can figure out later. Oh and I found out that 2 tons of rubber mulch is incredibly expensive, just an fyi.

33 Weeks

2010-09-30T22:01:00.000-07:00

33 Weeks
Taken 9/30/10

This week has been pretty uneventful, at least compared to last week...which is fine by me! Tony never ended up getting sick thank goodness. I did have an incredibly horrible (worst feeling of my life) back pain in the middle of the night a couple days ago. I seriously have never felt anything like that before and never want to again. I felt like a soreness in my back, near my spine, where it always hurts so I pressed on it to massage it and it completely freaked out. I was clutching the wall while yelling for Tony and writhing in pain. Luckily it only lasted for about a minute and hasn't returned since (knock on wood).

My twice weekly NST's are going fine, nothing weird ever happens, so no news there.

Our next ultrasound is scheduled for Oct 19 and that will probably be the last one I have before delivering.

Embry is super cute. She says I love you, which actually comes out 'yuv yoooo!' and she's amazingly gentle (for the most part) around babies. That gives me hope. This whole having 2 kids thing is sneaking up on me way too fast. Ooh, also when you ask what's in my tummy, she will say 'baby Nola' and she'll rub my tummy or give it a kissy. I can't wait to see her interact with her little sister, I might just explode with happiness.

32 week pics

2010-09-25T22:19:00.000-07:00

32 weeks

taken 9/25/10

Embry got sick last night. Her fever was about 103, then at around midnight she threw up. I brought her into our bed while Tony cleaned up and went to sleep in the guest bedroom to avoid getting sick and she threw up again. She's been eating pretty normally today and hasn't gotten sick again, but her fever is still lingering so we've been giving her a pedialyte/gatorade mix along with alternating ibuprofen and tylenol. Hopefully she'll be all better by tomorrow and we could all use a good night's sleep tonight.

My next NST is on Monday (I cancelled the one for last Thurs) and I also have another dentist appt on Monday. Joy. Oh yes, so eating a cinnamon roll during MOPS on tues, the back 1/4 of my temp root canal crown broke off and I swallowed it. The remaining portion was extremely sharp and was slicing into my tongue. I called the dentist who got me in 'after hours' on Tuesday to place the permanent crown on. So Monday they'll be drilling etc a tooth on the other side and putting a temp crown on it. Hopefully this one will last longer than 4 days before breaking.

32 Weeks

2010-09-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

Wed night I got sick. We're talking like stomach flu kind of stuff. So I thought maybe I was ok and I could tell Tony didn't want to take Embry to our Love and Logic class without me, so I went. Halfway through went to the bathroom and luckily I had thought to grab a grocery bag on my way out of the house because, let's just say, it came in very handy. So we left. Once at home I laid down and was still sick but figured it would pass until I started having contractions. That promted me to call my OB who said I should go to labor and delivery to be monitored and that she would call to let them know I was on my way. I called my mom to come spend the night and Sarah stopped over to wait for my mom to arrive so we could leave. To make a long story short, the monitors showed that Nola was totally fine but that I was having contractions about 5 min apart. They believe this was due to being severely dehydrated. They also think it was food poisoning rather than a virus based on the fact that I didn't have any aches (besides bad back pain with the contractions) and no fever. So they pumped me full of fluids through my IV and eventually gave me some antinausea meds that way as well (apparently their orders were to not give me the anti-nausea stuff until I threw up there, so that's what they were waiting for). After that I started to feel slightly better. My dr was there for a delivery so she stopped by on her way out to see how I was doing, basically said stay hydrated, try the BRAT diet minus the applesauce, and hopefully everything would calm down. They sent me home about an hour later.

Yesterday I was awake for a total of about 3 hours, but luckily didn't throw up anymore. I ate a couple of graham crackers, some crackers and cheese, white rice and gravy, and of course water. This morning I had an OB appt, so I had about a half a bowl of cereal and some milk. Then went to the appt, got an eegee and a sub and took Embry to the playground. I'm still not feeling 'normal' but besides a killer headache, I'm doing much better. Embry had a fever tonight and was obviously not feeling well. Not sure what that's about, but now she's sleeping on the couch and after ibuprofen she feels much cooler.

We had our ultrasound on Monday which went really well. They cysts are still there but the tech said they look more like 'venus lakes' now. I'm thinking the difference is that cysts are fluid filled and venus lakes have nothing in them. I could be wrong, I don't know, but she said they're fine. Baby Nola is 4lbs and the fluid levels look great, so all is well. She was moving all over the place and even did a flip, oh and she kept pursing her lips...so cute!

