Matthew is here!

Just a quick post while Matthew is in the nursery with the pediatrician and I'm waiting for my own doctor to discharge me (which she is not super thrilled tiabout but sighed and went with.)

Matthew was born at 7:50 am on Friday, Oct. 26th, weighing in at 6 lbs 5 oz, 19 inches long. He is long and tiny and perfect. Newborn diapers are still falling off him. (Also have gotten so many comments especially his first day, "Oh I love how round c-section babies' heads are!") C-section went perfectly, right as scheduled, no vaccums or extra drama, although evidently I am cursed with epidurals forever.

He is already really good at nursing and pretty opinionated on what he likes and doesn't like. (Doesn't like- being put down in his bed, diaper changes, not being able to move his arms.) He has a little jaundice but below the levels where they get concerned and it's leveling down. I initially didn't think he looked a lot like Luke but upon further review after looking at some of their pictures right after birth (especially with the same hats and everything), they are practically identical.

Luke has been up to the hospital every day. He's been doing well being shuffled back and forth between my parents and Joe, for the most part. He wants nothing to do with the baby at all (including sitting on one of us while the baby is being held), but he doesn't seem "against" him either, just "eh...where is my car?"

Matthew Joseph 10-26-12

My boys

One thing I forgot about is that I have a 30 lb toddler and my husband is only off work for another week. Pretty sure I'm not going to be able to (er...or supposed to...I sorta lifted him yesterday already and it was fine) lift him for a couple weeks. That could make things difficult. Note to self: pregnancy with a toddler, not my greatest plan ever, (DO NOT ATTEMPT AGAIN) but oh so worth it, and we'll muddle our way through the next part.

Uh, I guess this is it.

I am starting to get a little nervous about the whole c-section thing. This will be the first time that I've had much time to think about it in advance. With Olivia, we were just still shell shocked and devastated and numb and hoping that maybe she'd beat the 1% chance of survival odds they gave us, I was a little nervous, but really, there was so much going on and it happened so quickly, there was no time to think about it. And with Luke, we weren't really positive we would be delivering the next day until our amnio results came back saying his lungs were mature. And then we scrambled to get ready for him. And then my water broke and we rushed to the hospital and I hadn't even gotten my entire list done yet, and I was worried about being in labor and still not entirely convinced that we were really going to get to bring home a baby. This time, I feel like I have a lot more time to think about it (even though we still have plenty to do, we know it's for sure happening Friday and rather unlikely for anything crazy to happen between then and now.) My OB has already warned me that it will probably take longer then the other two because of scar tissue and everything. I'm also a little more nervous about infection this time after the hand saga got out of control so quickly. Hopefully it will be uneventful, no water breaking, no infection, no drama.

I may not have the carseat installed yet or the Pack N Play or Rock N Play or swing or bouncer seat upstairs yet (mainly because I had to relocate a few of Luke's big toys to make room for all the baby stuff...our living room is going to be out of control ridiculous between the toddler toys and then baby stuff in another week. Now that he's in the bigger room, with us keeping all of the diapering stuff in his "old" room for both kids, at least there is room for toys.) Anyway, still have quite a few things to do, but I managed to find time today to go get a pedicure with my mom. I decided to have my toenails painted sparkle orange to go for Halloween and Thanksgiving and fall in general. It is probably going to be awhile, maybe never, before my regular shoes fit again. I would have MUCH RATHER had them painted red for the Cardinals, but let's not even talk about that. I'm still pretty bitter. Anyway, good thing I have my priorities straight. (Actually, not too worried about bringing the baby stuff up early, I'm in the process of re-washing the covers anyway, but I figure it's less stuff for Luke to try to climb on. And Joe will be going back and forth between home and the hospital a lot since he's going to come home to stay with Luke, so it's not like he won't have time to do whatever I don't get done.) I have lots of baby clothes clean and put away, lots of clean baby blankets and bibs and hats, so I think we'll be okay.

And now off to bed. Only one more day and night to go.

36+3

Well, today I am the most pregnant than I have ever been before, since Luke was born in the wee hours (4 am!) when I was 36 weeks and 2 days. 37 weeks is pretty close (FRIDAY! Like in 4 days...), I think we'll actually make it.  My appointments today were pretty uneventful except ...oh my gawd, the characters you see at a high risk doctor's office and perinatal center. Yeesh. Every time I go, I pretty much end up thinking that to myself, but today it was especially....interesting. Saturday Night Live has no idea what they are missing, it's like watching a skit in real life.

For once, nothing dramatic to report. Same old, same old. Very active baby, normal fluid levels, normal blood pressure, no protein, we have the okay to stay pregnant. 

