34 weeks

I am 34 weeks along now! Yea! I had a prenatal check-up today and everything seems fine still. The Dr. can not see any visible hematoma or tearing. The baby is roughly 5 1/2 lbs now and every visit I get a "whoa" from the Dr. regarding the size. Gee thanks for the butterflies. :) The baby is also head down which was a concern since he had been laying sideways for the whole pregnancy. So I feel good that my opportunity for a c-section was reduced. Of course one still never can predict these things. But still...it was good news. I figured the baby was head down because I have been feeling different and more discomfort. I go back to the Dr. in 2 weeks and I will start having weekly fetal monitoring until the baby is born as a precaution. My doctor normally does this for all patients, but he is starting me a week earlier because of my history of high risk pregnancy. He just wants to make sure all is well and that there are no surprises. I'm thankful for the extra monitoring for peace of mind. I will also start doing all my pre-registration and testing in anticipation of the birth at the next visit as well. We really are hitting that "any day now" period of time. It is weird because I still have trouble even thinking I'm pregnant to begin with since this has been such a weird pregnancy. But, it's true and its happening!

The fun keeps coming

I haven't been downstairs in 9 days. The kids are still sick. Gracyn went back to school this past Tuesday after being sick for about 9 days herself. She was still coughing but these things can last weeks and she couldn't stay out of school that long. Aidan woke up Tuesday not looking well, so he went back to the doctor. His cough turned into to Bronchitis, which is typical for him. He is just like me in that every upper respiratory cold turns into a full blown bronchitis infection. He's been on antibiotics since Tuesday and is getting better. I may go downstairs today as hopefully the meds have had time to kill the germs. I'll be glad when the school year ends and we can hopefully be a little more stable health wise.

I've been feeling a little "off" this week myself but not sick really. I think it is just as this pregnancy continues, there are more discomforts. These are all the signals that the end is getting nearer. I'm excited but as I think about the birth I get waves of butterflies. I guess it is a classic case of the fear of the unknown, but mixed with the fear of the known too. We are excited about meeting our little guy and feel shocked that he will be here soon! We've pretty much settled his name but that shall remain a secret. My mom keeps "suggesting" the same two names. She must be stuck on those or have high hopes for those names...however...one of them is the name of her next door neighbor's dog! I told her I would not have the baby and the neighbor's dog sharing a name. She'll just have to be surprised. It's only a few more weeks.

Baby preparations and a boring Spring Break

Bless Jack's heart...he scrubbed my walls for me yesterday. He thinks I'm crazy and doesn't understand my urge to scrub walls, but he did it for me anyway. That is a good husband.

He also went food shopping today, thanks to Dana coming over to watch my kids. He made a pit stop to the department store Central to begin the initial baby needs purchases. He bought a pack of newborn diapers, some Baby Mild products to wash the baby clothes, Johnson and Johnson's Top to Toe baby bath soap, and a few other misc. things we will need. He knows I'm getting ansty. We still have more to buy but it is a start.

Gracyn helped me sort baby clothes into two piles. The first pile was for clothes we'd use immediately and the other pile for closer to 3 months along. I have them in two baskets, but now I have to get them washed and put away. So much to do...

Both kids are now sick. I thought Gracyn escaped getting any tangible sick symptoms but now she is stuffy and coughing! Grrr.... Aidan is following suit. I feel frustrated because it seems once they get over one wave of sickness, another one follows. Part of it comes from the mindset of people sending their sick kids to school because they must learn...even at the expense of others getting sick. Grrr... So, now our Spring Break is shot since the kids have been sick the whole of it. Gracyn goes back to school Tuesday. Plus, having them sick means that I have to hide out in my room to avoid getting sick myself. Grrr... Grrr...Grrr... If I weren't pregnant and hadn't had such a rough time over these last 5 months, I'd just go expose myself, get sick and have done with it...but I don't want any more misery. This too shall pass.

Tomorrow starts the Thai New Year Holiday, Song Kran. This is the big nationwide water fight. Jack bought water guns for the kids, but I don't know if they'll be able to go out a pick a fight with the neighbors this year. Hopefully the will feel better tomorrow because they have been looking forward to this. Watch the news and see if there is any mention if it in the States.

