38 weeks

I had my 38 week appt. today. Everything still looking good, although there was a small amount of protein showing up today, but the dr wasn't worried b/c my blood pressure still looks great. I have not dilated and she has not dropped, so I think she is in for the long haul! I got a lot of my questions answered today. It is hard to believe that she will be here so soon. I cannot wait to meet my little girl!

Seeing Santa

Today we went and saw Santa at the mall. Noah was very excited at first, but when we got there he didn't want anything to do with him. We got him to sit there for a few minutes, but the pictures we got were all of him crying. :( The highlight of his day was seeing his Granna, Nana, Aunt Judy (or JuJu as he calls her), and Aunt Cathy (or Cafy). He was so happy to see them that he wanted to play with them instead of doing anything else. He sees his Granna and Nana almost every other day, but he never seems to get enough of them! Here is a picture of Noah and some of his favorite ladies!!

37 weeks

Yesterday was a crazy day. I had my 37 week appt. Nothing new. Everything still looked good. I got home and at 1:50 started having contractions. They felt like BH so I wasn't too worried. Well they started becoming more regular and taking my breath away. By 6 pm they were every 7 minutes and my back was killing me. I put in a call to the on call dr at about 8 pm. She told me to head to the hospital for observation. They put me on the monitor, and they baby looked great and they were picking up contractions every 2-4 minutes. They checked me and I was not dilated at all. So they kept me on the monitor and checked me again in an hour. Still nothing so we headed home. I am still having contractions, but they said to wait until the really begin to hurt. So now we are in a waiting game. After last night, I realized I still have a ton of stuff to do before she gets here! Hopefully she can hold off until at least this weekend. Or who knows, she may just hold on until the c section date!

36 weeks

I had another appt today. Everything is still looking good! Blood pressure is good, weight gain is normal, heartbeat was great, and I am measuring normal. The dr gave me a prescription for pain meds b/c my leg pain is so severe I cannot function most of the time. I hope it helps, although I hate taking medicine of any kind while I am pregnant. But I think I will have to as I have not slept in over a week. I start going every week now. I thought that little miss might be trying to make her appearance earlier this week, but everything stopped. She may just hold out until her due date after all! I am trying to enjoy everyday that I have with just Noah. I really want to spend as much time with him as possible as it will never be just me and him again. We are packing our weeks with trips and playdates with friends and Christmas crafts!


Here is one of my favorite pics from our recent tailgate for TCU!

Shower

I had my shower yesterday. It was wonderful! The hostesses really outdid themselves. Everything was so pretty and I appreciate it so much! Madeline got so many adorable clothes. I think she will have to be changed twice a day to wear them all! (But that's okay! When Noah was little I used to change his clothes at least twice as a day! :) )I got some great things for the nursery and some gift cards so I can finish up with what I need. Babies r us is also having black Friday sales on several of our more expensive items, so we should be able to finish up before she comes. I will have to post pictures later. I forgot my camera, so my mom has the pictures. I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family!

Good times!

I had my 34 week appt and sono today. Everything is looking great. Blood pressure is low and no protein in my urine. She has flipped and is now head down and she is also measuring ahead a few days. This little one may be making her appearance before her due date. The c section may have to be moved up! She is weighing in at a little over 5 lbs. Totally crazy because she is almost double the size of Noah when he was born! It is strange to have a normal pregnancy!!

Tomorrow, I get to go see New Moon with my mom. I am so excited. It will be my last movie for a while! I am also going shopping for an early birthday present with my Nana. I want a really nice diaper bag that is going to last, so we are going tomorrow to pick one out.

We are also putting up our Christmas stuff on Saturday. We usually wait until after Thanksgiving, but we decided to go ahead and get it done sooner rather than later, because we still have to finish the nursery. Everything is almost done. My mom has just a few more things to sew for the bedding and we have to paint.

I also have my shower this weekend! I am so excited. I was so worried they were going to find something wrong today at my appt and put me on bedrest and I would not be able to go. But luckily everything is perfect! What a fun week this is!

Pet peeves

I went out shopping for Christmas presents today and I thought I was going to have to take some people out. So it got me to thinking about my pet peeves (and there are a lot)

1. People who can't drive. Seriously, if the phone is too much of a distraction to your foot, put the phone down and drive! I don't like going 20 miles under the speed limit at any time, but especially not when I have a hungry 2 year old whose dvd is skipping in the backseat!

2. People with no manners~ I see this all the time. I don't understand how people function in this world without a basic concept of manners. I teach my son to say please and thank you and to be polite. I also teach him to have good table manners. When he gets old enough, I will teach him to hold the door open for people. Why do I see men (or women) who see someone struggling with bags and a two year old and just let the door close behind them? Even if I have Noah, I try to always help out when I see someone who needs help getting through the door.