Here's the photo break down:
1) girl parts
2) feet
3) foot
and:
1) 3D with hand in front of face
2) 3D with hand and foot in front of face (yeh I know, looks like she's wearing an eyepatch)
3) profile with pursed lips
Today at the OB she asked what we planned to do after having Nola, as in, having another baby etc. So I said with our fertility stuff we just planned on letting whatever happen unless by some miracle I decided I did want a 3rd baby and then we'd actively 'try'. I did mention how long I bled after having Embry (16 weeks) and she recommended using the mini-pill which she said would not affect my ovulation. I'm highly skeptical of any hormone use since it's not 'natural' and tends to affect lupus symptoms quite a bit. I highly doubt I'll be going that route.

Oh this is a big deal. I made the matching dresses! The piping part could have gone a lot better, but hey, whatever.
Ok so, not feeling so hot. Headache is getting worse, going to bed. I'll take and post belly pics tomorrow. I know, the suspense is killing you.

31 Weeks

2010-09-16T17:32:00.001-07:00

31 Weeks

Taken 9/16/10

Geez, the weeks are just flying by now. I don't know where the time goes! What I do know is that I am not getting nearly enough sleep. I'm having an issue taking naps because I just lay there and have hot flash after hot flash and sweat all over so I can't sleep. At night I sleep fine except I usually don't get to bed until later than I would like (because once Embry is asleep, I can do crafts uninterrupted) and then once I'm in bed I'm getting up at least twice a night to pee. Not that any of this is really horrible, I'm just saying what's going on. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm getting some vericose veins on my right upper thigh. The other day I woke up and had to peel the bottom of my stomach off of my thigh to stand and it hurt real bad, so I did some investigation and saw some not-so-pretty veins in that area.

I've become one of those moms that drops their kid off in the nursery without having fed them breakfast. I know, I'm horrible. Getting up and trying to shower at 7:30 when you have to be somewhere by 8:30 is a really bad idea. I barely had time to get out of the house much less get any food for anyone. So I sent her to the nursery with a bowl of dry captain crunch and a guilty conscience.

I have to have a root canal tomorrow. I thought about lying to the dentist and telling him the tooth was fine so he would just put the permanent crown on it, but then I figured I might as well just get it over with. It's my last molar on the bottom left. I've had one root canal before and it was pretty much one of the worst experiences of my life. I don't ever want to go through that again. I asked if they could sedate me for it, but they said no. Ewwww. I hate the dentist, I hate the smell of the office, you can even start to smell it getting off the elevator and you're not even inside the door yet. My pulse is racing just thinking about it. So, wish me luck. I might die of a panic attack before they even get started.

I'm starting to get scared about having 2 kids. I honestly have no idea what I'm going to do. I could go on and on about all my fears, but I'll sum it up with a convo I had the other day with Tony:

While I was about in tears, I said to him
L: 'I don't know how I'm going to manage with 2 kids. I'm going to need a lot of help.'
T: 'well I'll help'
L: 'yes, I know, but you're at work all day, what am I going to do then?'
T: 'well how does everyone else do it?'
L: 'everyone else doesn't have lupus.'

About a year ago, I would have never dreamt of uttering a statement like that. I feel like it places me in the 'victim' role, but that's not the point. I've come to accept that I just can't do everything that everyone else can. I have limits and I'm pretty sure I've reached them. Shortly after that convo, I asked Tony's mom to seriously consider moving down to Tucson. I admitted that I need help, which is an incredibly huge step for me. I got very excited about the idea of having someone else around, another pair of hands, to help with the kiddos. After some recent developments I've given up hope of her moving anytime soon, so I'm at a loss. My mom has been incredibly helpful with Embry, especially recently with my twice weekly NST's and all these dumb dentist appts etc. She even lets me run errands afterwards, without a kid! Do you know the excitement that fills my heart when I can go pull any shopping cart ouf the line without checking all the straps to make sure it will work?! It's rather thrilling. So, in closing, being a hermit is looking more and more appealing. ;)

Oh, went to the OB, I have a yeast infection. Now I'm on antibiotics for the root canal which cause more yeast growth...fun times.

Nola is doing great. The NST's are going fine. We have an ultrasound on Monday which I'm looking forward to. I'm feeling kind of like there's not a whole lot more room for her to grow in there, but I know I must be mistaken.

