Keeping you informed

I've been debating about what to share about my doctor's appointment yesterday. On the one hand, what happened turned out to be no big deal, but on the other hand, I'm afraid that those of you who I'm close with and are following this pregnancy closely through my blog might be surprised and maybe a little offended that I didn't share this. So here goes...this isn't an alert that something is wrong, just me keeping all my loved ones in the loop.

I had my 37 week appointment. It was supposed to be my last appointment until my c-section next week. When the nurse took my blood pressure, she said it was much higher than it usually is and asked if I had been busy or stressed that day. I had been neither stressed nor busy and I had been sitting calmly, quietly in the waiting room for about 15 minutes. When my doctor came in, I asked her about the blood pressure and she said that the nurse would re-check it before I left and that if it was still high that they would have to send me over to the hospital. Well, the nurse re-checked it and it was the same as it had been before. So I got a first-hand tour of the new hospital where Evie will be born. They finally got me all set up on the monitors and every time they took my blood pressure, it was lower than it had been the time before. An hour later, I was walking out of there with the instructions to follow up with my doctor next Monday.

So that's it. Just a tiny concern that didn't last very long. Later on, I was thinking about it and I had had a high salt lunch and as I was exiting the freeway to get to the doctor's office, my car skidded a bit (it's been wet and soggy here for a couple of days) and I almost rear-ended the person in front of me. It scared me a little, and those two things together might have contributed to my high readings in the office. But maybe not. Who knows. The important thing is that everything is fine now.

And now you're in the know.

Random tidbits

Eesh, I didn't realize it had been since Saturday that I last blogged. The days are all blurring together, I guess. So because I have nothing to really say, you're getting the bullet point list.

• We got a letter in the mail today saying that as of May 1st, out insurance is changing. Ahem. You might be able to see why this caused me to panic and maybe hyperventilate. Aside from all of Sweet Hubby's issues, I'm also planning major surgery in 14 days. Now's NOT the time to start making changes on me. I immediately called the benefits hotline and made sure that my doctor and hospital were still in network. I already had my argument all prepared that I under no circumstances was going to change my doctor OR hospital at this point in my pregnancy and that they were going to pay the same amount that the previous insurance company would have paid. The hotline lady assured me that everything (coverage, deductible, annual out of pocket, etc) were going to transfer over and that everything is going to be just fine. It's a shame, though, I really was in the mood for a fight. BUT, I'm glad I won't have to stress too much about this transition....it's still a pain, though.

• Tomorrow, Sweet Hubby and I are taking the two older boys out on dates. I'm taking Stephen to see Earth and Hubby's taking Zachary fishing. Marc-Adam gets a date with his Nonny. I've been wanting to do something special with the kids before Evie comes. This morning I had the bright idea that we'd take them to the children's museum (they've recently had a major overhaul and it's supposed to be really cool). Then I decided that wasn't a great idea, because the last thing I need to do is to take them to a giant germ incubator so that they get sick and can't come see the baby when she's born OR that I get sick from them and have to recover from abdominal surgery while also recovering from a cough like when Marc-Adam was born. The boys were so excited when we told them we're taking them on dates. I thought Stephen was going to cry...he's been dying to see Earth.

• Now that we're getting closer to "D-Day", I'm getting less ancy about getting this over with. I didn't even wake up this morning trying to remember how many days left. I've been stressing slightly about the stuff I want to try to get before or very soon after she gets here (but none of it is really necessary...more wants than needs), but other than that, the closer we get, the more calm I am. I'm feeling a little bit more anxiety, too, about the actual surgery part (I need to stop watching the baby birthing shows), so I've been in prayer about that a lot.
  

• In other baby news, I've been having lots of contractions (about 3-5 an hour) for the last week or so. Some (but not all) are pretty painful. I thought for sure that I would be dilating at least a little, but no. I had a doctor's appointment this past Monday, and I wasn't dilated AT ALL. On the one hand, I was glad because I'm still not technically full term, and I want her to stay in as long as possible (up to May 7), but on the other hand, it was frustrating that I'd been having all those contractions for nothing. I don't really want any surprises this time, so I'd rather not go into labor before my c-section date, but geez.