Now we need to get serious about getting ready for this baby. I have already washed a lot of the baby clothes and put it away, washed the car seat cover, the rock n play cover, etc. I need to start bringing the actual baby stuff out, although I don't really want to give Luke the opportunity to start having new stuff to climb on just yet, so I may wait till Thursday night or even have Joe bring it out Sunday night.

It is going to be a busy few days.

Freaking Cardinals. They only had to win ONE GAME, just one, out of three, so we could call this baby our 'world series baby', since the world series starts Wednesday and the baby will be born in the middle of them. I mean, I guess he's a world series baby no matter which teams are in it, but I don't really care much about the world series if our home team isn't in it. I actually didn't have a great feeling about this year anyway, (not like last year), but still, since we made it into the playoffs and then kept winning, they got my hopes up. Also they have now ruined a lot of presents I planned to buy. Maybe next year. There are certainly much worse problems to have so I can't complain too much.

Yeesh.

Today was rough.

It started last night as I was about to go to bed when the pitter patter of little feet running down the hallway got my attention. Luke had fallen asleep early and was awake just as I was about to go to bed. Ugh. And not only was he awake, he was WIDE AWAKE. I am not sure what time we FINALLY fell back to sleep, together in the recliner, I do know it was after an episode of Clifford the Big Red Dog and several episodes of Thomas the Train, and also well after 2 am. When Joe got up for work a couple hours later, I woke up from the recliner and laid Luke down so I could sleep without a kid on me for a little while. That was probably a big mistake because Luke woke up an hour or so later and was up for the day.It was still dark out.

I went online to make sure we had enough money in our bank account and to pay our bills when I noticed four purchases from Amazon that we did not make. I did buy a couple things in early October, just a small $26 order of 2 things I had already received. I have not been shopping much on Amazon lately because they keep quietly changing a lot of their policies-in a sneaky fashion that I don't like- to be less customer friendly. I knew I definitely did not make 4 more purchases there just this month...when I had Prime/free shipping, there have been months I probably did, but I don't anymore so I definitely don't routinely shop there online anymore.  The purchases were made on different days but near each other and were for different various amounts of under $200 total. If they had made them from a variety of places that we typically shop, I might not have even noticed. Joe never shops on Amazon and doesn't even have an account. I checked my Amazon account and the last order they had listed was the last thing I had bought early in the month, none of the 4 orders. I called Joe at work just to be sure he didn't order anything (Christmas presents, etc., which would be incredibly unlikely for him), he had not. So then I had the fun of calling our bank and Amazon.

The first person at our bank (USAA) was friendly and helpful, however, a little dumb. I asked if they should cancel my card and send me a new one, after the dispute stuff was filed, and she said, "Oh no. We have to wait for the dispute to process so they can refund your money back through your card." That sounded a little off to me but kinda made sense. She suggested I call Amazon as well. So I did that. They were also helpful although the first lady I talked to was a little annoying "Are you SURE you didn't have a large order that shipped separately so you are having separate charges?" Uh, yeah, I only ordered two things, for under $30 total, and they both arrived together and none of these things I supposedly ordered are anywhere in my order history. Then she asked if there was anyone else in our house who could have used my card on Amazon. Well, I'm pretty sure Luke is not quite THAT advanced yet, and Joe doesn't have an account on Amazon and if he did, wouldn't lie about it. I said, "theoretically my husband could have, but I asked him before calling and he hasn't. And he would have used his own card and/or my account because he doesn't even have an amazon account."  She transferred me to their fraud dept. and the guy was a lot more helpful. He asked if I knew someone named Randy, I said no, he said okay that they'll dispute the charges and I should call my bank to cancel my card as the info has been compromised and get a new card. I told him what the girl at the bank had said and he said that wasn't true at all. There shouldn't be any trouble getting our money back with a new card, the card is linked to our account, not the card number. Duh.

So in between that I'm taking care of Luke, feeding him lunch, he fell asleep in his high chair and I laid him down. I get back on the phone to USAA and the guy who answers is all, "well, if that's what the person from USAA told you, they know our banking system better than Amazon so I guess your card is okay. You won't be responsible for any fraudulant charges anyway, just keep an eye on your account." Dude, I'm having a baby in a week or less, I don't have time to babysit every transaction on our bank account when we KNOW someone else has the numbers and has been able to use it. But as I was about to just say okay and call back and talk to someone else, or let Joe deal with it, he asked why we are disputing the charges instead of going through the fraud department. The hell if I know! I told him I just told the first person there were charges on our account that we didn't make, then talked to Amazon, and that's what they did. So he decided to transfer me to the fraud department. As I am on hold with them, all of a sudden our house starts REEKING of gasoline and Luke wakes up completely spazzing out. He won't let me put him down, he is screaming and crying, he won't even let me sit down to hold him. He still hasn't calmed down when they answer the phone, I tried to talk to them for a second but then hung up because it was pointless, I couldn't hear them over Luke and couldn't calm down Luke and deal with it at the same time. And I was concerned about the gas smell and wondering if we needed to get out of there before our house exploded or something.