My 27th Birthday...

2010-09-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

Is coming up!

Oct 10th we're planning a trail ride with Pantano Stables. I got the OK today from my OB to ride a horse when I'm 8 months pregnant, probably helps that she's a horse rider herself. Anyhow, whoever would like to come is more than welcome! It will be $25/person for an hour trail ride either on Oct 9 (sat) or Oct 10 (sun). So if anyone is interested, let me know asap (and which day works better) and I'll make a reservation. Woohoo, so much fun!

30 Weeks

2010-09-09T21:57:00.000-07:00

30 Weeks

Taken 9/9/10

Embry has started lifting up my shirt to give 'baby Nola' a kissy. This makes me the happiest person in the world.

I can't believe I'm already 30 weeks pregnant, seems like it took so long to get to this point when I was pregnant with Embry. I guess having a toddler really does make time fly! This week was also the start of MOPS (tues), Love and Logic parenting class (Wed night), and Women's bible study on Revelations (Thurs)...so all that made my week just zip by! I've also had some appointments: Tuesday I had an NST (non-stress test) and I also had one today. Both were totally fine and apparently they only measure the fluid levels every other time, so once a week. First time it was 16 and this time it was 11. Anywhere from 6-22 is good. My blood pressure always seems to be higher when they measure it there, like 135/75 instead of the normal 115/70. Then Tony's mom was down Sat-Tues so we did lots of fun things like going out to eat, going to Mt. Lemmon, playing games, shopping, and grilling out.

Embry is becoming much more vocal and even tells me what it is she wants now instead of just whining all the time. Don't get me wrong, she still whines a lot, but there are more and more words everyday. She also has learned to say 'Pweese' (please) and 'Dank oooh' (thank you) a lot and mostly at appropriate times which is completely adorable. She also likes to say 'cheese' and show all her teeth when you take her picture too. This is a great phenomenon for me. :)

I have an OB appt tomorrow. It was supposed to be on Monday, but it got moved to tomorrow because I'm pretty sure I either have a UTI or a yeast infection. She's gonna check it out and hopefully give me something to fix it. Then next week I have a dentist appt on Monday to put the permanent crown on my tooth and an NST. Tuesday I have a craft meeting for MOPS. Wednesday I'm getting my hair cut/highlighted (hallelujah) and we have Love and Logic. Thursday is Bible study and another NST. I think I kind of panicked and tried to fit in everything possible before I became the mother of 2...not sure if that was a good idea, but I'm guessing the next 10 weeks will go by rather swiftly.

29 Weeks

2010-09-01T22:47:00.000-07:00

29 Weeks
Taken 9/2/10

I went to the OB on Monday. She said the cysts in my placenta are insignificant. They'll continue to do monthly ultrasounds to make sure Nola is growing on track and that will tell us if the cysts are causing any problems. Most likely all will be well. My feet started swelling on Sunday (I'm guessing from the deep bathroom cleaning I did) and she just said to keep them elevated or go swimming. My blood pressure was totally fine, like 114/70, so no worries there. My weight was up to 162 according to their incredibly skewed scale. I started my Non-stress tests today. They'll be every Monday and Thursday at 3pm till the end of the pregnancy. I've been having some contractions (I'm guessing just braxton hicks) and we'll see how that gets translated in the NST. I didn't really have any today while I was there. Basically they take you into an ultrasound room, do a very quick u/s (like 2 min) and measure the fluid levels in 4 quadrants and look at the heart. Then you go into another room with about 5 recliners and monitoring computers and you get the 2 stomach belts strapped on to monitor the baby's heartbeat and contractions. You sit there for 20 minutes and the nurses are looking for at least 2 accelerations of the baby's heartbeat within a 20 min period. That is what happened today and it was actually pretty relaxing for me. I told them I'd be coming in everday just to rest. :) Oooh, next ultrasound is scheduled for Sept 21.

I called my insurance co and they said that the hospital wasn't supposed to charge me the $80 extra for the ultrasound. Hopefully they can get that straightened out without a lot of hassle. I'm now wondering if my trip to the ER was actually supposed to be $50 (like it says in the insurance book) instead of the $205 they ended up charging me. I should probably look into that.