3. Stores that say they have something on their website and you get to the store only to find out it is only online. That would be fine if it said that on the website! I was able to get Noah into Best Buy by telling him we were going to look for a certain DVD. When we got in there, they had none. Even though online they had a selection of more than 30. So Noah was bummed and that started our ride home off badly.

4. People who act nice, but are really not at all~ Why not just be the way you are all the time. I cannot stand fake nice people. If you are a *itch, just be one all the time. Don't pretend you are not.

5. People who are constantly in your business when they have no right to be.

I am sure there are more, but those are the ones that came to mind after today.

Now since I don't want to be a downer, I thought I would list some of the things that made me smile today.

1. Christmas shopping~ I love the holidays and I am so ready!

2. The fact that my son is fascinated by falling leaves. He loves to watch them fall from the sky.

3. Going into an expensive kid clothing store to buy Noah's Christmas outfit to find that every piece was on sale! I got the whole thing for under $35 when it should have been at least $70.

4. warm snuggles with my little guy

5. Noah being so excited to see his Daddy come home from work

6. Noah talking all the time about everything (today was mostly about the park and getting to see Granna and Pawpaw tomorrow, he asks to go to their house everyday!)

7. feeling my precious little girl kick me and knowing that she is growing big and strong

Sorry for the long post! Just had to get some of that off my chest!

Ob appt. 32 weeks

I had my OB appt today and a sono to check Madeline's growth. Everything is going well. Madeline weighs around 4 pounds and is measuring a few days ahead. She is still breech although I am having a c section so it really doesn't matter too much. I go back in two weeks for another sono and appt. So happy that this pregnancy is going well. I feel like this appt was a big milestone, b/c Noah was almost here at this point. I think he was born right at 33 weeks. Now I can look forward to a bunch of fun stuff coming up, like Thanksgiving, my shower, a few days off for Toby, and Christmas shopping! I love this time of year, and it has been made even better with the wonderful news that this pregnancy so far is going well!

Edited to add~ I forgot that I finally got Noah his shot. I have called his dr everyday for almost three weeks and on Monday, they finally had some in. So he was bale to get the first half of his shot on Tuesday. I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will have enough for him to get the second round in a month.

appt and irritations

I had my 31 week appt today. Everything is looking good so far. I will start having u/s every 2 weeks starting next week to keep an eye on her fluid and growth. I also got my H1N1 shot. I was lucky that I went in today and was able to get it.

My irritations are that I cannot find a shot for Noah. His dr is still waiting on his shipment. In the meantime, our county is holding a clinic, but when I called to ask how they were going to verify that people are telling the truth about their child actually being high risk, I was basically told that I should wait to get it at my dr. This one, it seems, is really being marketed to those without insurance. Why is my child less important just b/c I pay out the rear end to have really awful insurance? Why are my tax dollars going to pay for a bunch of kids that may or may not be high risk to get the shot, while I have to wait? And when Noah's shot comes in, it won't be free. I will pay $25 to get it, although I would pay any amount of money to keep my son healthy. On the same note, I have heard that the Obama girls have received their shots. So glad that my child who has asthma that was so severe that he had to be pulled out of daycare has to sit and wait, while others go ahead of him. If they would have let me, I would have given my shot to Noah. Sorry to vent, but I get so frustrated when my son's health is put in jeopardy.

Shrine Circus

Noah went to his second Shrine Circus yesterday. He was so excited all day, that he asked me about the circus all day long (next time I am not mentioning it until we pull up in the parking lot!). We got there and headed up to my dad's group room. He was very excited to see his Granna and Gramps (especially when Gramps had on his funny hat and then when he put on his funny costume). He got a special surprise when his Uncle Matt showed up. Noah was so excited and was running all around yelling Matt's name. After we ate, Noah got a toy from Gramps. This was the highlight of his evening. He slept with the toy last night! We watched the circus for about an hour and a half, before we had to go (way past Noah's bed time). Noah loved it, especially the horses (or neigh neighs in Noah speech) and elephants. He was so tired and ready to leave, but in the car on the way home every once in a while he would say "more circus." He can't wait to go back. Here are a few pictures. I forgot I had my camera, so I didn't take as many as I would have liked.

ultrasound

I had an ultrasound this morning, because he could not see the heart well last time. We saw the four chambers beating away. We also confirmed again that it was a girl, although I don't know how he could tell! She is still breech. She is measuring right on track, except her head is a little big! But nothing to worry about. The fluid around her is good. Noah loved seeing her on the screen. Then we we got out, he took the pictures and pointed right to her face and said baby. I also had to get my blood drawn. Noah was very upset that I had a boo boo and gave me many kisses! After the appt. we went out with my parents to Target and then to lunch. Noah loved seeing his Granna and Gramps, and he was not happy when they had to leave! I start seeing the dr every two weeks now. Time is flying!

