Who Needs Sleep?

I have this song stuck in my head….by the Barenaked Ladies…Who Needs Sleep. Is that even what it’s called….

“…Who needs sleep? No you’re never gonna get it. Who needs sleep? Tell me what’s that for. Who needs sleep…yeah…this guy’s been awake since the Second World War.” Something like that….that’s probably not a very good transcription.

I just haven’t been sleeping well since Friday night. I’m so tired. Things always look gloomy when one is so tired. I’m trying Tylenol PM, but it’s not helping. I’m hoping to get something better at my next appointment.

But really – who needs sleep?

Check out a You Tube video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJI0w9Y40zM

44 More Days

I feel like I should add an exclamation point at the end of that title…”44 More Days!” But, I’m not going to. Because right now, I’m feeling like it’s a never-ending 44 more days. 44 days seems like a lifetime. I know it’s not. I know it’s right around the corner. But, it doesn’t feel like that. I suppose perhaps it would go by quicker if I could sleep and I wasn’t feeling sick and my hips didn’t hurt, and I wasn’t short of breath, and the contractions that aren’t doing anything except waking me up at night would stop. THEN, maybe there would be an exclamation point. But after the last two years, it just seems like this uphill climb that I feel like I don’t have the energy to do. I don’t know – maybe it’s like rowing in a regatta. The last 500 meters are the hardest and worst of the entire race. You feel like your body cannot push any harder and you hurt from the top of your head down to your toes. It’s pure misery. But, then you cross the finish line, catch your breath, get some water and feel like you could race again. I suppose I’m just starting my last 500 meters and just need to deal with the misery and then it’ll be over and I’ll feel like I can do it again. I hope so because right now I’m so over being pregnant. And I’m not saying I really ever want to do this again (that’s yet to be determined), I just don’t want to be miserable anymore! And then there’s the whole issue that I really shouldn’t be complaining – we are so lucky and blessed to even have this baby that I should just be quiet about it. But, it’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to!

For the most part, we are ready. We have the nursery almost completed. Just a few more things to put together. I need to wash some clothes for the baby and finish packing my hospital bag and his diaper bag. But, these are all little things. For the most part, we are done.

Anyway – now that I’ve written a completely useless and downer post, I’ll leave you with a nice belly shot. This was taken at 32 1/2 weeks.

Is it March yet?

33 Weeks Along

Again I win the worst blogger on the planet award. Sorry.

So much has been going on! I’ll try and recap. We had our baby shower a few weeks ago! It was AWESOME! We honestly have the greatest friends and family on the planet to throw us such a wonderful party. It was a Jack & Jill so that all our couple friends could attend. It was super laid back which was just our speed. We held it at a local lodge and had beer, wine, and soda. Perfect! We also had some of our friends kids come which made it even more special. We were spoiled rotten and I’m still overwhelmed with people’s generocity. We got everything we needed and more! Let me tell you, this kid has way more clothes than I do at this point! Here are a few pics:

Here is us trying to open one of the gifts! (It was an umbrella stroller)

And here’s a nice picture of Ross and me as the shower was ending.

We’ve also been working on the nursery – it’s getting there! We went with a jungle theme which I adore! I love all animals and giraffes are among my favorites! Ross has done a great job of putting together all the furniture. The biggest thing we have left to do is the window treatments and hanging a few things on the walls. Oh yeah, and I want a bookcase. But that’s easy – and really doesn’t have to be done before the baby arrives. Here are some pics of the nursery:

Here’s Baby Boy’s crib and his giraffe from our good friend D.

And here’s his changing table/dresser (with a shot of his very full closet!)

And her’es the view from the door with the glider. The windows will have blinds and a valence.

And not that this is nursery-related, but here is Baby Boy’s coming home outfit! Ross bought this for the baby for Christmas and I love it! Soooo cute!

OMG I’m 7 weeks away from having a BABY!!!! Yes, apparently that just hit me. I’m so excited, but also really nervous. I don’t know WHAT to do with a baby! I know I’ve got a lot of “stuff,” but not a clue what to do! Yikes! I really can’t wait to meet him though. It’s been quite a long journey and I’m so thrilled it’s finally almost over and we get to have our little man. Life is good!

A Year in Review

I got this idea from a friend’s blog that I read. It’s a year in review. I’m kinda tired just typing it :) Enjoy the roller coaster ride!