The house refinance went through, so woohoo! We did pretty well keeping to our budget in August except for the fact that we had unexpected car repairs and I got a crown on my molar, so those things combined put us in the red once again. Sept should be good since we don't have to pay our full mortgage payment this month. Hopefully we can put all that we get back from our escrow account into savings.

Speaking of money, I got some cute matching outfits for Nola and Embry at Target. One is a sweatshirt/onesie/pants combo with elephants on it and the other is cute gray tights with a purple ruffled shirt. I can't wait to dress them up and take pictures, argh, such overwhelming cuteness awaits!

28 Weeks

2010-08-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

28 weeks

taken 8/26/10

Ultrasound pics
from 8/24/10

We had our ultrasound on Tuesday morning. It went pretty well except for 2 things. 1) Nola had her face smooshed against the placenta so that means we didn't really get any good profile or 3D shots. 2) there are 2, I believe they said, cysts in my placenta. You can actually see 1 of them in the first pic in the second set. It's that black hole looking thing on the left of the U/S window. The us tech didn't seem concerned about them at all, but she said she'd talk to the high risk ob person once they came in and then send the results over to my OB. So update, my OB is out of town till Monday, but the nurse called me back and said that the high risk OB said it wasn't 'an emergency situation' ...whatever that means. I'm just going to go ahead and assume everything's fine. Also, turns out our insurance is only covering $42/ultrasound, so that means about $85/ultrasound is left to come out of pocket, yikes.

So, we refinanced the house. We got a better rate than we were expecting (4.5 instead of 4.75) and the Sept 1 payment was taken down from our normal 1700 to 334. That'll help us a lot since I went a little nutso with buying presents last month. I have a problem, when I see things on clearance, I tend to buy them. Not everything, but things that I think would make good gifts...for family, friends, friend's kids etc. Target happened to have a whole isle of toys on clearance last month and so, I stocked up. Back to the refi, we'll end up saving approx 300/month on our mortgage. Hopefully we can put that directly into savings so we can buy a van in March without having to finance anything.

I got the white car to pass emissions on Monday morning. It was truly a miracle. The check engine light hasn't even come back on yet. So I did a 2 year renewal and then poof, the brakes start making a very bad noise...kind of like metal on metal. We're going to see if Tony's dad could look at it and put some new brake pads on. Right before we left for camping, we got a new pvc valve put in for $100, then had to drive it through 2 drive cycles before taking it through emissions. So we took it camping. Everything was fine till we parked it in our camping spot, then the check engine light came on. Tony unhooked and rehooked the battery before we left to go home and it has stayed off since then. Basically end of story, both our cars need to be replaced. Tony can have a smaller car and I need a bigger one.

Our AC broke on Tues night. I've been getting calls from our home warrantly place (which has a warranty on our AC) for about a week and I just haven't called them back. They were saying that my home warranty was expiring and I needed to renew it. So after it broke, I went to look it up online ($60 service charge through the warranty is way better than whatever it costs to fix an AC unit) and miracle of all miracles, the warranty doesn't expire till next week! We got someone to come out on Wed at noon and fix it. Turns out it was a burnt wire in the ac unit and oddly, during the storm on tues night we had some VERY close lightning strikes and I'm wondering if maybe that has something to do with the wire. Anyhow, it's all fixed now and yahoo because pregnant people should not be left in AZ without a proper cooling system.

My friend Jamie came down from Phoenix yesterday and spent the night. We had lots of fun hanging out with her and she has a massage therapy license, so she brought down her massage table and gave me a wonderful prenatal massage today before she left. :) She took some pics of Embry and I at the park this morning and I didn't think I looked quite that pregnant. Woah.
Yes so about camping. It was great. Friday night was a little warm trying to get to sleep. I think we need an air conditioner for our tent. We had people directly next to us that night, but they were out fishing till late, so it didn't really matter. Then on Saturday, we had new neighbors move in and I believe I said to Tony, 'I didn't know people really talked like that.' They had some issues getting their tents up while it was raining. It appeared that it was a dad and his kids and his girlfriend with her kids. So we got to hear lots of swearing and yelling. It got more interesting the more they had to drink. I woke up around 1am to go to the bathroom and had a very hard time falling asleep once I got back. Let me just say that I heard a lovely rendition of 'Do your balls hang low?' I've never heard it sung quite like that before. I think I'm going to have to invest in ear plugs for our next camping trip. All in all, it was a good time. The weather was nice for the most part and Embry had lots of fun. Here's a photo after I got bit by a fire ant. I didn't realize that was so painful.