• We've been working on getting the house clean this week. It's actually looking pretty good, and if I can just maintain for the next couple weeks, I'll feel good about coming home to what it looks like now when I get out of the hospital. I'm proud of myself for getting as much done as I've been able to do this week. I still have the utility room to clean out and the boys room to straighten (they'll help me with that in the next day or so), and I'd really like to get in the playroom and weed out a bunch of toys, but other than that, things are looking pretty good. I even scaled Mt. Laundry and now it's just a little molehill.

And now, here's Zachary with the weather.

Yesterday, we had a heckuva storm system come through. It interfered with naptime and scared the bejeezus out of Marc-Adam. I was wondering how long the storm was going to last, but Sweet Hubby was asleep and the computer is in our room. With M-A attached to me, there was no way I'd be able to sneak in to check the radar...if a thunder clap hit, M-A would scream and even with ear plugs in, I knew that would wake hubby up (turns out, it woke him up anyway, even from the other room). Anyway, so I waited patiently until 4pm when the first round of local news broadcasts came on. I convinced the kids that they could watch Electric Company after I was done watching the weather, and finally sat down to see what we were in for that afternoon and evening (I was just praying that it would pass through before bedtime). 30 seconds after the weather started on the news, the storm knocked the satellite out. I started fussing about how I had waited and now wouldn't get to watch the weather. Zachary comes and stands in front of the TV and says, "Mama, I can do the weather for you!" At first I didn't understand what he meant, but I said okay.

He proceeds to point at different spots on the (now black-screened) TV and says, "It's raining here and here. And here's Cypress. It's going to be 50 degrees for 50 more minutes."

Honestly, it was just as helpful as most of the weather people on TV.

Evie's Room

I posted this last month, a few weeks before Evie was born, so I just linked to this post for Kelly's Korner Tour of Homes. Evie is our first girl after three boys and we had the best time fixing up her room. Enjoy!!


Here's the big reveal of Evie's room finally. My mother-in-law helped decorate, add the accessories, and painted the flowers on the wall. My mom bought the bedding and lamp (lamp not shown in the pictures because we hadn't gotten it in yet) and everything else is stuff we already we had (the crib, dresser, mirror) or that we bought cheap from Walmart or IKEA.








This last one's a little blurry because of the weird angle at which I had to take it, but that door you see there is the closet. It turned out really cute.

I'm just so pleased with how it turned out. I find myself in there several times a day just looking at everything and thinking about her and wondering if this beautiful room will match her personality. I can't wait to meet her.

20 days and counting...

Makeover

Well, we painted the outside of our house yesterday. Actually, we just painted the front of the house because we ran out of time, so we'll have to do the sides and back next week, but that should be really easy. The hard parts were the fronts with all the trim, shutters and garage doors. Last week, Sweet Hubby moved the shrubs to open up the porch a bit. So here's the before:


And the after:


The shutters on the windows to the left look striped because of the glare off the sun, but they really are just black.

Eye on the prize

Now that Easter is behind us, I have nothing else in front of me except the birth of our 4th baby. I've been living week to week, or actually event to event, and now that all the big Easter events are over, I feel like I can squarely focus on the last few weeks of this pregnancy. I think I'm ready, emotionally and mentally, for her to come at any time. And at this point, I'm thinking the sooner the better, but I realize that now I'm all prepared, I'll probably have to wait till our scheduled date. Which is great, too, but I'm just ready. Ready to turn the page on this pregnancy, and ready to start a new chapter with my family.

Everything's just about prepared. Although, I'm trying to think of things to keep myself busy for the next couple weeks. I definitely need to clean...all rooms need to be straightened, and I'm planning on cleaning out the utility room and playroom. I'm hoping to get my steam mop next week, so I can clean properly clean the floors without getting down on my hands and knees like I usually do. The bathrooms and kitchen need to be scrubbed, and I'm hoping to start stocking up our freezer with meals that can be quickly and easily prepared. I also want to sew a new cover for our boppy. Thursday, I get to visit my dearest friend and then that night a few ladies from my church are throwing me a baby shower for girly stuff. So I guess I have enough (in addition to just regular life of being with and caring for my boys) to keep me busy and to keep me from going crazy in the next few weeks. Now if only I could get enough energy and pain relief to actually accomplish all those things....

