And it's another day

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. I know I did! I made it to church and then later on we went to my parent's house for dinner and dessert. I had bought a new shirt and I actually felt pretty, which is something hard to do when I am this big! It was a good day.   :)  For dinner we had prime rib, asparagus, sweet potatoes and yorkshire pudding. Delicious! The kids (my sister's daughters and my daughter) played so well together. I just LOVE cousin time. It makes me really happy to know that my daughter will have a close bond with her cousins. This is something I missed out on as a child.
For almost a week now, I have been extremley uncomfortable. I thought I was uncomfortable before, ha! I am 10x's more uncomfortable now. Well, as most of you know, I ended up in the hospital again. So frustrating!!! I had a planned doctors appointment Tuesday morning. This including a NST (Non-stress Test) where they hook me up to monitors to see how the baby is moving and to see if I am having any contractions. Of course as soon as they hooked me up, I started having painful contractions. Within 40 mins, I had at least 6 contractions. This is something the doctors do not like to see at this stage in the game. Especially because I have placenta previa (where the placenta is covering the cervix and could cause me to bleed out if I went into labor on my own). SO...I immediately got another ultrasound done. This time, it was a little more invasive. Ugh!!! But we did find out some good news - the placenta finally moved up and out of the way. This made me having contractions not as scary, but still not good. So I was admitted.
Of course my asthma has flared up for the past couple of weeks - it's that time of the year. Spring and Fall always kick my butt! My OB freaked out though...LOL. I understand that is is important that I get oxygen like I am suppose to. I also knew that I needed to go on prednisone, but my doctor wasn't convinced that it would be enough. So because of the contractions and my asthma, I got to stay overnight. *sigh* probably a good thing though. For awhile, I was having contractions that were coming every 2-4 minutes. Not a good sign. I know that they were concerned that they would have to deliver soon, but luckily, those contractions eased up. The biggest problem I had, was that I would have contractions for an hour or two and then they would disappear for an hour or two. It was a repeat process. Luckily, they finally stopped for longer than 2 hrs. But frustrating for me!
I am still on bed rest. The goal is to go 2 1/2 more weeks before he comes out. I am currently 33 weeks and 4 days along. They will do a c-section at 36 weeks. We will schedule our c-section date at the next appointment, and I will know the date our son will be born! :)  My doctor did tell me that I will continue to have contractions(because the baby is so big, my body is thinking that he is full term),  but the goal is to not have too many within a certain amount of time. So I sit on my butt again. I have to remind myself that this is not permanent. It will be ok. I have to do what I need to do for my son.
I'm not trying to complain or whine. I just need to vent. I hope you all understand that. This is my life right now. I'm not use to it and I know I will have my "freedom" again. I look forward to it. I know that my "freedom" will be limited because I will have a newborn, but I will be allowed to walk and drive and go places again. Those are the parts of my life that I miss the most right now. I hope that you have a wonderful day!

♥ A surprise! ♥

First, I must say - sorry for not updating sooner. Not a lot has been going on. Hah! That is an understatement. Let's see... I started spotting again on April 2nd, so it was back to complete bed rest, with just bathroom privileges. Oh joy! That is also the same day my beautiful daughter came down with the stomach flu. My poor DH(dear husband) had to deal with not one, but two women who couldn't do anything for themselves. Great fun! - note the sarcasm. I know I pushed myself too much. But it gets so frustrating sitting on my butt all the time. Then on April 5th, I came down with the stomach flu. Whoo. Talk about uncomfortable, when you are as big as I am! Thank the Lord, mine only lasted for 48hrs. Dehydration was in the back of my mind, but when you can't keep anything down, it's kinda hard not to worry about it. After the first 24 hrs, my stomach finally allowed me to drink. So water, kool-aid, and Gatorade it was. Anything that didn't make me want to throw-up was fine with me. Finally it passed our house (or so I thought).
Friday, April 8th, I went in for my GTC(Glucose Tolerance Challenge). This is a test, that all pregnant women go through to make sure that Gestational Diabetes has not crept up on them. Because mine was taken so late in the game, my doctor had me do an extended test. This meant, I fasted for 12 hrs, drink a nasty extra sugary drink, and had my blood drawn 3 times within a 2 hour period. Great fun for someone like me who has difficult veins to find in the first place. Let me tell you, by the time it was all said and done, I felt like crap! It missed up the whole rest of my day. I was tired, achy, jittery, and out of it. That should've been my first clue. But I didn't put two and two together until I was called on Monday by the Diabetes and Pregnancy center at Hurley. Oh yah - now I have Gestational Diabetes on top of everything else. This means a HUGE change in my diet - 2 carbs at breakfast, 1 carb for snack time, 3-4 carbs for lunch and dinner, and bedtime snack can have 2 carbs. For someone like me, who is a carb-aholic, this is my worst nightmare! *sigh* I will make it through this! I also get to prick my finger 4 times a day to check my blood sugar. W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L. All for the sake of little Jackson, right?!! I am so glad we are done having kids after this!
Speaking of Jackson - I had a doctors appointment on Tuesday, complete with a *surprise* 3D ultrasound. We knew we were going to have an ultrasound, just not a 3D one. What a wonderful surprise that was! ♥ We are in love!!! They say he is measuring big (that can come from the mom having Gestational Diabetes), but I wasn't prepared to find out how big. LOL. Why do we have big babies? I am petite (though I am overweight, I am short!!!) and though my husband is 6', he is skinny. Little Jackson is weighing in around 5lbs 11oz, already. I still have 5 weeks to go, at which point I will have a c-section. I will only be at 36 weeks - this means, that if I had gone full term, this kiddo would be gigantic!
So, I leave you with these beautiful pics of my precious new bundle... hope you enjoy them, we sure do! :)