27 Weeks

2010-08-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

27 Weeks
Taken 8/19/10

The pregnancy is still going good. I passed my 1 hour glucose test last week, so woohoo. Nola was kicking up a storm after I drank the juice so I thought maybe she was 'reacting' to it, but apparently that's normal. I got wooden letters to hang up in Nola's room that spell her name. I'm tearing light pink and dark pink tissue paper and putting it on them with glitter mod podge. I only have the 'a' left and so far, they look very cute! I love the glittery mod podge, it's all sparkly, I love sparkles. Ooh, I bought a used double stroller and carseat from a lady in the mom's group. It's the graco duoglider in a tan color with the infant carseat and base for $90. My mom and I washed it all up and it's looking pretty good, definitely used, but for the price it's a winner. It also fits in the trunk, so that's a big bonus. Now we just have to put it back together. It's a very hard process to get all the covers and shades off for washing, as in, you have to take the stroller apart.

Speaking of needing room, we've been looking at minivans. I don't like minivans. #1) since I'm blind in one eye, I don't have any depth perception, so the bigger the car the more afraid I am of accidentally hitting something. #2) they're ugly. #3) I like to think I'm more than 'just a mom' and by driving a minivan, that is automatically what I'm labeled. #4) did I mention, they're ugly? But when it all comes down to it, they're cheaper and more economical than an SUV and we need to get a bigger car. So the minivan wins over the SUV for practicality purposes. Now we have to figure out, should we wait until we have all the money saved to buy one used from a private seller? Or buy one after our house refinance goes through (end of Aug) and just finance a couple thousand until we get the money to pay it off (most likely March of 2011)? For now (and I say this hesitantly) we have both of our cars working. Will they break again before March? Probably. Will we then continue to throw good money after bad? Probably. For now though, they work and hopefully we can keep the 'check engine' light off on the white car until we run it through emissions on Monday. Kelly blue book has assigned the generous amount of approx $800 to each of our cars. How much money do you spend fixing an $800 car before you just throw in the towel and buy a new (new, meaning used) one? I don't know. Hopefully the worst is that I'll have about 4 months where I try to cram 2 kids, 1 adult, and 1 double stroller into a compact car. Don't plan on seeing me outside my house from the months of Nov-March, let's just say that. Then if I do manage to make it out, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Embry is adorable. She is saying so many things, she'll pretty much repeat whatever you say too. She now calls my dad (previously known as papa) 'Don' which is his name and obviously what my mom calls him. Now she'll willingly dunk her face in the water in the pool while holding her nose and closing her mouth and eyes. She saw my friend Anna's kid, Olivia (who she calls 'Dahlia') do it and now she thinks it's super fun. She will also lean her head way back to get her hair wet which she would never dream of doing before. She wanted her wings off the other day in the pool, so I took them off and she acted like she still had them on. It was slightly scary yet pretty funny too. She'd just go and jump off the steps and start sinking and with her head under the water look up at me like 'what the heck just happened?!' She just didn't understand that she was no longer quite as bouyant. She gets ver excited when I tell her we're going to see her friends or they're coming over to play...especially Noah. She gets equally as excited if I tell her Elmo is on or that she can have a popsicle. Suddenly she really loves to have 'hair ties' in her hair. She even asks for them when her bangs are in her face...which is great, because I love them and spent a lot of time making bows for her. She still doesn't really understand that she's getting a little sister. She'll point to my belly when I ask her where the baby is, but I don't think it's actually registering yet. Oh and everytime we say Nola, it inevitably sounds like Noah, so then she goes into hysterics about the idea of seeing Noah. Tony taught her how to say my name. I'm not very fond of it. He was downstairs with her saying 'Leatrice, come here!' and she repeated him saying 'tree-trice, umm, heore!' I have to say it was cute, but to her, I should be 'mama'.

I decided to try to make matching dresses for Nola and Embry. I was wanting to get Nola a cute 'coming home' outfit like Embry had, but then saw this pattern online and luckily someone else who made it also made an enlargement pattern for a toddler...so matching dresses it is! I'll be trying to make 2 of these but that one in particular looks like it's made out of jersey material. Mine will be cotton. Here are the fabrics, piping, and bias tape I picked out. I'll use the pattern for the main fabric on both dresse, then the light pink for Nola's accent color and the dark pink for Embry's. I'm excited!

