How we pass the time in the hospital......

No officers, friends, family, or children were harmed in the taking of these photos, just posed and humiliated.

IV-less at last

I guess being in the hospital physically healthy and well gets more "privileges" than I thought. I got lucky and my IV was taken out last night and not replaced with a fresh new one. Its so nice not to have a little hep-lock dangling from my arm all day, even though the forearm IV was a piece of cake compared to my hand one. IVs in the hospital (Evergreen anyways) "expire" 72 hours after they were placed so I've now had 2 IVs and only did we use the initial one. For my 2nd, it was the "just in case we need it" line and was ultimately comfortable and flushed well and had good positioning. Since I've been at Hotel Evergreen, I was only medicated (with the mag) through the initial IV, inf act, aside from occasional Tylenol, that the only med I've been on since being here. Since I'm sans IV, I'm, per my nurses, "not allowed to seize". Ok, ladies, I'll see what I can do. Hopefully if another IV needs to get established, there's a big reason for it, I'd rather not just spend my time here hep-locked. Besides, it makes picking up my little visitors a lot easier! Some of them have tried tugging on it or have been freaked out by it anyways. Also without the IV, all that indicates I'm a patient is my concealable arm band so I can fly under the radar more and look like a visitor, although I'm sure "potential flight risk" posters are plastered all over the hospital with my name and picture on it.

Nothing major to report on our labs or length of stay. I'm beginning to feel neutral about lab time, it can feel exciting before I get stuck because I know I get results soon, but the results have been consistently inconsistent so we pretty much just bet how high my enzymes will go up. We've had 2 incidents where labs went down, but my subsequent draws are elevated again, so I have yet to achieve the trend that will determine if and when I can leave. My morning labs were great yesterday, both my AST and ALT had gone down, my evening labs though, my ALT went up almost 100 points. I figured my OBGYN was going to stroke out or something but per the nurses he said "wow thats high!" and yet allowed my IV to get DC'd. I'm still a medical mystery. I've prided myself on be unique and individual, but this is just getting ridiculolus.

I still feel great and baby has been great as well. She's been very active and been monitoring very well. Her baseline heart rate is around 140 and per the monitors, I haven't contracted too much. When I have had contractions, I normally was told after the fact as they weren't painful but if I was being monitored or not visiting, every now and then I'd notice tightening but nothing painful.

We've settled into a "routine" for our days. Matt's been sleeping at home the last 2 nights. I miss him and last night I was teary when he left, but I want him to get good sleep and although I sleep better when he's next to me, we just can't get comfortable in the hospital room and I dont want him woken up by lab when they come in between 0500 and 0630 some days. I try to sleep as late as I can, some times I get lucky and sleep longer, it just depends on when I took my Ambien. I get up between 0400 and 0600 for no apparent reason so we try to get morning monitoring out of the way and I'll wait for lab and go back to sleep. I've been getting up around 0900 give or take and either greeting guests and visitors or I'll try to shower before they start rolling in for the day. We seem to have a steady trickle anywhere from 0800-2200. Since I got more permissions, I'm able to walk "slowly" around the unit and I can go on a small patio near the NICU. Matt and I went outside for a few last night and the fresh air was amazing, as I've been stuck here since Tuesday without leaving the unit and or going outside. I might venture out a bit more today, there's only so much you can do in the hospital room, even though people have been more than generous with projects, books, flowers, magazines, and balloons to keep me sane, or somewhere near it.

Randi and Landon got to visit last night and made my year. My friend Suzie brought my a ton of crafts and since Landon is such a Halloween fan, we attempted to build a haunted house out of foam thats like a puzzle. (I sent it home with him as a project, I'm pretty sure I'm not bored enough to construct it on my own). When Landon left he said, "Nanny Rachel, do you feel better? Are you gonna be happy now?" The kid just cracks me up! The kid's rightfully confused though, he asked where the baby was and I told him she's still not born, he looked at my like I was nuts considering he just went to the hospital 3 weeks ago to see his baby brother Chase and here's Nanny Rachel, not hugely pregnant, in street clothes, hair and makeup done, supposedly hospitalized for baby stuff, but nothing else. For a while, he didn't believe us that Nanny Matt and I were going to have a baby too, but maybe in the next few weeks when he sees pictures he'll get it. Kids under 16 wont be allowed to visit the baby in NICU anyways. Depending on baby's stability, I'll likely limit who comes to see her anyways, primarily due to cold and flu season being around the corner. Including Matt and I, she could only have 2 other visitors at a time anyways so our PD pow-wows wouldn't fly in NICU, for a lot of reasons!

