36 Weeks

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

31 Weeks

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.

30 Weeks

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

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!