26 Weeks

2010-08-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

26 Weeks
Taken 8/12/10

I have to say that I really love being pregnant. Not that the whole thing is glamorous or anything. There are the backaches, sleeplessness, exhaustion, poo issues, hemmies (yep they're back again), heartburn, etc etc...but in the general scheme of things, I think it's pretty great. I get to feel like I'm making a contribution to the world, I'm helping to create a whole new person. Another of God's miraculous creations is dwelling inside of me and I just can't help but smile. Another bonus is that I can just let it all hang out. I've always had issues with belly fat, it's just where my body chooses to store it's extra weight. Now during pregnancy, no more problem, I'm no longer flabby...I'M PREGNANT!

Anyhow, not a whole lot new is happing on the pregnancy front in week 26. I got my next ultrasound scheduled for the morning of Aug 24. I'm thinking of bringing Embry along with us and seeing how she fares or if she'll finally realize that starting in Nov she will have to share her toys. If this girl is anything, she's strong willed (aka stubborn). She's in for a rude awakening.

25 weeks (1 day)

2010-08-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

25 weeks
Taken 8/5/10

I'm 25 weeks pregnant, wahoo!

I had an appt with the OB today. It was uneventful. Heard the heartbeat, which was great and that's about it. I'll be having ultrasounds every 4 weeks from now on, so the next one is the end of August. I got the order form for the 1 hour glucose test and then at I believe 28 weeks, I'll be going in for 2 non-stress tests each week until the end of the pregnancy. Oh, I guess the most interesting part of the appointment was taking my weight. According to their scale (which I swear weighs you 5 lbs heavier than a normal scale) I'm now at ... ... ... 152 lbs. Eeek. I guess I'll be fine as long as I don't exceed what I weighed with Embry (which was 167 lbs). Although that doesn't give me much room for weight gain in the next 15 weeks.

I'm very tired and my sciatica says, 'ow'.

24 Weeks (2days)

2010-07-31T13:32:00.000-07:00

24 Weeks (2 days)
taken 7/31/10

Today in Walmart Embry pointed out 'blue flowers' to me. I was kind of amazed that she put together that we were standing next to flowers, and blue ones at that, yay for her. :)

We had a fun time going to Breaker's water park in Marana for the Mom's Morning program yesterday. It starts a tad early (7:45am) and lasts for 2 hours. Basically moms and kids (who are under 48") can use the kiddie area for like $4.50. Embry was a little hesitant at first, but got pretty good at going down 3 of the slides all by herself and 2 other ones I had to push her down while she was screaming. Ha, I showed her! Anyhow, she had a blast and I think we'll be going back sometime before the summer is over.
Then we headed out to the Children's Museum to spend a few hours playing with Embry's friend, Noah. Embry loved it and had lots of fun, she especially liked the sand/light table. I swear she sat there for about a half hour just playing with the sand. Then we went with the Francisco's to Chick-Fil-A where Embry spilled her chocolate milk, played in the play area, threw a fit when we had to leave, and plopped herself face down on the floor in front of the door as I was trying to haul her outside. That's her new thing. When she gets upset, she just throws herself on the floor and whines, screams, cries. Normally I just walk away, but in public, not exactly the thing to do.
Funny Story: today while I was napping, Tony and Embry had this conversation:
T: *farting noise*
E: 'Dada, poopy'
T: 'That's right, dada does poop'
E: 'Ewwww, gross.'
Yep, that's my daughter.

In pregnancy news, I'm off pelvic rest, woohoo! I called the dr and she said she was very pleased with my ultrasound results. I also developed a weird itchy rash across my cleavage area, so I asked about that and she said from sweating etc you can get a yeast rash in certain areas and to put nystatin powder on it. It seems to be getting better. I'm getting to the point where I can tell when my bladder is full or my stomach is full because all my organs are getting squished more. Nola is still moving a lot. I can't wait to meet her. She's going to be so cute! :) I never said how I was feeling in last week's post, but not particularly good. Just the same stuff, but more of it...pain. Tony has been quite helpful though, giving me massages and trying to stretch out my sciatica. That's about it I guess. Dr. appt next week and then I'll find out when the next ultrasound is. Ooh, and I went and bought Nola one of those side snap t-shirt/long sleeved shirt/pant combo's for wearing in the hospital. It's super cute because it's zebra themed, so she will match my hospital gown. I LOVE MATCHING OUTFITS!