January: Having just had our third miscarriage in a row two days after Christmas, we had a follow up appointment with my regular OBGYN. He referred us to the fertility clinic where we had our initial appointment /consultation. We also began all the initial testing (blood work, saline u/s, etc.). We learned that as far as they could tell there was “nothing wrong.” They recommended IUI with injectable medications. We also passed the due date of our first (and at that point, longest) pregnancy. The anticipation turned out to be much harder than the actual day.

February: We started our first round of injections to prepare for our first IUI. I am confident this will work. The meds turn out to be harsh – my whole body started to hurt. Though it though, I was hopeful and optimistic. We had our first IUI on February 26. I also started acupuncture in February.

March: We’re pregnant! I didn’t take a home test this round. I wanted to wait for the blood work. That was the hardest and longest wait ever. But on March 13, they called to tell me I was in fact pregnant. I had subsequent blood work done to confirm. We had our first ultrasound on March 27 and learned we would lose the baby. I stopped all medications and miscarried naturally the next week.

April: We decide to take a few months off. My body needed to recover. We go on a cruise to the Bahamas which was the perfect break and got us feeling in a better place. I am not optimistic at this point. I’m feeling down and out. And I’m not feeling like I can go through any more physically or mentally. On April 23 I have wrist surgery that needed to be done (but was being pushed back in an attempt to get pregnant). That drags on with over a month in a cast.

May: Start going back to acupuncture. I had stopped right after the miscarriage. Start getting back into a good place mentally. Go back to the fertility clinic where they recommend having exploratory surgery to make sure my uterus and tubes are okay. We agree that we should do the surgery before potentially having another miscarriage.  I start going to support group meetings at the fertility clinic. It lifts a burden off my shoulders and puts me in a solid place – mentally.

June: I have the laparoscopy/hysteroscopy surgery on June 9. They find nothing wrong. I am not relieved. I am mad. I am sad. There is no explanation for the recurrent miscarriages.  They recommend adding IV Intralipid therapy to my treatment for the next IUI. I get my first IV treatment on June 24 and have my IUI on June 25. I’m not totally positive this will work, but I am hopeful. I trust that everything is a gift from God and that we will get our happy ending. I’m also scared out of my mind.

July: We’re pregnant! (déjà vu). I take a home test on July 4 and see the faintest pink line you could possibly imagine. I keep taking them and the line keeps getting darker. I go in for blood work on July 9 and they confirm I am pregnant. I go back four more times for repeat blood draws to make sure the levels are doubling – and they are! We go in on July 16 for our first ultrasound to confirm a viable pregnancy (as much as can be done at 5 weeks along). They do confirm and tell us they only see one baby. We continue weekly ultrasounds.

August: We are transferred to the high risk perinatal center. It is hard and emotional to leave the fertility clinic. We end up really liking the perinatal center and feel good there. On August 25 I start to bleed. Thinking the worst, we race to the doctor’s office to find out that the baby is fine, but I have a sub-chorionic hematoma in my placenta. I’m put on modified bed rest.

September: I continue bed rest and weekly appointments at the doctor. The bleed is not healing. I’m starting to go a little nutty on bed rest. We find out we are having a BOY!!!

October: I am let off bed rest in mid-October. I am allowed to ease back into things, but not do too much. This is very hard. I have trouble walking further than the mail box and get very, very tired. Palpitations in my heart start bothering me and I begin having dizzy spells. I am sent to a cardiologist for an echocardiogram. They find out that I have a new leak in my heart (now the second valve leaking) and a slightly enlarged right ventricle. They tell me this won’t affect the baby and prescribe a calcium channel blocker for the palpitations. The medicine works like a dream and I feel like a new woman.  They tell me to get my heart re-checked after the baby is born.

November: I am still out of work. I am advised to stay out until we reach viability (which happened on Thanksgiving Day). I’m still easing into things like walking long distances and running errands. I’m enjoying cooking again!

December: I return to work after 3 ½ months of being out. I start part-time and worry that full-time will be too much. As soon as I go back to full-time I realize it is completely fine! I’m doing great and the baby is doing great. As of December 22, he is 3 pounds! The bleed has completely healed and I am feeling pretty good. I am having contractions (sometimes a lot of them), but they are not putting me into labor so they are not worrisome! I’m back to going to the doctor every two weeks (as opposed to every week). We enjoy our last Christmas as a family of three (dog included!). My husband begins putting the nursery together – furniture, etc. Things are really coming together!