So I called my Mommy and told her as soon as she answered that our house was reeking of gas and I had no idea where it was coming from or if we should leave, Luke was being crazy clingy and screaming his head off, and someone stole my card info and was using it and my bank was being stupid. She was off today because they had long days on Wed and Thurs, and said she'd come over. This is why I love living 5 minutes away from them.

 She came over and fixed almost everything in like 10 minutes. Luke was still super clingy but eventually let her hold him without screaming his head off. We figured out that the gasoline smell
was coming from our dogs spilling a gas can that Joe left by the fence (long story, there's a good reason it was there- when we keep it in the garage, the smell reeks into the house, and Luke doesn't play in the backyard) and walking around in it and possibly rolling in it. Actually, when I say dogs, I really think it was just Koda our husky since the smell followed him especially. We opened windows, turned on fans, and made the dogs go outside in the drizzling rain and left them there. I called the bank back with Luke calm and this time managed to get someone who immediately said, "so we need to cancel your card and get you a new one" as soon as I explained what happened. Then we decided that since Luke was still REALLY tired (he had napped less than a half hour after being up most of the night), we would drive to get fast food for ourselves and let him fall asleep. It ended up taking a half hour of driving around to get the kid to fall asleep but FINALLY he did. We came back and I brought the dogs in the garage on leashes while Luke slept in the car, I have this waterless bath stuff for dogs so we wiped them down well with that and when they both passed the smell test let them back in the house. I went to get Luke out of the car just in time for him to wake up (he'd only been asleep for about 10-20 minutes.) Ugh. He was up for the rest of the afternoon. But the false charges will be fixed, I'm getting a new card (in forever! this is going to put a serious damper on my spending, not having a card, since we don't use other credit cards), our house no longer smells, our dogs are clean, and Luke is finally asleep. Mom's fix everything. I hate my dogs today. And I'm pretty sure this next c-section and hospital stay, even with a newborn, is going to seem like a vacation compared to days like this.

Joe worked late today and didn't get home till almost 6:30. When he did, I stuffed my face as quickly as possible with dinner and then went to sleep while he took care of Luke. I woke up feeling a lot better at 8 pm, only to find Joe and Luke together fast asleep on the couch. They went to Luke's bed soon after that and are all cuddled up together asleep now. Hopefully Luke will be so tired he'll sleep through the night tonight. My burst of energy is spent and I'm about to go crash in my bed which will be glorious. No snoring, clingy husband invading my sleep bubble (I seriously don't like to be touched while I'm sleeping, not even his arm around me, it feels suffocating...I need my space! Joe is cuddly and so is Luke so they pair up nicely.) No toddler flopping around all over me, trying to put his hands in my mouth because he thinks that's funny while I'm trying to sleep, knees and elbows poking into my gigantic belly, etc. Hopefully this will be a much better night.

Almost 18 months (picture heavy)

It still catches me off guard a little bit in some moments, that my little boy is more of a little boy than a baby these days. He'll still snuggle up and crawl on my lap like always, but even the days of that seem numbered. And obviously, the days of just the two of us together all day are REALLY numbered. That's a good thing, but it's also very bittersweet.

Anyway, about a month ago, we did some "18 month" pictures with a friend, though he wasn't really quite 17 months yet. I was worried with all my pregnancy drama that we might not get them done in all the madness so we did a few and a few maternity/family pictures with my friend Jen who is starting a photography business.

 

And then last week we went and got pumpkins at a pumpkin patch where you pick them yourself. We went on a hayless "hay ride" that Luke really liked, and picked our pumpkins. Luke struggled to walk through the pumpkin patch around all of the vines and fell down over and over again and then decided to sit down and play in the dirt.

And then, last but not least, my baby loss mom friend Kim and I went to lunch and then took our boys to a different pumpkin patch last week , mostly to play in the forts and see the animals and stuff. Kim brought her big girl camera and took a ton of great pictures of Luke and her son Brennan.(Considering that I have gone through 3 laptops in less than a year and my current laptop is also broken--I spilled cereal on my keyboard and it shorted out so I'm used a desktop keyboard plugged into the laptop usb because I don't want to trade it in for a nonbroken one just yet...we've only had it a couple months. Thank you Best Buy accident protection plans. Anyway, there will be no big girl camera for me anytime soon.) Luke ADORES Kim's little boy Brennan and most of his smiles are because Brennan was talking to him or doing something silly.

Ducks! Actually, hens with one duck mixed in. Ducks are Luke's favorite second only to dogs these days and lots of birds fall into the "duck" category.

We made them hug. Luke is just a tiny bit shorter. :)

This was HILARIOUS when Brennan did it. Not funny at all when we did it.