So far so good

I went to the dr today, and everything is looking like it should. What a relief! By this point last time my ankles and feet were so swollen I could not bend them and Noah was measuring small. This little one is right on track. I go back on Thursday for a few more tests to make sure that my thyroid and glucose are in check and to see my little girl again on a sono. They have to check her heart and the fluid and make sure everything is still going well. Then I start going every 2 weeks! Time is flying by! I can't believe that Maddie will be here so soon.

Blessings

Do you ever look around and wonder how you are so blessed? I do everyday. When I watch my son do anything, I often wonder what I did to be so lucky to be his mommy (even when he is being a little toot!) When I think about the fact that I am able to stay at home with him everyday, I am amazed that things feel into place in such a way that allowed that to happen. When I am not tripping over baby toys because we were able to move into a bigger house, I thank God for allowing everything to happen at just the right time to allow us to move. And when I get to wake up next to my best friend everyday, I smile and am truly grateful to have him in my life. I have a wonderful family and great friends that are always there for me. I often pinch myself because everything seems to good to be true right now. I have a wonderful son and now I am having a precious little girl. My family is almost complete. I will have the perfect family I have always dreamed of. I wonderful husband, a son, and a daughter. I cannot imagine being anymore blessed.

What????

I am thrilled that Noah has finally started talking and picks up new words everyday. But with the new English words he picks up, he also picks up words in Noah language. He gets very frustrated with me when I do not understand what they mean. I have learned to distinguish some of the words, but he sat here this morning desperately trying to tell me something. I watched as his little face got more and more agitated as I could not decipher what in the world he was saying. Luckily something funny happened on Nemo and he was completely distracted from speaking his gibberish. I need an Noah to English dictionary!!

TCU football

Noah went to his first football game and tailgate yesterday. He loved it! The first thing he did when we got there was to pull up his little camp chair right in front of the tv and watch some football! He watched for a while and then he as all about the food and talking to everyone there.


There was a ball game set up that the kids really enjoyed playing with.


After tailgating for a little over two hours, we went to the game. Noah was so excited to see football up close and personal. He loves to watch it on tv, but he thought it was really cool to see it live. He had a great time dancing to the band music and cheering for the Frogs. He has learned to say Go Frogs and do their little hand signal. It was really cute! He had a great time and I can't wait to take him to another game. My mom bought him a glow in the dark football that he slept with last night! We couldn't get it away from him! :) Here are a few more pictures from yesterday.

Why is money so much more important than students and employees?

Toby went to get his flu shot today, and I asked to to find out the policy on notification of the swine flu. He was told that his district is not informing parents, students, or teachers about the swine flu. I am assuming it is b/c they don't want a bunch of people out b/c they would lose money. So now, we are just going to have to act like every sick child at Toby's school could have it. I am so worried about catching it or Noah catching it. Toby is pretty healthy, so if he caught it hopefully his case would be mild but you never know. But with Noah having asthma and me being pregnant, we cannot afford to get it. I am still undecided about the shot for myself. I don't think there has been enough research. I asked Noah's dr about it today and he really wants him to get it. I am not sure if I will get it for him either. I am hoping maybe if Toby gets the shot, stays very clean, and we don't go many places, maybe we will be okay. Here's hoping.

UGH! Why can't people do their jobs?!?

After the energy bill this morning, I went to check my online bank statement. JcPenney had pulled out the money for the dresser on Sunday, over drafted my account (b/c it wasn't supposed to come out until the 19th), and sent me racing around to transfer money. I get on there today and the money has been put back in. I called JcPenney and they tell me that first they put it in as pending, and then take it back, and then go back later and send it through again. So right now I have over $500 in my account that shouldn't be there, and I have no idea when it is going to come out again. When I talked to lady on the phone, she said they already have the money and the dresser is being shipped. Yet, the money is still in my account and there are no items pending. SO, am I getting a free dresser or will random money be pulled out of my account at some later date over drafting me again? Frustrating!!!

Can I pull my hair out now?

My electricity company is driving me nuts! They have messed up my bill so many times. So I get a bill this month for $5.76. I should be happy! But the last time this happened, they came back three weeks later saying that I now owed them $300 one week and my regular bill of $295 the next week. And even though it was their mix up, they would not grant me any extra time to come up with the almost $600 they wanted within a week of each other. So while I am hopeful that maybe we will get a break this month, I will be holding my breath and waiting for that other bill to come in a couple of months!