Alleluia!

I wanted to impart deep thought and insight into my feelings about Easter on my blog today. But I can't really express to you how I feel about it and what it means to me. All I can say is:

He is risen!

And I'm so glad.

Some Easter humor

Just for fun, here are my absolute FAVE knock-knock jokes:

Knock-knock.

Who's there?

Ether.

Ether who?

Ether bunny!


Knock-knock.

Who's there?

Samoa.

Samoa who?

Samoa ether bunnies!


Knock-knock.

Who's there?

Estelle.

Estelle who?

Estelle more ether bunnies!


Knock-knock.

Who's there?

Consumption.

Consumption who?

Consumption be done about all these ether bunnies??

I had a focus for this post, but lost track somewhere and so it's all just babble.

I promise that I won't be blogging "all-baby, all-the-time" forever. It's just the biggest thing going on right now in our lives, so it's where most of our focus is. I hope you are patient with me and all my talk of all things Evie.

Anyway, we're in the process of putting all the finishing touches in Evie's room. It should be mostly done by tomorrow morning. I decided this afternoon, that the next thing to do should be to organize all her clothes. Last week (or two weeks ago...or two years ago...I've lost track), when I cleaned out that room to begin with, I just took all the clothes she had and shoved them in her dresser to get them out of the way while we started work on her room. So yesterday (two days ago...?) I put on the first load of Evie clothes to wash. That entire load was nothing but hand me downs. Today, however, if I wanted to keep washing her clothes, I had to start taking tags off. I panicked a bit at the thought of "Yipes, what if we end up bringing home our little Grant, instead of our little Evie?!? What in the world will I do with all these clothes that are brand new, but now have no tags?" Taking off tags makes the whole thing seem more real and like I'm more committed to the idea of having a girl. Nevermind the fact that we just painted the room pink and I've made more bows than she'll have hairs on her head when she's born.

Speaking of bows, I must take some more pictures of what I've been working on. I've finally gotten the hang of one style of bow that I was having trouble with, and they are turning out oh-so-cute. I'm making bows for outfits that she doesn't even have yet, but that I plan on her having. Like a black and hot pink bow for a black and pink Supergirl dress I want to make for her. And today I made two bows with the intention of picking one for her to wear when she gets baptised (unless of course we end up with something that she must have a bonnet for). Those two are particularly precious. Way back when, before I started making bows, I bought a bunch of little tiny baby bows (No hair needed!) off of ebay for her to wear in her first few weeks, especially for pictures in the hospital and for her coming home outfit. Now that I've been dealing with these bigger bows, those little tiny ones just seem incomplete or not enough. But I'm going to try to control myself in the beginning and only use the big bows for when I'm playing dress-up with her, and use the little tiny ones for when we go out or take pictures. We'll see how long that lasts.

And for those of you that care, I'm 34 weeks now and as of today we are 4 weeks from the scheduled Baby Day. I'm actually pretty impressed with how much we've gotten done in a short amount of time. I've been much calmer about what needs to be done this time around. Sweet Hubby, on the other hand? Well, he's the one that insisted on getting her room started and finished and this week he re-lanscaped our yard, and next week he plans on painting the exterior of our house. Meanwhile, I have vague ideas of what I would like to have done before Evie gets here (mainly just things I don't want to have to do AFTER she gets here), but I haven't done anything about them or even really thought through planning to get them done. For some reason, I have it in my head that I need a steam mop before I can really get anything done. As if the dirty floors in my house were my only housekeeping problem.

And for a closing thought, I know I must be getting close to baby day because I'm getting to the point in my pregnancy when I'm easily annoyed. The ones in my life that I love most are wearing on my nerves....and I know logically that it's not their fault and they're doing things that they ALWAYS do, but hormonally I want to yell at them for breathing too loudly, or chewing too loudly, or for sitting funny on the couch, or for asking too many questions, etc, etc. Today, I had to keep my tone in check when I told Stephen to quit making me think. The words were out of my mouth before I realized how ridiculous they were. And I said them just a mere few hours after telling him that he can always ask me anything. *sigh* I hope that I can not be such an ogre after the baby's born.