Not much else to report thats either thrilling or interesting, maybe I'll make up something next posting. Today should be a "normal day". My favorite attending and midwife are off today after getting their butts handed to them this weekend so I'll see other practitioners when needed but should be pretty standard day ahead with visitors coming and going and the ever present wait for lab draws. I had baby monitored while I blogged so I wont monitor again until afternoon time and then before bed.

Hope everyone is enjoy their days and is enjoying their freedoms. Go be active, if I can't, you might as well, but don't tell me how great your hike or run or trip to the gym was, it'll just piss me off.

~Matt, Rach, and Baby

Hurry up and Wait

Well, I had been hoping that this would be an optmistic and enlightening blog, but I have nothing exciting to share.

Yesterday, I was pleased to see that my ALT went from 351 to 316. With this presumably good sign, we were optimistic that we were starting to trend in the right direction. This had been the first time that my liver enzymes had declined at all since we arrived. With no new information but a potential hopeful situation, Dr Shumate said that if I continuously trended downward with NO elevation otherwise, I might get released on Monday. Dr Shumate's a really cool doctor, I am happy that he's been as cautious as he has been since ecclampsia doesn't really get better, it gets fast and quickly. That all being said, its hard to convince him to do things differently or negotiate with him. I thought if he wanted to see a more continual trend, maybe we should do labs every 4 hours instead of 12. He's got a great sense of humor so he rolled his eyes, laughed, told me that 2 lab sets dont make a trend and that he applauded my effort.

With the idea that no news is good news, we went about our day, entertaining tons of friends and family while we essentially waited for lab to come back. I'm tired of getting stuck all the time, my veins have tolerated this all well, but I actually get excited at lab times because I know that means result times soon.

The on-call doctor for MFM (maternal fetal medicine) came in and continued to say what a mystery I am and we discussed potential discharge plans and things that I can and can't do. #1 on the can't list is cardio at the gym, which I'm ok with. I asked primarily about lifting weights and she said I could. It was hard to convince Matt that she did infact say yes, but I had his parent as witnesses. I was ready to send him home and bring me my bodypump weights. I also got "cleared" for short small walks, which is great since I had been sneaking them in anyways, now I dont have to hide from the nurses when I refil my own ice water in the room 12 steps from my room. Most everything else would presumably go back to normal upon discharge it sounds like, just have extremely close monitoring at the doctor's office via non stress testing for the baby, which I'm currently doing 3 times  a day, and getting labs every few days.

Come lab time yeterday, I was more anxious than anything to see if our trend of enzymes decreasing had continued. Unfortunately for me, since I'm this mystery right now, my labs went back up. Ah the joys of being unique. I imagine becoming some random case study for the next grand rounds after all this, 4 specialists essentially scratching their heads wondering what to do with me. ID and GI have pretty much said this looks like atypical preeclampsia, MFM sometimes thinks it is depending on the day and the doctor on call, and Dr Shumate seems to think so as well, but most of my "symptoms" aren't too classic of true PIH (pregnancy induced hypertension) . I have a few that would suggest PIH, some that would suggest liver issues, which have been essentially ruled out, and more than anything, my symptoms just say that I'm a pain in the ass.

Symptom wise, I have felt great for several days. I get some RUQ pain with back pain at times, haven't had a headache in a few days, no blurred vision. The swelling in my hands and my feet have gone up but I'm still for the most part comfortable and able to wear my wedding rings. I pretty much feel healthy and well all day, but I'm trapped in a hospital. BPs have been great over the last 24 hours. I think my highest was 122/78 which is pretty much  text book for normal. They of course watch this closely and if I become more symptomatic, they'd take it more often but it seems I'm only getting BP checks 3 or 4 times a day, most in conjunction with the fetal monitoring which has been normal.