Good appt.

I had my appt. today with my OB and so far everything is great! Blood pressure is stable and no protein in my urine. That nasty pre eclampsia needs to stay away! :) I also got a flu shot for the first time in my life. He wants me to get a swine flu shot next time, but I think I am going to decline it. There has just not been enough research done for my peace of mind. Next appt. I get to see my little one on the sono. The dr could not get a good view of the four chambers of the heart, so I get to have another one. I also get to take another glucose test. Fun times! But I am so glad that this dr is watching me very closely. I also found out that my insurance company drug their feet in getting my benefits to my new dr. They waited until after Sept. 1 so that I now have another $500 deductible that has not been met at all. If they would have run it when they were supposed to, my entire deductible would have been met! So frustrating. I am enjoying every moment of pregnancy as it will be my last. (Unless I can convince Toby of something different! :) )

Good days lately

Finally, Noah's asthma seems to be better. Fingers crossed that it stays that way! Noah is talking all of the time now. I can't believe I was ever worried! He is quite the chatter box. I am sure people at Walmart think I am nuts. b/c I carry on very random conversations with my 2 year old complete with hand motions and sound effects! :) His terrible twos seem to be calming down quite a bit! (I wonder if I should even say that for fear of jinxing myself!) We are starting to get into the swing of Toby being back at work, although he has been gone all day several times already which makes it a little harder. Noah likes to see his daddy and being around 6 months pregnant and chasing a toddler can sometimes get to me if I have to do it all day. But overall, life is going well right now. Toby got the green light from both eye specialists until Dec. That is the longest we have ever been able to go. Yea! Other than that, not too much going on. We are very excited to meet Madeline and we are trying to get ready for her arrival. So far so good in regard to the pregnancy. We are very hopeful that I will not have any complications this time!

When will my little one catch a break?

I am so frustrated and sad for Noah. Every time something happens and we are able to get over it, it seems like bad things start all over again. This time it is more of the same. His asthma flared back up at 3:30am last night, and we are having a hard time getting it under control. I want so badly to take away his pain and discomfort. I would give anything for him to have a completely normal life without all of these complications. It is so hard to listen to him struggle for every breath he takes. Now we are just waiting on the dr to call us back so we can get his medicine refilled. Hopefully, he will get over this round a little quicker than he did last time.

It's a ....

Girl! My dr couldn't figure out what is was, so Toby and rushed home and made an appt. for the next day to have it done again at a place called Window in the Womb in Southlake. She found it right away. She was 85% sure it was a girl. It had better be, or some little boy is going to have a lot of pink!

Going green

I never thought I would be so interested in this, but with the second baby coming it seems to be more and more important especially when I see how much better it is for the baby. I was reading the blog of a fellow PCOS mom whose baby came very early. She had a link with information about wrapping your crib mattress to prevent SIDS. That got me started looking a little more closely at items I never gave much thought to, like mattresses, crib covers, playyards, etc. I am also going to try cloth diapers for many reasons. It started off as a good way to save money and then it grew into so much more. So we will see how this goes. Hopefully, I will have at least a mostly green baby! :)

2nd trimester

I haven't posted in a while. I have almost been afraid to post for fear that everything will just disappear! I am now 15 weeks along. I have my gender ultrasound the first week of August. It is hard to believe that it is all happening so fast. It also amazes me how different it is being pregnant for the second time, in every way. First, the pregnancy itself is totally different. With Noah, I hardly wanted to eat anything, and with this pregnancy I swear I could eat everything in sight. I am always hungry! That is only one way it is different. This pregnancy is the complete opposite of Noah. Secondly, I am different this time. By 15 weeks with Noah, I had the nursery set up and had bought a ton of stuff. This time I haven't even cleaned out the room for the nursery. We have only the leftover stuff from Noah. We have most of the basics, but even if it is a boy we will probably have to buy all new clothes, b/c of course my two little ones will be born in complete opposite seasons. Noah was born in the beginning of the summer and this little one will be born in the beginning of winter. I have an at home heartbeat doppler and we have heard the heartbeat many times. It is so wonderful to hear that little sound! I cannot wait until next month to see if we are having a little Braden Matthew or an Isabella Grace.
Noah has been really sweet about the new baby (not that he really understands much!). He will come and lift up my shirt and point to my belly and say baby and give it a hug and a kiss. It just melts my heart! He is totally into the terrible twos now though. Everything is "mine" and he can throw an amazing fit if he wants to. But he can go from being quite the little toot to being the sweetest thing ever. He loves to kiss all of his stuffed animals and he loves to blow kisses. So the frustration of the terrible twos is often quickly forgotten!
We are planning our first family vacation. We are going to Galveston for two days. We are very excited since we have not been on a real trip since our honeymoon! We just hope Noah will enjoy it. I guess that is about it for now.

well

It is official, I am pregnant! I got a positive hpt on Friday. My dr took my beta that day and it was 119. I went back on Monday and it had more than doubled to 609. I am being very cautious because I am still at an increased risk of miscarriage due to my PCOS. We are very excited and ready to welcome the newest member of our family in Dec.