Now available at your local convenience store!

Stephen ran some errands with my dad the other day while we were visiting my folks. After they came home, my mom and I were chatting with him about what they did and where they went. He told us they went to the mega-convenience store near their house and my mom asked him what they needed there. He tried several times to get the words out, but his little tangue got all tungled tongue got all tangled and this was all he could manage:

"Gice and @ss."

He knew as soon as he said it that it wasn't right.

It sounded like he said, "Guys and @ss."

Ahem.

"Ice and gas?" we asked.

"YES! Yes. ICE and GAS!"

Proof there are kids at my house

This is what greeted me when I crawled in to bed at 11pm last night.


So of course I had to get a picture. :)

Sneak peek

It's not done, yet, but here's what's been happening in Evie's room this week.




More pics to come when it gets finished next week.

I wonder...

....How many times I'm going to pull out pre-pregnancy clothes to wear forgetting that they don't fit anymore.

System shock

You'd think that knowing for 3 months that we're having a girl that I would get used to the idea. And for a while, I think I am used to the idea, then something happens and I'm suddenly smacked with "Oh.my.word. We're having a girl." Today, Sweet Hubby's working in what's going to be Evie's room. This morning, it was a MESS. Just stuff everywhere, no organization, MESSY. I finally got in there and sorted stuff out (we sold some furniture out of there this weekend) and cleaned it up. I hung up some of her clothes in the closet and then a little while later, went back into the closet to put something in there, and the sight of pink frilly things hanging up in the closet made me do a double take. I don't think I'm going to get used to the idea until she's here and we've experienced what it's like to have a little girl in the house. All of her stuff still seems out of place.

Right now, her room is blue. By the end of the day, it will be a pale shade of pink ("Apple Blossom" to be exact). Now that will be a shock.

When we get the room all finished and put together, I'll post pics. It's going to be precious, thanks to my mom and mother-in-law.

Time for a belly pic

I'm not sure I've posted any belly pics this time around, and I'm bored tonight (NOTHING on DVR and nothing on TV), so I thought I'd post a picture of me and Evie at 32 weeks 5 days. It's sort of a sorry picture, but it's the best I could do on my own.

T minus 6 weeks

So. If everything goes according to plan (ha ha), exactly 6 weeks from right now, our little Evie will be here taking her first breaths...either being manhandled by the nurses or being all wrapped up and held by her Daddy for the first time. Baby day has been officially scheduled for May 7th (05.07.09--that's the date I've wanted all along) for 7:30 in the morning. We'd been talking about that all along, and the doctor even scheduled it for us earlier than she normally schedules c-sections so that we could ensure to get that day (she normally doesn't actually schedule until 32-34 weeks, but she scheduled it when I was 30 weeks). But when she told me it was official, I had a little bit of a freak out. It made it that much more real. And I'm acutely aware of the fact that we may not make it to that day at all. I've thought all along that we may not even make it to May. But I don't know. I guess we'll have to wait and see. All that matters is that in 6 weeks or less, our daughter will be in our arms.

I think we're just about ready. Her room's not ready and her clothes aren't clean or sorted, but we have everything we should need. The pack and play is still at my folks', but we can get that at any time and that's really the only thing that we need. Other than that, we have diapers and jammies. Since I'll be nursing, the food is built in, so if Evie Cate decides to come early, we'll be ready. Funny. Even just 2 babies ago, I wouldn't have even entertained the thought of NOT having the room and everything perfectly ready to go for the new baby. Now, I just want the house to be clean and I'd like to be done being pregnant. That's all.

I've been feeling as I think I should be feeling in the third trimester with the fourth child. Tired, achy, cranky. Morning nausea has also returned which is a nice little gift. I'm quite large, and Evie's butt or knee or heel or something equally bony has taken up residence under my left ribs. But in spite of all that and the fact that I feel like I've been pregnant for.ev.er. I really am still enjoying being pregnant with my little girl. I love having her as a part of me. I love feeling her kicks and nudges...I love how she's still and quiet all night (Lord, please let that continue after birth)...I love being able to watch her roll around and being able to share all of her antics with her adoring brothers and daddy.