It sucks to not have better news to write about, I'm kinda getting used to the trend of simply having not enough information. Maybe today they'll have some idea of a grand plan. I think they'll send me home at somepoint soon but I imagine that once I'm home, I likely wont stay there long and I'll get stuck here again based on bad labs again or BP. Nice to imagine leaving and being able to run errands or visit people so I dont have to be babysat to make sure I'm not doing too much. Can't wait to tidy the house, cook, and go get my own stuff from the store instead of delegating. Its touching to see how many people want to do things for us, I'm just ready to do things myself and stop being so dependent. Matt has also said how much he wants me home, even though he's with me for 90% of the day, he says that I need to take care of him cause he can't do it himself..... maybe thats why he's at the hospital all the time, he's not needing to cook or anything that way.....not that Matt cooks. :) Hopefully he's getting good rest as I type. After 2 days on the day bed, aka the roomy twin, he decided to get rest at home and I can't blame him. We had both been sleeping on the day bed but its not big enough for either of us to be anywhere but on our side so it was trapping, one of us would inevitably head for the reclining chair at some point. The hospital bed doesn't get used that often, its more like an occassional chair or just something we put books, DVDs, and games on. I can't sit on it for longer than baby monitoring because my back starts hurting. Hospitals really should invest in tempurpedic, I know they have the money to.

Blogging via Ambien, now we're talking!

well, I've had 10mg of Ambien and its not yet 5am and I'm awake but not, so this might be entertaining. As always, pardon mispellings, or if I mention the same chain of events 12 times, just nod and smile.

Yesterday was a tough day, emotionally for me, as well as feeling very sleepy. I think the limited and interrupted sleep from our first day and night here caught up with me. We had a very quiet day in comparison to others. Martha was our only day time visitor and it was mellow. I'm amazed at how much I really thrive on it being loud and full of people in our room. It was nice to have quiet too, but it was a bit too quiet yesterday. Our awesome PD friends were busy and all working hard so we didn't see too many friends on day shift.

I had been getting aggitated (imagine that) with feeling restricted, trapped, all around cranky, and melted down a time or two. I think given the circumstances of this new event, I'd been doing well and some yelling, kicking, and screaming was bound to happen. My first episode of tears was after Matt saying he wanted to get some exercise. I was ok with him going for a while and hitting the gym but I was jealous and upset that simple gym activities are now off limits to me. Later, he thought he'd distract me but strolling me around the unit, which no one said NOT to do. My BPs have been so stable that I pretty much rearrange our room and am up and down all day, avoiding the bed as much as possible. 2 nurses told me to go back to my room and the you know what hit the fan and I sobbed and cried on Matt about wanting to just walk, go home, go to the gym, just have some normalcy. I have to hand it to the guy for being as supportive as he is, he's all too often the voice of reason, and while I appreciate the reasoning that yes, this is TEMPORARY and I can go back to my routine in a few months, I just wanted him to get how trapped I felt and irritated. After this little incident, I knew I was tired, Matt and I were both a bit fried at eachother so Matt went home for a bit and to the gym and I napped. The world is just better when people nap.

After my nap I had my labs drawn and they continue to rise much to everyone's confusion. When Matt came back we were both in better moods but still essentially scratching our heads at why labs just weren't cooperating. I had been doing my daily fetal monitoring in the hospital bed and started to have intense upper back pain that seemed to radiate in a band to my front, followed by a neck and headache. This after some slightly elevated BPs (130 from 112). The discomfort seemed to come on suddenly and I'm  not sure if it was purely positional, I've given up on the bed by the way, or if this was something related to my liver or galbladder. I had a good 10 minutes of just feeling not well, similarly to what landed me here, but the symptoms resolved and our midwife checked on us and reminded us to let the RNs know if there were similar or worsening symptoms. Nothing else really presented itself so we went about our night.

Evening time rolled around and so did PD friends that just made the day go by so much better. I know that I thrive around people being here for the distraction but the more I watch, I think Matt appreciates it just as much as I do. Nathan and Makayle dropped by and let us know that they really had no idea we were here or what was going on. It was great to see them and catch up and laugh with them a bit. Allan and Bruce also joined us, followed by Betsy. Since Matt's actual squad is on their night shifts right now, one of our friends, Christa, offered to bring us dinner from our favorite mexican restaurant and between the company and the food, it was a great night. 2 other squad mates, Eric and Dave also came by, and stuck around long enough to watch me get queasy after getting my new IV. :)