*Sigh* But yeah, he's totally a laughing, climbing, running, tantrum throwing, opinionated, stomping his feet and throwing his body on the ground little boy toddler.

 

Status: tentative

Still pregnant. Still very tentative on how long I'm staying pregnant. Over the weekend, my swelling got pretty bad. In my face, hands, feet. It was bad enough that Joe stopped at my sister's work and asked her to "check in on me" when she got off. (She is a manager working overnights at QT and is on Joe's way to work.) This freaked my parents out and when they saw me they were a little on the alarmed side. I managed to put them off making me call my doctor (because she already knew I was swollen on Thursday, and even though it was worse, nothing else was any worse.) and they helped with Luke a lot which was really nice.

Monday I saw my high risk doctor. She took one look at me and said, "Your face is really swollen." And then I showed her my feet which were really bad. (They do get better overnight, which is good, but get very swollen again quickly the next day, and each day it seems like they get a little worse than the day before, and a little faster.) But everything else is the same. My blood pressure is not fantastic but not bad (130/90, 130/67). He is still easily passing NST's and my fluid levels are great...around 15....not even almost borderline. He's active throughout the day. No upper right quadrant pain, no headaches, even the heartburn is mostly better. Last night I even ate lasagna and didn't have heartburn which would have never happened earlier. (Granted, I was smart and took a Pepcid a little bit before we ate.)+

So this makes things really tricky.

My MFM actually asked me what I wanted to do. That totally threw me off. I mean, I'm used to telling her what I want (no wonder she is ready for this baby to come out and be done with me!), I'm just not used to her asking.  She offered me an amnio Thursday and deliver Friday if the baby's lungs are ready. I made a face. She sighed back.

To me, the baby's lung maturity is really one of the least of my concerns. Luke's lungs were fine. More than likely, by now, this baby's will be fine too, considering I had steroid shots several weeks ago. But that's not a guarantee he wouldn't end up in the NICU anyway for trouble regulating temp, or jaundice, or feeding issues. Even if the amnio came back with his lungs mature, I would not be enthusiastic about delivering him this week at around 36 weeks exactly (Friday.) And I don't think the amnio is worth the risks this time, knowing what happened last time. Trust me, you only need to hear one story of a uterine rupture to realize how freaking lucky we got with Luke when my water broke and I went into labor the night of our amnio. It could have so easily ended tragically. If my uterus would rupture as a result of going into labor from the amnio, the baby would likely die. I could die or at the least need a hysterectomy. All to deliver him a week early? No thank you. Plus, if the amnio comes back with his lungs not mature yet, but my water breaks, we'd have to deliver him with immature lungs anyway. I've seen how the odds play out. I am in the under 1% of pregnant women who had HELLP (and an atypical case of it at that...even more rare.) I've also been told that it's pretty rare, like 1 in 100, to have your water break after an amnio. So anyway, after giving it a lot of thought, I am totally opposed to the amnio this time, in my case. Either things are bad enough to deliver regardless of if an amnio says his lungs are mature, or they aren't. Because even an amnio saying he has mature lungs is no guarantee he won't need the NICU, anyway.

Unfortunately, I keep riding this fine line of limbo, where things aren't really bad, but they aren't smooth sailing either. If I didn't have my history with Olivia, there is no question that they would not even consider delivering someone for swelling and slightly elevated blood pressures at only 36 weeks. (Some studies have found it to be the best outcome for baby and mom to deliver at 37 weeks, with a preeclampsia diagnosis or elevated blood pressure.) I don't think there's much doubt that this is headed towards trouble, I was never swollen like this with Luke, BUT we aren't there yet and there is no indication when we will get there. The baby is active and easily passing everything, I'm feeling pretty good except the swelling makes walking and everything uncomfortable, my blood pressure is still okay. No pressing reason to deliver this week except I'm swollen and we think trouble is coming, sometime, maybe. Blah blah blah, same old story.

So my MFM is going to go see me when I have monitoring Thursday early morning. If I look the same, we do this again for another week (I'll have monitoring again Monday and see her again Monday, then if we make it that far, monitoring again Thursday, deliver early Friday morning.) If I look worse, she's going to call my OB and tell her that this is it, we need to call it quits before things get bad. I see my OB a couple hours after my monitoring appointments and my MFM was really happy she "gets me" first. She had me make an appointment to see her on Monday but implied she doesn't expect that it's going to happen.