Latest news from the doctor

Yesterday I had my 32 week appointment. I'm officially 8 months along now! I feel it too. Dr. Sankiat did an ultrasound and everything is still looking good! There was still no sign of the hematoma and tear, so it really is seeming to be healed! That is such a huge relief. The baby was measuring about 4 1/2 lbs which is slightly above average for this stage of pregnancy. He thinks this baby will be larger than Aidan who was a very respectable 7 lbs at 9 days early. That freaks me out a little bit, but this baby might be early too and be average. Both Gracyn and Aidan would have been over 8 lbs if they came around their due dates...so there's really no way to tell these things. I'm just glad that the baby is gaining weight and growing since my condition can cause growth restrictions in some cases. The baby did go back to laying transverse (sideways) so we still don't know what he's going to do in regards to that. I still have time for him to turn, so I'm not going to worry about that. I did a good deal of walking at the hopsital yesterday and felt like I'd been hit by a truck by time I got home. I went straight to lay down. I was able to get my hair cut at the hospital before we left. I know that probably sounds strange but hospitals are more like resorts here and they offer all kinds of services. Mine has a salon, bookstore, Starbucks, 7-11, giftshops, drugstore, florist and 3 restaurants. These places are full service. Anyway, getting my hair cut was so nice. I hadn't been able to do that in 5 months. I needed it so badly. If you know anything about pregnancy, it makes your hair fuller and I already under normal conditions have enough hair for a few people so it was so good to get mine thinned out. Who knows when I'll be able to do that again! So now the issues aren't really what I have permission to do ( no lifting, driving or strenous activity) but more of what I have the ability to do. This will still take time. It's hard becasue my mind is working faster than my body. My nesting instict is on turbo right now but my body can't back it up. I am the classic wall scrubber and can't scrub my walls. I see things around the house that I am itching to clean and can't. I still have baby clothes to sort and wash, hospital bags to pack, baby items to buy, equipment to set up and all that sort of thing. I need to be ready to go in the next month. It's overwhelming. I know it'll all work out and if everything isn't completely in order we will survive. It's just hard when you get these overwhelming urges to work on things and you can't. In the grand scheme of things it really will be ok. Maybe Jack will scrub the walls for me.

I was able to go!

I was able to go to the team dinner last night anyway. Dave and Andrew graciously offered to take turns sitting with Gracyn so that Jack could take me over to the Mills for the Easter dinner. The food was excellent! The best part was being able to be with everyone and fellowship with the team as one for the first time in 5 months! Jack drove me over and I just parked myself on the couch. People still had to get me food and drinks, but that is a small thing. I was able to stay a little over an hour and enjoy myself.

Gracyn is still feverish...poor thing, but doesn't have any other symptoms. Hopefully, she will get over this soon. This is her Spring Break from school and isn't so far a fun way to spend it.

Tomorrow is my next doctors appt. I'm hoping for more good news and confirmation of last time's good news.

I also hope to begin posting pictures on this blog again. We just haven't really taken any. Maybe soon.

Easter Surprises

Happy Easter everyone! Today started off with Gracyn finding the Easter basket in the play room. I say THE Easter basket because Jack couldn't find two baskets. With me not being keeper of all things right now, somethings just don't get found. So we have a community Easter basket this year. Thankfully the kids don't really mind. They are just glad that there is a basket at all with chocolates in it. We made Gracyn put the basket back so that Aidan could find it too. Yeah, we are a bit lame this year. We didn't color any eggs or do much of anything this year. That has kind of been the theme of our holidays since being put on bedrest. All of our holidays/birthdays have kind of been hijacked by my situation. But anyway it gets even lamer than this. So, the kids get dressed for church. I wasn't going to be attending but Jack and the kids were. My mother sent the kids Easter clothes as she always does. Easter is her favorite holiday and you can't have Easter without the new duds. Gracyn gets decked out in a cute polka dotted dress with ribbons and bows. She looks cute and is ready to go off to church. Jack buckles the kids into their car seat and notices that Gracyn is hot. Sure enough she has a 101 fever! So they load back out of the car and Gracyn takes off her dress. She puts on PJs, takes medicine and goes to bed. Fun eh? I'm bummed too because the Mills were planning to host a team Easter potluck dinner tonight and I was going to try to go. Now, we won't be going. So this year there will be no colored eggs, no new clothes, no worship service, no Easter meal and only one basket. However, in spite of all this... He has risen...He has risen indeed! That's all I need.

I'm back...again

Ok...it's been a long time since I blogged. If you remember, Gracyn broke our new laptop back in January. We had to wait for some friends to take our laptop back to Georgia with them and have it sent off to Dell. Then, once it was repaired, we had to wait for the dad of a classmate of Gracyn's (who is from Georgia) to pick it up in Georgia and bring it back to Thailand with him after he completed a visit/buisness trip in the States! Finally, I'm read to blog again.

To catch you up...today is 136 days of bedrest. Technically, I'm only on partial bedrest now. At my last visit to the doctor, he said that he couldn't find the hematoma! Yea! He has given me permission to ease back into life outside of the bed. I'm so thankful, but it isn't as easy as just getting up and resuming life. I'm weak from 4 1/2 months of inactivity. And suddenly I'm almost 8 months pregnant! That doesn't make much of an athlete out of me. So, I'm spending most of the day in bed until 3P.M. and then I venture downstairs and spend time with the kids and eat diiner with the family. I pretty much have parked myself on the couch during that time but hey...I'm working on it! I intend to add in a little more to my day with each clearance from the doctor. I go again next Tuesday and if I am still getting the "I can't find it" bit then I'll add in a bit more activity. The baby was doing great at the last visit. He was 3 1/2 lbs and I was told he might even be bigger than my last. Apparently 3 1/2 lbs was above average for a 30 week-er. My babies have always come at 38 weeks so I'm not too concerned about having whoppers but watch this kid be late! I have only 6 weeks to go until the baby is full-term. I can't believe it. I can almost reach out and touch the finish line after all this. My next hurdle is getting the baby to go from transverse (sideways) to head down. He turned from transverse to breech at the last visit but sometimes he feels like he's gone back to sideways. We still have time to sort that out.

Well, my lunch is arriving! I better eat while hot!