IV's in the hospitals if flushing properly, last 72 hours. The one initially placed had been painful to flush the entire time and I had been asking for it to be removed most of yesterday but the nurses said anesthesia wouldn't do a new one until it stopped working or the 72 hour mark went up. I got lucky and it stopped flushing so not only did I get the joy of being free of anything for a bit, I got to get a new line, this one in my right forearm that is SO much more comfortable and flushes much better than the hand one. The hand spot is a bit infiltrated and sore today. Anesthesia was kind enough to humor me and just get the line in with less difficulty than prior sticks. Took 2 tries but the lido helped a lot. I did get woozy as I anticipated but the feeling of going to the dark side lasted far less time than my initial sticks. I dont know what it is about IVs but something about threading the catheter creeps me out and makes me dizzy and see spots when done on me. I'm hoping that this IV will last and not have any infiltration issues. I'm not sure if this will be my last IV here or not but at least I've got great line access for the next 72 hours.

Not much else to report, as I said, I'm on ambien right now, tired and groggy but just can't sleep right now. Matt stayed with me tonight and its been nice having him here. We both slept on the daybad, and went right to sleep initially. I'm not sure if we're crashing easily because of meds, sheer exhaustion, our white noise maker plus the hospital's humidifier or just finding some normalcy in going to bed together. Likely a combo of both but I settled a lot better when he was next to me. He's still sleeping even though I've been up for over an hour wandering around the room, trying to convince the nurses to get the lab techs up here sooner so I can sleep again and wake up to results. No luck yet, I'm sure as soon as I fall back to sleep, lab will come in. Nothing like being woken up from sleep by someone who simply needs to stick a needle in your arm and then leave.

Hopefully today will bring some new or better lab results, if not, the waiting game continues. Sounds like we'll have more visitors today, and I'm crossing my fingers for Randi and Landon to come by. Maybe today we'll have some more conclusive evidence of what we're dealing with, if not, we'll be here through the weekend!

Somewhat sleepily,
Matt, Rach, baby

Hospitals: The new prison

Well, the joy of being hospitalized continues, for how long, you may ask? Who the hell knows? Certainly not us.

We dont have any ground breaking news to report. I feel fine, baby's been fine, my liver enzymes continue to go up. The liver ultrasound I had yesterday wasn't conclusive of anything diagnostic. They were ruling out fatty liver of pregnancy, so thats another thing I dont have, which I guess is good. The question remains why my enzymes continue going up, not quite stablizing or going down significantly. The GI doc seems to think I have some virus of some kind causing this, but nothing has been found. He send out labs to an outside source to test for EBV and CMV but those results aren't back yet and might not be back for a few more days. Whether I'll be here to see the results I'm not sure.

From what I understand, I'm still stuck here to watch the enzymes, now only being drawn in the morning and late afternoon-early evening. Still monitoring baby 3 times a day but she has yet to do anything that would require more frequent monitoring.

One of my attendings still thinks this is some atypical preeclampsia, the other consulting specialist doesn't seem to think that it is, and is thinking that the enzymes will even out and I can just go home and go back to normalcy. While I like his thought process, I'm inclined to agree with the OBGYN and the midwives who all seem to agree. The GI doc has stepped out of the picture and the labs he ordered will get resulted to the appropriate attending.

So the wait continues, I'm getting pretty pissed off being stuck here being so limited. I'm trying to keep things together but I'm gonna yell at someone or throw something (whoops) at a wall or something before too long. Matt continues to take everything in stride, hell, he hasn't worked most of this week and has ran errands, lunched, visited with friends and has lounged around my room reading. He tried to tell me this morning that to he thinks of this as vacation and he's pretending he's at the beach. I told him this was the worst beach we've ever been to.

The staff here has been great, can't complain much about them. As long as they get in my veins on one try and give me my Ambien at night, I dont care too much.

I'm most thankful and appreciative for our PD family and our other friends and family who have spent lots of time just hanging out with us and running to go on errands for me. The visiting helps the time go so much faster. Hopefully Randi and Landon can swing by tomorrow whether here or at our house if I get discharged. I need a Crocker fix. Chase-man may or may not join us since he's still so little, I can totally understand some hesitance in bringing him to a hospital of all places. I am on the floor of NICU so they're very germ conscious. We'll see.

Hope all is well with everyone.

More later as we get news,
Matt, Rach, and Baby

BVB, episode 2

Well, after a sleepless night, as if anyone can sleep well in a hospital, with their hubby at home (I wanted him to get some quality sleep), soem good news!