Comparison Picture

2010-07-27T21:11:00.001-07:00

Ok, posting again, just because I put this pic of Embry the day she was born next to the 3D profile of Nola. Yep, they look alike. :)

23W5D Ultrasound

2010-07-27T19:13:00.000-07:00

We had our ultrasound this morning and it was great! The placenta has moved up more so it's pretty far from my cervix and they couldn't find the remaining clot, so either it broke up or was reabsorbed into my body. Looks like we're in the clear for now, woohoo!!! Nola looks great too. She's measuring right on target and her heartbeat was around 138bpm. The tech took a few 3D shots and I think she's going to look a lot like Embry. The tech said you can't see if a baby has dimples on 3D ultrasounds, so we'll be eagerly awaiting her arrival to see all her cute little features. Mmm, I love her so much. The tech also made sure to point out her 'hamburger bun, patty, and bun' which I thought was rather humorous. Nola was putting her foot in and out of her mouth most of the time, it was so cute to watch. I have an appt with my OB next week, but I think I'll be calling her sooner to see if she thinks we can stop the pelvic rest now that things look good. She said last time that it'd be over if the bleeding stopped and the clot dissapeared, so things are looking up in that department.

23 Weeks (1 day)

2010-07-23T09:37:00.001-07:00

23 Weeks
Taken 7/22/10

I'm actually posting 'real' belly shots for the first time this pregnancy. I hadn't because, well, I've got stretch marks and then some more on top of the old ones and it just isn't pretty. Now I figure, who really cares? Nobody except me, I'm sure, so whatever.

I'm 23 weeks along and feeling Nola move a ton. She jumps around, punches, kicks, etc all the time. You can even see it from the outside now, it's great. Tony's felt her move a number of times and watched it from the outside too. It's so exciting to be constantly reminded that she's growing, developing, and still alive in there.

I stopped bleeding about a week ago. I was hesitant to say anything because I figured it would just start up again, but it hasn't. I'm thinking this is probably a good thing, but it also means the remaining clot isn't passing, but it might just be reabsorbed into my body. Our ultrasound is on Tuesday and I'm looking forward to seeing if the clot has grown, shrunk, stayed the same, or gone away. I'm guessing the placenta will just keep moving away from the cervix, so I hope I'm right about that.

Embry: sleeping in her big girl room is going great! She even got into bed all my herself the other night without me plopping her down in there. We need to move her bed so there's more wall space and then I'd like to move the bookshelf out of the nursery and into her room and paint it pink. I've been working on potty training her the past couple of days...it's umm interesting. She had started telling us when she'd poop and pee about a week ago, so I figured now was as good of a time as any to see if we could make some progress. She hasn't peed in the potty at all yet, only on the floor, but she did poop in the potty once. It was more of an accident than anything, but I still made a huge deal of it and gave her m&m's. She looked at me, made a weird face, said poopy and I quick threw her on the potty and out it came. She was actually a bit shocked I think. Then she warmed up once I started clapping and cheering, etc. She tells me when she's going or when she just went, but not beforehand...I guess that's the whole point of potty training.

22 Weeks

2010-07-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

22 Weeks
taken 7/15/10

I had an OB appt last Thurs and naturally the perinatal assessment dept didn't send her the ultrasound results, but she seemed pleased with what I told her. She said I'm still on pelvic rest till the bleeding stops (which I think it might have, but can't be quite sure) and the second clot has dissolved or passed. I go in for another ultrasound on the 27th and then I have another OB appt the beginning of August.

I had my Rheumatology appointment which was a huge pain because the insurance company messed up again. Anyhow, got in finally and it was just a 'yep this is what's going on, yep, I know you can't do anything for it, yep, refill my prescription. K bye' kind of an appointment. The dr seemed nice enough, he's taking over for my old dr who started his own practice in CA.

Embry slept in her big girl bed for the first time last night. She stood at the door pounding on it and crying/screaming for about 15 min, then gave up and went to sleep in her bed. After that, I didn't hear a peep from her all night until she got up this morning, so yay!
In other news, I've recently been experiencing more of my lupus symptoms. Nothing I can't handle, just thought it was odd that they'd come about all of a sudden. Although with the stress of the scare we had, it really doesn't seem that weird I guess. Anyhow, so mainly fatigue, hand/foot/mouth/nose sores, joint pain, sciatica, and headaches. All the usual stuff. Good thing is, I'm still pregnant! Woohoo!