I am hoping that things stay the same, or get better (because who knows...my headaches got better, my heartburn has gotten better...), by Thursday and we can limp along a few more days at least. Even if I only make it to next Monday or Tuesday instead of Friday. (My babies really do not like to come on schedule. Just ask Luke.) I just want to get a little bit further than 36 weeks exactly or maybe not even really 36 weeks if my dates are off a day or two. But then that makes me nervous too. Because we can't really discount my history. (Although with Olivia, I had pain. And heartburn. And she had low fluid. No pain, no heartburn, great fluid levels as of now.)  And because I worry that maybe I'm being greedy, trying to push it too far, and I really do not want to lose another baby. I would also rather not spend a day or two on magnesium sulfate (ugh, awful stuff), either. I know if either doctor was truly worried or my health was currently at risk, (even spilling protein does not generally do longterm damage, even a lot of it, the kidneys typically go back to normal. And I may not be spilling protein at all..) they'd have had me in the OR already, no question about it. I have them uneasy and on edge, but not at "you NEED to deliver".  I have been in that place before, they wouldn't be shy about it, and they wouldn't be asking what I wanted to do. I want to keep this baby in as long as possible for his health, as long as we aren't putting his health or my health at risk by doing so. And it just sucks that this makes me feel guilty for being "greedy" by wanting an extra few days or a week if we're lucky. If I were an outsider on this, I would probably be screaming, "just get the baby OUT already before something horrible happens", yet here I am trying to push it a few more days.

(Joe is pretty much conflicted the same.)

On another note, we talked about future babies. Well, A future baby. My MFM said we could do this again, even with all of this latest lame drama. But this will be c-section number 3 and I think 4 c-sections will probably be as far as they want to push it. (Plus I think 3 living kids would definitely be our limit anyway.)  Instead of asking this time how long we HAD to wait, like I did after Luke was born and after Olivia died, I asked how long we could wait. Ideally 2 or 3 years, and before I'm 35. (I'm 28 till December... so we have awhile...though I will be careful not to wait too much longer beyond 30.) I don't know that we WILL have one more, even.  If we do, we want to keep our kids relatively close in age, ideally, but I do not want to be pregnant with a "pre-toddler" again if we can help it. (Pre-toddler is what we called the 12-23ish month olds when I worked in daycare, babies were under 1, toddlers were 2-3.) Luke is still so babyish and it is so hard right now to pick him up to change his diaper, wrestle him in his carseat, etc. He weighs 32 lbs and I have to carry him at least a few times a day, to say nothing of the chasing him around and trying to keep him entertained. It wasn't too bad when I got pregnant and he was only 9-10ish months old...not walking yet, not climbing yet, not running yet, not throwing his body on the floor for a tantrum, sleeping through the night, under 30 lbs. But now? Yeesh. So anyway, I guess we'll see. But I officially have the green light unless something happens.

I feel like I need to try to "enjoy" these last few days of this pregnancy just in case this is the last time we end up doing this. But it's hard because we still have so much to do, Luke is still SO.BUSY., and not knowing if I'm delivering this week or next week is really throwing me off too. More than I am enjoying being pregnant, I'm looking forward to holding a little newborn in my arms again.

October 15, 2012

 I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart) I am never without it.” -E.E. Cummings

Those of us who have lost a child do not really "need" a special day to remember them, in my humble opinion. We remember them every day. We remember them as their birthdays/ "angelversaries" come and go each year. We remember them as our due dates come and go. We remember them as our rainbow babies reach milestone after milestone that we never got to see with them. We remember them as we wonder when and how to tell their younger living siblings about them, or as their older siblings ask questions that don't have any good answers. We remember them every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, every holiday. We remember when we see a little boy or little girl or twins about their same ages when we are out somewhere. We remember the positive pregnancy test. We remember the ultrasounds. We remember holding them. We remember saying goodbye. We remember, we remember, we remember. Always.

But still. It's nice to have a day where we can share. Not only am I remembering our baby today and always, I remember my friends' babies as well. This is a pretty sucky club that no one in their right mind would ever want to join. But it is nice to know that we aren't alone. And it means so much when others take a little time to remember with us.

Crazy week.

Oy, what a week this has been.

Somewhere during the week, Luke either had a growth spurt or figured out standing on his toes and stretching to reach stuff, because areas that used to be toddler-proof by the virtue of their height suddenly aren't (like the door handles, the top edge and middle of our tall dresser/chest, etc.) I also watched Luke go in his room, or soon to be ex-room, and shut the door and then turn the handle and open it. A few times, actually, as he was pleased with this new skill and did it over and over again. I hate those handle covers so I'm going to hold off using them for a bit longer b/c he didn't open any other doors yet, I don't think he's figured out they are all the same, but that's probably coming soon.

On Monday I had a growth ultrasound, monitoring, and an impromptu MFM appointment. The growth ultrasound was fine, he's estimated at 5 lbs 9 oz at 34 weeks. I expected that he should have been a bit bigger than that by now seeing as he was 4 lb 9 oz a month ago and I thought they are generally supposed to grow half a pound a week. In any case, he's measuring about a week ahead for pretty much everything, and they aren't worried about it. I went on to do monitoring and while the baby passed easily and my fluid levels were good, my blood pressure was on the high for me side, and I mentioned the headache I had had most of the weekend and more swelling. The nurse mentioned it to the doctor who wanted the nurse to call my doctor and see if they wanted any labwork or tests ordered before they let me go. The nurse tried for an hour to get in touch with my OB, who was apparently on a plane, and her partner, who was in surgery (said my OB's office today.) Finally they just called my high risk doctor instead, who was right upstairs and told them to send me up to see her.