March Update

Things have been crazy around here! Toby had his 7th eye surgery, which was two surgeries in one. We are keeping our fingers crossed that it works this time. His dr thought there was no scar tissue before the surgery, but when he got in there he found some. The scar tissue has always caused the problems before. We are just praying that since it was so small it won't be a problem. Now we just wait.

Noah has really been into throwing fits lately. It is awful! We have tried time out and it seems to work most of the time. We tell him to go to his room until he is done, and he does. He waits until he calms down and then comes out. We'll see how long this works! He is getting so big. I cannot believe that he will be 2 in less than 2 months! I am not quite ready for that.

As for me, the third round of clomid didn't work (well I guess the clomid worked, b/c I ovulated, but I did not get pregnant). So we are now on round 4. If this one doesn't work, we are going to do one more round before we move on to iui. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will work before that!

UGH!

Well I thought things were supposed to go better this year, but it has not happened yet. Yesterday, my parents had to put down their dog Shep. They just lost their other dog Baby in early 2007. Shep was a good, sweet dog that everyone loved. He developed cancer and it was so bad that all of his organs were pushed to one side of his body. I found out that possibly due to the progesterone shot, I have developed cellulitis. It is a fun skin infection. I have to stay on the nastiest antibiotics known to man for 2 days then go back and make sure that it will not have to be surgically opened to get the infection out. Fun times! My papa is having surgery tomorrow, so most of my family is in Houston (the one bit of good news we had is that his surgery is not going to be as bad as we expected). On top of all of this, we are trying to get pregnant. We are hoping everything happens on time, because if not Toby's surgery will interfere with us ttc. I will be so happy when March is over! I am trying to convince Toby to take us on vacation during the first half of spring break. If I don't get away, I may go insane! :)

Update

It has been a while since I blogged, so I thought I would do a quick update. We are on our third and final round of clomid. They told me it didn't work last month, but we found out later it did work just 20 days later than usual. I just went to have a CIS to check to see if my tubes were blocked. NOT FUN! They were not blocked so now we keep our fingers crossed that this will work this month. Noah has been talking up a storm. He has also had trouble with his asthma. We had to visit the ER recently. Luckily they got him in pretty quick, because there were at least 75 kids in the waiting room. I have never seen anything like it! He is doing better now. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this spring is not as bad as last spring for him. Toby and I will celebrate our six year anniversary this Sunday, not that we are doing anything. We will probably just stay at home. That is pretty much all that is going on here. Hopefully we will have some good news on baby #2 soon!

talking

I have been agonizing for months that Noah was not talking on time. I have talked to lots of friends and family about this and they made me feel better. I heard from a lot of people that boys just take a little longer to talk. But still there is always that small part in the back of my mind that worried that Noah would have some sort of speech problems. But thank goodness I am not so worried anymore! :) He started saying "car" yesterday. I realize now that he has been talking for about a week, I was just waiting for the words to be really clear and perfect. His first true words were "all gone". He also says "oh no", "done", "bye", and Toby swears he said "dog" this morning. He tries to repeat what we are saying. Yesterday he was trying to say "banana", but that one will take some work. I understood him, but I am sure everyone else would just think it was gibberish. I feel this overwhelming sense of relief. He is saying something new everyday. It took him a while, but now he is talking all the time!

2009

I am so hoping that 2009 will be better than 2008. 2008 brought very little happiness and a whole lot of pain. From Noah and Toby having surgery (surgeries in Toby's case) to problems with Toby's family and having to deal with the situation at work and trying to get pregnant again and losing friends (if they were ever truly friends to begin with). I am exhausted. I am hoping that it is now our turn to have some good luck this year. I always say that things don't have to be great, just normal. That is again my hope for this new year, to have a year of normal. Toby will be having another surgery in March, hopefully everything will go okay and it will be his last. We have been worrying about how to survive the summer without the help of my student loans, and then we got a small piece of an inheritance that will allow us to breathe a little easier. So things are looking up, I just hope they stay there. I wish a happy new year for all of you and your families. I hope 2009 is the best yet!