Jackson Edwin - chubby cheeks and all! ♥♥♥

A name, ladies and gentlemen, we have a name!

So, at about 28 weeks along, I woke up early morning to a problem. A VERY big problem. We rushed to Lapeer Regional Hospital scared out of our minds! There was blood and a lot of it. Not a reassuring sign when you are pregnant. Once we got there, numerous things happened. I was hooked up to monitors, an ultrasound was ordered and blood work was taken. Of course the ultrasound showed everything was okay with baby - he was moving around like crazy, as he always does. Blood work looked fine too. But when my OB checked me, it was determined the my bag of water had broke. *cue tears!*  I ended up being transferred by ambulance to Hurley as the doctors felt that delivery was imminent. Not cool at all. After being on medication to stop my contractions,steroids to help the baby's lungs develop, numerous blood draws and two more ultrasounds it was determined that my bag of water did NOT break. Thank the Lord!!! Baby boy was doing great and the bleeding had stopped. Everything that Hurley did for me helped. The crisis of delivering baby had been averted for the time being. So, I was transferred to another section of the hospital. Three more days of bed rest at the hospital and around the clock monitoring. Within that time, Ed and I had to decide on a name for our child, since we didn't want him to be delivered and not have a name for him yet. That is when we officially decided on JACKSON EDWIN. My husbands name is Edwin and he was very happy to be passing that on. I can't say that I was upset, for I knew for quite awhile that if we had a boy, my husband would want his name passed on somehow.
So now I am home and on modified bed rest. I am allowed to walk around the house for small amounts of time. Take a shower, go to the bathroom and do little things that involve no lifting. If possible I need to have my feet up when I am resting. This will go on until my next ultrasound. Which is scheduled in a couple of weeks. Of course I am frustrated because there are many things I want to do to get ready for little Jackson. Such is life! Luckily, I have a loving husband who can take care of me and our daughter. Having someone around 24/7 is not easy. I wish things could be different, but now I need to do what I need to do to keep him inside for that many more weeks. I will need a lot of patience to get through this.

Half way through - and it's a boy!

Around 22 weeks, we found out that having a boy! A BOY! So exciting, yet a little scary! I know that I never pictured myself being a mom to a boy - boys are soo different then girls and I am such a girlie girl. That's when my husband reminded me that he is a boy and don't worry, it will be fine. LOL. Too funny. My husband is such a boy! He loves to hunt, fish, ride dirt bikes, fix cars and just get dirty. I know my son will be fine - just scary.

My daughter is a girlie girl too. She dances, wears skirts and tights, loves her fingernails painted and wants to wear pretty make-up. Honestly, I think it is so much better that we are having a boy - I don't think that she would've been able to deal with having to share her toys and clothes with a little sister, she has been a "princess" for too long. Plus, she wanted a brother from the start. Glad it worked out that way.

All the grandkids in my family are girls - 6 of them! My sister has 4, my brother has one and I have one. This is the first grandson and he is already being celebrated! Let's face it, he will be spoiled, but that is just how it will be. First and only grandson. LOL. This should be fun :)  We have decided on a name for our little one, but we are waiting to announce it for awhile. I feel like it's nice to keep a secret. This little boy inside of me brings great joy. ♥

It all started 7 months ago...

A few days before our 5th anniversary, my husband and I found out that we were pregnant. We were thrilled! And caught a little off guard. You see, while we had been trying , we didn't expect it. My cycles have always been irregular. My doctor was getting ready to put me on a medication to try to make it easier for us to conceive. In fact, I had already filled the prescription and had it ready to go. When I had talked to the nursed at my doctor's office, she had recommened that I take a pregnancy test "just in case". Well let me tell you - the fact that it came back positive was quite a shock! When I saw the two lines, I didn't believe it at first. I immediatly put the test down and walked away, thinking - it says it takes up to 3 minutes before you get accurate results. LOL! I was in such denial. Of course my hubby wasn't home, so I sat in shock for a good 45 minutes before he pulled into the driveway. I was very relieved to see that my daughter was sleeping soundly in the car and was able to spill the beans to my hubby right away! Needless to say, I cried. A baby - one that we had waited for such a long time! To me, this was a true miracle. We kept it quiet. We didn't let many friends or family know. We chose to wait for a few weeks. On my 29th birthday, we let my parents know - and they were thrilled for us. 6 weeks later, I let the world know on facebook. Then we waited and waited and waited to find out the sex of the child. 4 months of uneventful waiting and planning.