Speaking of daddy, you have never met a man more excited about a baby than my Sweet Hubby is right now about Evie. I can't wait to see his reaction to her. I'm afraid I'm going to have to wrestle him to the ground to get to hold her....and the major surgery/anesthesia thing might hold me back a bit. Of course, I have the advantage of being her food supply, so I'm thinking I'll have to play that card in order to get my hands on her.

6 weeks, people....and I'm going to have 4 kids. And a daughter. Who'd've thunk it?

Free stuff?? Sign me up!

The company Sweet Hubby works for has a program for expectant parents that offers "support" and information. They started offering it shortly after we got pregnant, but I never enrolled. Somehow, they found out that Sweet Hubby and I were expecting and they called to enroll us. I didn't think I really needed any more support or info, but I'd heard there were free coupons involved, so I thought, "What the heck?" So I enrolled by answering some strange and personal questions.

Holy cow, I should have enrolled at 14 weeks (like they encourage) instead of 30! So far, I've received two packages by UPS from the program, both with not coupons, but actual free stuff!! I've gotten 2 huge books (one is What to Expect the First Year and the other is a book about taking care of your baby and child--medical info and the like), a really nice blanket, a cool sippy cup, a formula dispenser (bah), a cool magnet for the fridge to keep track of your daily/weekly servings of the food groups and lots of pamphlets/booklets with valid information about breastfeeding, folic acid, RSV, signs of preterm labor (which actually had info that I had never heard), etc. I'm so impressed! I'm hoping that I'll keep getting the packages once a week because it's like Christmas! :) I love free stuff!

And oh yeah, they have a 24 hour nurse line, blah, blah, blah...but look! A free cuddly blankie!

Check out the google symbol today...

...if you have kids or enjoy a good Eric Carle book.

You're welcome.

Entry 4,137 of Things I Never Thought I'd Say

There was a particular incident this week in which one of my children provoked me to say:

"How do you get your tongue stuck to the toilet paper?"

Normal

Grab your party hats, folks, 'cause you're in for a pity party.

Usually when I talk about things getting back to normal, I talk about it in a good way because I look forward to normal and "calm" (calm is a relative term). But now, I sit here bitter about normal.

Sweet Hubby's back at work tonight. He slept/rested most of the afternoon and left about an hour ago. He had been on leave from work for almost 7 weeks and I have gotten so used to having him around. The first few weeks, it was great having him home. We really are best friends and it was great to be a team (as much as he could be a part of a team in his condition) and to "hang out" all day. The second couple of weeks, I started to feel a little restless and claustrophobic because I hadn't really had 2 seconds truly alone in weeks. I started to look forward to getting back to normal when he went back to work. And then the last few weeks, having him home became our new normal. We've gotten to spend lots of time together and we've gotten a lot done. Doing school was 10 times easier because I had a built-in playmate to keep Marc-Adam (or either of the other boys) busy while the older boys and I were able to really concentrate on our work. Every night, after we put the kids down and checked our e-mail, we'd plop down on the couch and watch a movie or something off DVR, eat a bowl of cereal (or a milkshake) and just be.

So now, I'm feeling a bit lonely and sorry for myself. I still have a few things to watch on DVR that I haven't watched yet because I knew he didn't have any interest in it, but I don't want to sit by myself. And I'm really really thirsty and craving some apple juice...there were more than a few times that I would be craving something after the kids went to bed and he would run up to the store to get it for me. Obviously, I can't just run up to the store now, so I have to drink the funky water (uh, no.) or more milk (I think I've drank most of a gallon of milk today).

This week's going to be longer than normal, too, because he gets home Friday morning to be off for 4 days, but then Friday afternoon he's going camping with his dad and won't be home till Sunday afternoon. Boo. I really wanted to whine about those plans, but I bit my tongue because he needs that getaway.

Oh, well. 7.5 more weeks till Evie gets here and we'll get to have him home for a whole 'nother 6 weeks.

On the upside, I might actually be blogging more now. No offense, but it was much more fun to spend my free time hanging out with him than blogging. :)