Happy Birthday!!!

Well this is super late. My Ryan had his 35th birthday on monday the 26th along with my mom Jeanne. So we went out for a quick dinner to celebrate with my whole family. It was cute a little short due to the fact that I was having a lot of contractions that night. So hopefully Ryan and I will have a more intimate dinner out soon. But according to Ryan the only gift he wanted is to be able to hunt a bit this year.

For all of you hunters out there- bow season opens tomorrow. Good luck and be safe. And if you are in the area.... please don't shoot my husband. I need him around. :)

Negative

No- I am not talking about my attitude today. I am talking about a test that we had done. To see if I am at risk of going into labor within the next 2 weeks. Negative!!!

To say that I am happy would be an understatement. I had an appointment with our Dr in Holland today and he was great as always. We talked about what was going on and what our next steps were going to be. And he suggested that we do the test just to put all our minds at ease. So I laid low all day and then we headed to the hospital at 5:30. Got hooked up to all the machines and listened to baby girl for an hour and a half while we waited for the results. Such a sweet sound.

Our nurse remembered me from William's delivery 4+ years ago and she was so nice. She said that baby girl was moving around like a 36 week old and looked great which made me feel good. And even more confident that when she finally does make her appearance she is going to give us a run for our money. :) And I'll take it!

So what does this mean??? Well to my hubby it means he gets to go to Indiana on his hunting trip. To me it means peace of mind knowing I have some more time to fatten her up. And get things ready. And get off the couch/bed. Possibly even going in to work for a few hours here and there. I never thought I would be excited to go to work but laying around does get old!

Now if I can get that negative to last for about 10 weeks more that would be great. :)

First Tooth

So our exciting news of the day???

Caden has been messing with his first loose tooth for a few weeks now. He came home from school today and he finally pulled it out. During the fire drill at school. :) Talk about bursting through the door with the biggest smile on his face. Made my heart melt.

Isn't the first picture classy? A face only a mother could love. And yet- I still find him adorable.

28 weeks

wow- I am so glad that I get to write that. Especially after this week.

I wrote that we had quite a scare over labor day weekend when baby girl decided to play hide and seek. Tuesday we confirmed she was quite good at the game and then the next day we had our fetal echocardiogram which showed her heart and her organs looking great!

Well then Thursday at work I was not feeling well at all. I had a lot of weird pain/cramping and contractions. TMI coming for some but..... when I went to the bathroom I had a LOT of blood. Talk about scare the crap out of me again! So I bolted out of work without telling anyone and called the Dr. immediately who told me to get home and lay down. So I did. When I got home I had a message from our specialist confirming he was happy with the fetal echo but was still not happy with baby girl's growth and to make sure we were scheduled for another ultrasound to check her growth again in a month.

Then Thurday night I received a call back from a nurse stating that she wanted me to get in touch with our specialist on Friday just to update them as to what was going on. So I left a message with a nurse there who had to call the Dr. who was in a different office. She called back a bit later and I was sent to Spectrum hospital to see what was going on. They still aren't 100% sure but as a precaution I was given a steroid shot and told to continue the bedrest and to get a second shot on Saturday. Luckily they gave me a note to get it done around home which was great.

So I go into the hospital on Saturday to get the second shot and they are required to monitor you for a while. Turns out I am having contractions every 10 minutes. That's super. I knew that I was having them but it is still a shock. So we are once again in limbo land not knowing what is going to happen. So bedrest continues and I go in to see our Dr. here tomorrow.

Whew.... Talk about a whirlwind of a week....

GOOD NEWS!

I have been waiting a long time to be able to write that as a headline! :)

After our little scare yesterday I am glad to be able to say that we received good news today. The Dr. that did the echocardiogram said he was very happy with how things looked and he did not see any abnormalities or anything that he was concerned about. YAHOO! She was moving around like crazy so we got to watch her on screen for about an hour and a half. So awesome.

The ultrasound "unofficially" showed that she was around 2.2 pounds now but we aren't sure how that falls in line but feel positive that she is gaining weight. We were told that we didn't need to talk to our Dr. after thinking that we would be seeing both today. And the other Dr. didnt really know anything and wasn't able to answer any of my questions. So I am going to call in a message just to go over a few things with him.

So another appt. with our Dr. here in 2 weeks and then back out to the specialist in Grand Rapids again in 4 weeks for another ultrasound/checkup unless things fall backwards again. Hopefully not though. It was great to receive a positive report for once.

Thanks as always for all the prayers and thoughts.

Scared

Today has been a roller coaster of emotions.

This morning started out by bringing BOTH of my boys to school. Caden actually started last week already but Will's very first day of pre-school was today. He woke up this morning just bawling because he did not want to go and was going to miss me. Thankfully he has a very protective older brother who "talked him off the edge" and convinced him to go. So off we went.

Surprise surprise when I got there. Caden got all settled and headed off to his class after giving Will a big hug and telling him it would be ok. Then Will and I bravely walked to his class only to find out that since we missed the orientation (we were gone that night) that he only had school from 10-11 with a parent to sit in. Not such a big deal except for what is coming up soon.... So off to home we went again and called Ryan's mom who watches the boys on Tuesdays to see if she could come earlier than I thought.

The reason this was a problem??? Well baby girl decided to hide the last 24 hours. I tried everything I could to get her to move and not a single thing worked. So Ryan and I were up all night debating about what to do. My intuition in these situations has never been wrong and we were both convinced that she was gone based off a few changes the last week or so. As you can imagine..... we did not get a lot of sleep last night. Ryan had to work out of town and had to go. I felt so bad for him. But I called the Dr. this morning to see what we should do. We had an emergency appointment scheduled at 10:30 to come in but were told to get there as soon as we could. I was at home with Will waiting/crying/praying my heart out when my Aunt Joan showed up. What a blessing it was to be able to just sit there and cry when I needed but also have someone to talk to. What I appreciated most was that the situation was not down-played and I wasn't told over and over again that it would be ok. Cause it might not be. And I needed to prepare for that.

Ryan's mom showed up and was so great. She brought Will to school and sat with him while my Aunt drove me to the Dr's office where my twin was also waiting. (she had brought my nephew in just before so was already there) Luckily the timing was perfect even though we were early so we got in right away. Dr. H walked in and asked a few questions and got right to it. As soon as I laid down and he put the doppler on we heard a heartbeat and hiccups and he said "well that was easy". And I started bawling. I was wrong for the first time. And have never been so glad to be! He finished up and helped me sit up and gave me a great big hug and just let me cry. I am so blessed to have such an understanding Dr. and family who is always willing to be there.

The rest of the day has been a bit of a blur. Lots of crying followed by a big headache. :) But more importantly.... a feeling of gratefulness. I have extended family who showed up out of nowhere. A mother in law who sat with all the "younger" moms with my son and a twin who stayed with me all day just knowing that was what I needed. A husband who rushed home as soon as he could even knowing that everything was ok by that time.

I don't know what baby girl was doing the last 24 hours+ but she sure as heck is going to be quite the contender when playing hide and seek with her brothers. I just hope that she doesn't want to play anytime soon until AFTER she is born. I don't know if I can take it again.

So now we just hope and pray that all is well with tomorrow's appointment with the specialist.