It was really weird going into the MFM office at a time when they had no other patients yet. (She only was seeing patients that afternoon, technically.) At monitoring, my top number was a little high but the bottom number was normal. Upstairs, the top number was normal while by bottom number was high. Still, not alarmingly high. (Like 131/70's, 122/91...though normal for me is like 110/60 and so that was why the 131 had the nurse a bit concerned since that was a little high for me.) No protein in my urine and my weight wasn't great but I'm swollen, same old, same old. My high risk doctor ordered labs but no 24 hour urine since my diptest was clear and my blood pressure is okay and they aren't going to deliver me for protein anyway.

But she talked a lot about pushing up my scheduled c-section from Oct.26th to the week before (37 weeks to 36 weeks), and with no amnio. (She actually asked when it was scheduled and how many weeks that would be and then laughed and said "god, she's such a hardass." But she acknowledged that without an amnio (to confirm lung maturity, not for anything that would actually help the baby), there was a risk of NICU time. She told me to see my OB and she would call her about it after my monitoring today. (My OB and MFM know each other well, my MFM was my OB's doctor for her two pregnancies.)

Oh yeah, and she talked about me "resting" again. When I asked her exactly how far I was suppposed to take that, she said lay down and "REALLY rest' for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No one gave Luke that memo. That sounds GLORIOUS. It hasn't happened yet. Though I did take a 2 hour afternoon nap with Luke one day. I can usually at least get some afternoon downtime while he naps.

We also had the "so are you going to do this again?" discussion, for probably the 20th time this pregnancy. I laughed and asked her if she's going to keep asking me because she wants to see at what point I change my mind or if I will. (I went from saying pretty emphatically yes, one more, in awhile... at the beginning... to just making a face and shrugging on Monday.) She grinned at me and said yep, then shook her head at my answer and said, "man, you have nerves of steel." (I guess because I didn't say emphatically "no! please tie my tubes!")

So then there was yesterday. After my bad headaches and swelling, it seemed like things had settled down a lot. Only for my OB to walk into my appointment and make a face and say I looked puffy and she wasn't thrilled that my weight is up 6 lbs in 2 weeks. (Swelling. Or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Blaming it on swelling over and over is starting to seem kinda lame, but seriously, I can't wear shoes or socks because they don't fit on my feet. Flipflops till November it is.)  Then she went on to say how she was glad I was still pregnant at least, because the last time she saw me, she wasn't so sure I'd make it two more weeks. (HUH? What the hell? After I left frustrated because she said she thought I'd sail to 37 weeks with no problems? Evidently she really was taking the "not stress her out" approach but that just made it more frustrating. Then again, she was pretty nonchalant when things were getting ugly with Olivia too as far as her growth and then my pain, while talking about maybe having to deliver at 24 weeks. So obviously she thought it was bad...I don't know. I don't get it.)

Anyway, she didn't mention if there was protein and I didn't ask. I'm really not in the mood to pee in a jug for 24 hours right now for the heck of it anyway. I told my OB about how my high risk doctor wanted to move the date up a week and skip an amnio and OB went on to tell me that if it was 36 weeks they HAD to do an amnio. I shrugged and said MFM was saying she was going to call her today. So my OB told me to have MFM call her after my monitoring. Monitoring went well although the baby nearly failed the NST for being too active to get a baseline. Finally they got it though he was CRAZY the whole time. The test strip was just a giant back and forth zig zag that the nurse had to get my MFM to okay. I told my nurse about the whole delivery date confusion and that my OB wanted MFM to call her. She went to talk to my MFM while I was on the monitors and came back and said, "She said you are delivering at 36 weeks. She's going to call and talk to OB after you are done with monitoring."  So all of that happened and then they had me wait until the doctors had talked. (In the same "naughty chair" I sat on Monday while they tried to call my OB.)  Luckily this took only 20 minutes and then I heard my MFM's loud voice looking for me. She was bemused. "So, do you want to know what [OB's first name] said to me?" ..."She said she will not deliver you at 36 without an amnio. And I do not want you to have an amnio." We talked about it a little and are going to try to make it to 37 weeks, again, the original plan. But my MFM wasn't completely thrilled about it and she said, "One more little thing. Just one more little thing comes up and that baby is out."  So I am on a short leash.