So…here’s to a great 2010 as a family of four!!! Can’t wait! Happy New Year!

My 3 Pound Baby!

We had a great ultrasound today! Baby Boy is weighing in at a wopping 3 pounds already! He is measuring about a week ahead and they tell us he’s going to be a big boy! Holy canoli! Everything else went great at the appointment. They even confirmed I can stop taking my Lovenox shots on Thursday night – woop woop! (It was under discussion for a brief moment – thankfully they took mercy on my belly!) They also confimed the contractions I’m having are no big deal. Even when I have 6-8 in an hour it’s still okay – phew!! I was getting worried when I’d have a lot. So really everything is perfect!

I can’t believe how big he is getting! It’s unreal to me! No wonder it feels like he is really packing a punch now – he’s got a lot to punch with!!

Sooooo happy Merry Christmas!

Back to work!

I’m finally back to work full-time!! And I think it might actually work! I was quite worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle  that much. And, while I’m completely exhaused and sore, I’m pretty much hanging in there. I’m only contracting about 7ish times a day which isn’t bad. Occasionally I’ll start getting more in an hour than is ideal, but I seem to be able to stop them so that’s good! It’s good to be productive at work and get out of the house. The only bad thing is that I’m left with no energy to do much else. And it’s not like I can really push myself like I could if I didn’t have a baby to think about!

Next appointment is Monday – hopefully they will agree that working is a good thing!

I hope everyone is ready for the holiday season! I’m getting there – I wish I could bake more – that’s my biggest complaint. But, I’m just too tired on my feet. I made my Dad’s favorite cookies and froze them for Christmas when my parents will be here. I want to also make spritz cookies and snow balls…we’ll see – maybe this weekend?! ha! I can dream! My shopping is almost done and everything that I currently have is wrapped. I went light on the decorations around my house because I’m tired and I don’t want to have to take them down! But, it still looks festive. I love Christmas!!!!

And this year, Christmas will bring a special treat – Christmas Eve is my last night of injections!!!!!!!!! yipee!!!!! I’ve been doing shots every day since the end of June – it’s down to only once a day and only one shot, but it’s still NOT FUN! My belly is completely bruised and the medicine stings going in. I can’t wait to be done with it! I still have a handful of other medications that I need to take, but I’m okay with the pills! Now let’s just cross our fingers that I pass the glucose test and don’t need insulin injections or anything! Wouldn’t that be a bummer to stop the Lovenox and have to add insulin….fingers are really crossed that it doesn’t happen!!!

Well, that’s my update! Time to go make mac & cheese for my work luncheon tomorrow!

26 Week Belly Shot!

Here it is! I’m starting to get to that point where I’m pretty achy – obviously (see last post). LOL. But, overall, doing well! Baby Boy was kicking the whole time I was trying to get pictures! He’s so cute and funny that little man!

I never realized…

***Disclaimer*** I’m a bit grouchy. It does not mean I’m not grateful for being pregnant or don’t want to be pregnant or any of that. I’m just tired and achy. That’s all.

I never realized that I would have to give new meaning to the term “thunder thighs.” I mean, geeze. I looked down today and holy cellulite! It’s unreal. Please tell me that I have some glimmer of hope that it might go away after I have this baby. I’ve always had a big heiney and big thighs. I think it’s because I was a figure skater and used those muscles so much that they just grew to gross proportions. But now they are even bigger. And what’s up with my thighs rubbing together? It’s not only gross, but uncomfortable. Ugh!

And I’m just tired today I guess. I was on my feet a lot yesterday and wore myself out. I felt better this morning, but now I’m just beat. Everything hurts. I’m achy and sore. My back hurts, my feet hurt, my ankles hurt, my uterus hurts…

In the last year and a half I’ve been pregnant for almost 15 months. It’s unreal. I have the gestational period of an elephant or something. And speaking of elephants, my thighs are about as big as one!

And my skin is so sensitive. I have little rashes all over. Another fun thing for sure.

That’s my rant…I’m done now. Like I said, I just am grouchy.

Is it March yet???????

People can be so rude!!!!

I went to a banquet tonight with my husband so I wore a nice new dress from Motherhood. It makes me look a little bit bigger than regular clothes b/c of the empire waist, but not horrible.