Because my blood pressures have stablized, I'm off the magnesium sulfate. Thank God! My current nurse says it best when she describes it as a flu in a bottle. It just sucks. I was going to be on it through this afternoon but after rechecking things, they decided that enough's enough. Also a plus, since I'm off the mag, no more every 6 hour labs! Hooray!!!

Also, since baby has done so well, instead of continuous fetal monitoring, in bed to boot, I'll now get monitored 3 times a day for 45 minutes. Through this ordeal, the baby has had great heart rates, and has been very active, infact keeping me up with jabs and summer saults most of the night.

SOOOOO as I write, I'm hep-locked (IV still in my hand but not attached to anything running in it), free of the BP cuff, they'll check now every 6 hours or as I become symptomatic, and I'm free of the fetal monitoring belts. Woo hoo! It was definately a task to do my bathroom measuring as I'd unhook myself from the fetal monitors and BP cuffs, unplug my IV pump and drag all the wires and pumps with me to the bathroom, go, measure, wash hands, and reattach everything.

The plan for today is to sleep at some point, an hour last night wasn't very good. Matt brough brekky and a bunch of things I wanted from home, since at this point my length of stay is still up in the air. I'll have an ultrasound of my liver today to see whats going on, as well as a consult with GI.

The maternal-fetal-medicine doctor and OBGYN came to see me at the same time today and were both optimistic and positive but allowing reality to set in. I get the impression from most everyone that the baby will come early but just dont know when. Hopefully not this week....or next.

Tonight I'm looking forward to a better night's sleep and enjoying some Ambien.

The hospital sucks and I want to leave but having more freedom to roam and not be tethered to a bed with wires and such is making things far more tolerable. Now to just figure out why my enzymes keep going up.

Will update more later.

~Matt, Rach, and Baby

Blogging via Bed Rest, episode 1

Catchy title, huh?

Well, its certainly been a memorable day, to say the very least!

The day started pretty typically, slept in, had an OBGYN appt, and the rest of the day went to hell.

For the last few days, I had been feeling "off", nothing too specific, just generally achy, headaches, some neck pain, I thought my ankles had been swollen but nothing really came of that. I had initially had a doctor's appt on Thursday that I was able to reschedule for today, which was obviously meant to be.

I continued to just feel achy and a bit more lethargic than normal at my appointment, where my blood pressure was in the 130's. This was very new for me as I typically run 100's-110's. My midwife, Janice, who I LOVE, said I just didn't look myself so upon repeating my BP several times and seeing that it continued to be high, it was decided that I'd have labs done for PIH (Pregnancy Induced Hypertension) and I was to collect urine for 24 hours to measure protein in it. (PIH issues secrete proteins when they shouldn't into blood and urine). Matt was on duty but was at my appointment with me and stayed with me while I had my blood drawn. Most of you know, I DON'T LIKE NEEDLES! I give shots and draw blood with no issues but a needle in my direction is another issue. I did just fine with the blood work and went about my day and ran a few errands. Within an hour of leaving the doctor's, my phone rang. Janice had called to tell me that I hit the trifecta and had won myself a hospital admission as my ALT's were very high. Normal range is around 20, I was 109. She warned me to prepare for at least an overnight stay and to pack a bag and head on in. Ha. This of course made me panic, call Matt in tears, and somehow explain to him that my labs weren't good and I had to go in.  Its odd packing for a hospital stay for an unknown length of time, I showered and grabbed books, DVDs, laptop, all fun stuff thinking this would really be a short visit. That has yet to be determined.