For the record, I actually don't really want to deliver at 36 weeks anyway right now. For one, I'm pretty sure my due date is actually off a little bit...I fudged the dates a little in the beginning because I wanted an ultrasound a couple days early. (The ultrasounds have always matched up to it pretty well though.) I definitely don't want to deliver at what they think is 36 weeks but is really 35+5. Secondly, Luke was born at 36+2 (we know for sure due to the fertility treatments I did), and had jaundice and issues eating. Neither was a huge deal, and both can happen even to babies that go post due date, but still, I'm hoping that delivering close to 37 weeks will help.

I also have a few more trivial reasons that obviously don't carry any weight if there is a real medical reason to deliver. (My ob is just arguing that swelling and even spilling protein in reasonable amounts is not a good enough reason to deliver if the baby is doing well and everything else is okay.) Anyway, my trivial reasons are...
#1- Next Saturday is the SHARE walk in remembrance for babies. And that's not really "trivial" but obviously I would not put this baby's health at risk for a walk if it came down to that. (I probably won't actually walk, even though it is a short and slow walk, one of my friends walked last year a few days after recovering from gallbladder surgery, so it's not like I'm running a 5k here. My dad is outraged that I'm even thinking about going, so if I walk, I'm going to have to hide from him.) It's a really nice ceremony and balloon release and I am hoping to go, if I'm not in the hospital.

#2- We are making progress, but our house is still nowhere near ready for the new baby. I need to wash the carseat cover and a bunch of stuff and drag out all the baby stuff I've packed away (and make room for it around all the toddler crap we have everywhere.)  I finally got Luke's room 98% cleaned out and he and I tried out sleeping on his twin bed (on the floor, we decided to skip the toddler bed thing- and we have a bedframe and box springs for the bed but he's rolled off the couch a few times sleeping so he's not ready to be off the floor yet) last night. It went pretty well, for the most part.But still, there's way too much to be done and I need more than a week.

#3- This is the most trivial reason of all. Olivia was born on the 28th (Sept.), Luke was born on the 27th (April), (so was I but Dec.), and my scheduled c-section for this baby just works out to be the 26th. So 28, 27, 26. If I have this baby before the 26th then it ruins that "connection". And I guess while that is trivial, it also gives me some inner peace that it will be okay, like it's some sort of sign, considering it's not like we planned to give them back to back numbers when we were trying to get pregnant. (With this baby, my insurance plan renews Nov.1st, so we were hoping to have an Oct. delivery date so we didn't have to pay the deductible twice for the same pregnancy. No worries with that! But we definitely in no way  planned for the 26th and it was my OB who scheduled it for that day.)

Also, my OB asked yesterday if I want to do anything "permanent" for birth control. Like she wants to sterilize me! (She hadn't talked to my MFM yet so it wasn't like they are conspiring about it.) I was surprised, because both baby factory and I'm pretty sure my first choice hospital are both Catholic hospitals and I thought they don't allow it, even during c-sections according to our grief support person who is a nurse there. (Although maybe with all of my medical history my OB has a good enough case for it. And maybe that has changed with the new healthcare laws.) And also because I'm only 28. I mean, I know I'm getting up there on c-sections, this will be my third, but before all of this drama, even my conservative high risk doctor was okay with me having one more. And while the drama is annoying and time consuming, I'm not so sure that it's so bad that I should consider NEVER having another baby. I mean, DEFINITELY, I don't want to get pregnant or do this again anytime soon. (I do not recommend having kids 18 months apart, at least so far from what I have experienced of being pregnant with a toddler.) And I'm well aware that the risks of preeclampsia increase with age and time between pregnancies, so it's not like we can wait indefinitely either. But I'm definitely not yet willing to consider shutting that door permanently at this point. I know my pregnancies are annoying and melodramatic, but sheesh, I didn't think it was that bad. Anyway, I just told her no. We may decide that we really are done as time passes and stop here. But it's nothing I'm ready to decide permanently.

Can this week be over now?

To put it mildly, we are not off to a great start this week.

-Last night my brother (15/sophomore) was playing in his JV football game (he usually plays 95% of the game- offense, defense, special teams, etc.) when he came off the field, said something to the coach, and the trainer came over and started talking to him and pulled him off to the side. He was up against a kid who was a senior, 100 lbs more, and well over 6 feet tall. My brother is not a small 15 year old, but this kid was way, way bigger. Anyway, I guess he got hit hard and his head started hurting and he was dizzy. The trainer was mildly concerned but his eyes were fine. Today she redid some kind of test that they do for concussions. (They do it at the beginning of the year for a "baseline" and then again if there is any question of a head injury.) Anyway, it was significantly worse than his baseline at the beginning of the year so they suspect he did indeed have a concussion. The latest stuff on head injuries and football players in particular is terrifying, to me. My brother is now whining because they only have 3 games left this season and if his (our current) pediatrician even THINKS about letting him go back on the field this season, I definitely will be switching. (Actually, I'm already planning to switch anyway, but this would just tell me that he is even more laidback than I thought.) I don't see how they can let him risk having two concussions in a month as a 15 year old. (My brother has a kid on his team who in 8th grade had 3 concussions in less than a year, all from playing football. What that kid's parents were thinking, what his doctor was thinking, I don't get it.)