Well this woman who I don’t know said “oh you must be due soon – when are you due?” I said “not until March.” “Oh my,” she said, ” you are huge. You look like you are carying twins!” And she was drop dead serious….

OMG? Really? You really said that? I didn’t know what to do. I was mortified. Now I have a complex that I’m super huge and I’m really not. I’m normal – measuring normal. I’m very petite so it’s all in my belly – not much room for the baby go grow but out. But even if she was thinking it – does she really have to say it????

I’m going to totally obsess over this now – I was going to wear the same dress to a girlfriends baby shower tomorrow but now I think I’ll go with regular clothes – I don’t want to feel so huge….

Thanks for listening to my rant…

It’s been a while…

I’m pretty much the worst blogger on the face of the earth!

Things here are chugging along pretty nicely. Not without complications, of course, but doing fine nonetheless. Baby Boy is measuring just perfect in the 54th percentile – he’s just shy of 2 pounds or so right now. He’s kicking a lot and I’m really enjoying that part!!

I think I had previously mentioned the issues I was having with my heart. I went in for an echo to check on my mitral valve prolapse with regurgitation. My MVP is still there and they found a second leak in my heart – this time in the tricuspid valve. My right ventricle was a bit enlarged as well. So that had me all in a panic (clearly that’s helpful when you are dealing with a heart issue…). Turns out they can’t do anything about it anyway except for treat the symptoms and it won’t hurt the baby. I started getting very bad heart palpitations - so bad in fact that some days I was pretty much useless because I was so fatigued. A few weeks ago they finally put me on some heart medicine that has made me feel a million times better – a new woman, actually. I was put on Procardia (a calcium channel blocker). So now I feel great! I will have to get another echo after I evict the baby from my tummy to see if the second leak goes away or not. My guess is it won’t (because a few years ago they had already noticed degeneration in that valve so I think the leak is just secondary to that…). Either way, it’s fine right now!

So I felt GREAT for a week – a whole week – seven days. It was amazing. My body felt good. My palpitations were under control. The fatigue was better.

And then the cramping/tightness/pressure started.

And you know what that buys you? A ticket to L&D of course! We had our first visit to L&D thinking I was having contractions or something. Turns out they were NOT contractions (thankfully!). They couldn’t figure out why I was having all the discomfort and told me to follow up with my OB. Which I did – they wanted to be cautious and see if it went away. It didn’t. But, luckily it’s not changing my cervix. So, while we don’t know why I’m having all the issues we know at this point they are not progressing to labor. Thank goodness – that means I can stay up and about. I DO NOT want bedrest again…been there, done that.

And…I got to go back to work!! I was super anxious about it. I had a lot of mixed feelings about going back. But, the doctor cleared me on Monday and Tuesday was my first day back. It was good to be back! I can be productive again and get out of the house. It’s good. I did a half day on Tuesday and a full day on Wednesday – and today…well today I paid for it. I had a LOT of tightness and some braxton hicks in the morning. I also hurt all over. After 3 1/2 months of no working, a full day took it all out of me. But, I felt better in the afternoon and was able to get a few things done around the house. I go back tomorrow for another half day. After 2 weeks of part-time, I will go to full-time (assuming I am still standing!). So the clock is on to see how long I can work for…I figure every day there is a small victory!

So that’s my update. I know I’ve been an awful blogger – I’ve just been doing stuff and enjoying my freedom I guess! Plus, there isn’t much to report! Oh – Bill the Bleed is pretty much gone! They told me he was completely gone, but last week they did find some remnants of him – it’s fine though b/c it’s all old and not growing and it’s just spots (not the huge bleed it was before!).

Now I’m just getting ready for the holidays! My parents and sister will come to visit which is awesome! We cannot travel this year due to the pregnancy and the fact that I shouldn’t go more than about 1 hour from the hospital. So that leaves us stuck here! It’ll be fun to have Christmas in our home though! It’ll be the first year having Christmas in our house (even though we’ve lived here for 2 1/2 years)!

I’m hoping my husband will take some new belly shots of me soon and I can post. I’m getting big!! I hit 25 weeks today and it shows! LOL.

Take care my blogger friends – thanks for reading!

P.S. We bought baby furniture by the way! We have a crib and dresser/changing table – they are not put together yet though – soon!