That is the sucky part of having boys. Luke already starts clapping whenever he gets a glimpse of football on tv. I think that's just from going to my brother's games. But he will sit on my dad's lap and watch at least a full quarter of the game, perfectly content, which is a huge thing for a 17 month old. I do not plan to let Luke play football, at all, ever.

-My appointments yesterday were okay at first. (Baby needed 20 extra minutes to pass the NST but did, fluid levels were up to 10.) Then I went to see my high risk doctor and she was out. Her seriously dumb nurse practitioner saw me instead...not the one I saw last time. She smiled at me brightly and the first thing out of her mouth was, "So, are you planning a VBAC this time?" (Somehow she glanced at my chart enough to see I had c-sections but missed that it was a classical.) I had heard about this particular nurse practitioner before, it wasn't until she started talking that I realized it was HER though. She said several more dumb things and it was pretty much a waste of time. I don't think she had any idea why I was there, why my doctor is seeing me weekly, she was inappropriately unconcerned about everything, it was a joke.

-This morning Joe found out that their company has now officially lost their government contract (and the appeal.) Lockheed Martin is the main company taking over, but there is a different major company taking over the part that mainly does Joe's job. There are rumors that they *have* to re-hire 85% of the people currently working there as part of the contract, but nothing I've actually seen has convinced me. Also it sounds like they plan to cut staff and cut salaries. The company that is taking over Joe's part of things is pretty notorious for frequent layoffs. It's also pretty up in the air when the takeover will happen, he has a couple more months there at least, most likely. But still, I really hate all the uncertainty. I'm sure it will be fine, he's already had a couple of interviews and he gets calls and emails from recruiters pretty regularly, but ugh, not really what we wanted to be thinking about right now.

- This afternoon while we were at lunch with a friend, Luke ran off. I got him and had him by the hand walking towards the door when he got mad about leaving and tried to throw himself down, while I was still holding his hand. He started crying but at first I thought he was just mad but then he started crying harder and was holding his hand awkwardly. We tried to get him to move it and he wouldn't really, even to grab things he likes, like car keys. Thankfully Kim who is a nurse was the friend that was with me or I would have probably totally panicked because the first thought that came to my mind was taking him to the ER since we were only a few minutes away from the hospital. I think she suggested I call our pediatrician instead and they fit us in pretty quickly. Of course today would be the day when someone decided to have a major car fire on the highway and shut down two of the three lanes at a time when there normally is no traffic, ended up being over a half hour of traffic.(Which gave me much too long to stress about him being in pain- having to deal with him getting an xray, or his arm fixed, or in a sling or cast, and also having child protective services called on us for injuring my child...it was a super fun drive.) Luke fell asleep in the car so at least I knew he wasn't totally miserable.

He cried when I had to maneuver him out of the carseat and he was still awkwardly holding his arm by his side in the waiting room as he pointed at the fish in the fish tank and played with the germy toys. When the nurse called us back she even glanced at him and asked, "his left arm?" Yep. Then she had me put him on the baby scale and he freaked out and cried and cried. Even as we were back in the exam room, he was still sobbing. I picked up a book and started reading to him and as he calmed down, he started turning the pages with his left hand all of a sudden. (Before he wouldn't even reach out and grab anything with his hand.)  Then he reached up and grabbed a different book from the counter beside us, with his left hand. It wasn't much longer that the doctor came in. Decided he must have had "nursemaid's elbow", or a dislocated elbow, and that he must have fixed it himself. I took off his shirt and he didn't so much as flinch. The doctor pressed on his shoulder and elbow and wrist and moved them around and he didn't flinch at all either. He said he would order an x-ray if I wanted it, but didn't think it was necessary or would show anything. He was clearly fine by this point so I opted out of an x-ray.  We have wasted a lot of money on unnecessary pediatrician visits (two colds that were just colds) and an unnecessary ER visit (crying), but this was BY FAR, the best "wasted" copay money because at least if nothing else, we went in with his arm hurt, we came out with it 100% better, even if the doctor didn't have to do anything...it was a huge relief that we didn't have to deal with xrays or the doctor fixing it or anything. He played normally all evening using both hands and arms, dancing around, etc. So I am completely reassured that it's fine. And I am really glad I didn't spend 200 extra dollars taking him to the ER.

Toddlers are so fun. 

Luckily, I'm out of bad things, but it's only Tuesday, and considering it's only been two days into this week, it's been bad enough. I'm a little afraid to leave the house tomorrow.