A confused/concerned/worried/anxious Matt and I arrived to get checked in around 1:30. We saw one of the other midwives, Shanna, who took us to our room (which is nice) and attempted at getting us settled in and letting us know what the plan of the day was. Since midwives typically oversee low risk, healthy pregnancies, I'll be followed my an OBGYN MD as well as them. Shanna explained to us that they were primarily concerned that we were dealing with preeclampsia. The plan from the time I got in the door was to monitor my urine for 24 hours, continuous fetal monitoring, get magnesium sulfate and betamethasone and play wait and see. All seemed easy enough. Ha. I've always prided myself on having super veins, apparently with preeclampsia, blood vessels constrict, including veins, allowing venous access to be a bit of a challenge. Again, I DONT LIKE NEEDLES. Today, I'm a pin cushion. I got poked 3 times to attempt IV access. The 4th and final attempt was done by an anesthesiologist, if he hadn't had gotten it, I'd have unholstered Matt's gun and shot someone. The 1st attempt made me pass out, the 2nd and 3rd attempts had me in tears saying no more, I want to go home. As soon as IV access was established, they started the magnesium sulfate, a smooth muscle relxant used to lower my BP and prevent seizures. Ummm scary. Mag sulfate is known in the medical community for not being a joy to be on. I had always heard of severe nausea, but I got lucky and didn't have any. The issue though, is they gave a high dose to begin with and as soon as its done, you feel better. The 20 minutes of my bolus was sheer hell. Mag makes you feel like you're burning from the inside out. It makes you hurt, it makes you uncomfortable and it makes you woozy. I pitty anyone on mag. I spent our ultrasound at maternal fetal medicine in a mag induced stupor, it sucked. I watched some of the scan and listened to what the sonographer said but I was hiding under wet cloths begging it to be over. Baby looks good, she's 3lbs 14 oz and her bones look good, as do some of the vessels that they eval'd. Midway through the scan, my high dose bolus of mag finished and they assured me that the feeling of being burned alive would fade, it did, but not 100%.

From the ultrasound, we came back to our room where I was rehooked up to the fetal monitor and my BP was checked. Since we've been at the hospital, my BPs been in the 130's and 140's. Shanna, one of the midwives came back in and checked on us as well as the OBGYN attending my case, Dr Shumate. Also checking on us was a perinatologist who works with maternal fetal medicine, whos name escapes me, but I didn't like her much. She seemed to think that we were not dealing with preeclampsia but didn't give us a clear idea of what else this might be. Dr Shumate, however, is convinced this IS preeclampsia. From his perspective, I'm to be in the hospital a few more days, he was hesitant to tell me how many so its happier when I get to go home theoretically early. He pretty much told me that I'm on bedrest until the end of the pregnancy and to kiss my gym days goodbye. Assuming my blood work and BP goes back to normal, upon discharge I'm home on bed rest, going to the doctor's for blood work twice a week and I get the joy of doing 24 hour urine collections weekly to test for protein. He also said to expect to deliver early, maybe around 36 weeks. The baby by the way, is breech right now (butt down) but everyone thinks she'll return over the next few weeks to be head down again, like she was at our 28 week and very normal appointment.

So thats the scoop, the hospital sucks but they're all very accomodating, even to my requests about needles. I'm on an antepartum floor with lots of other women who are on bed rest and need monitoring for whatever reason, they dont want to be here either. I'm also on the floor of the NICU. A neonatologist came to see us today to tell us what to expect if I was to deliver this week or next. He informed us that baby would need to be hospitalized until she can maintain proper body temperature, have no breathing issues, and feed well from a nipple. It was reassuring to hear that should she come now, the likelihood of her being on a venilator or CPAP or BiPap was extremely low and that she'd come out crying and just be little. We're not wanting her here now but its some comfort to know that if she comes, its ok. She has been moving and active the entire visit, it seems like this illness is more of a me issue than her, but the more medical issues I have, the potential for her increases so we've taken every precaution imaginable, including me getting a shot (in the butt that hurt like hell) to prepare her lungs incase she comes early. I get the joy of another shot tomorrow.

We're really lucky to have family and friends close by, and I'm so excited to be at the hospital in the city where Matt works. We've had lots of PD visitors, including Matt's new seargeant, who I hadn't met before tonight. Police family comraderie just amazes me. He stayed with us a while and chatted and joked and made sure Matt and I were doing ok and I was just so touched that he stopped to check to make sure we were alright, this after almost 2 hours past his shift and he had a ways to drive home. We enjoyed visits from other PD friends who were kind enough to swing by for hugs and allow me to send them to Trader Joe's for my uber specific requests, I will not eat hospital food, thank you very much.

More tomorrow as more information becomes available, in the meantime, we're just chillin' at Evergreen and would welcome calls, texts, and visits, just tell us when first. Also, for our out of towners, we love Skype, so feel free to log on and we can chat!

Best Title Ever

Nanny Rachel: Best Job/Title/Experience EVER!

Landon and 4 day old Chase and I. Baby A can't wait to meet you!

Sneak Peaks

I was never one of those people who would patiently wait for Christmas to come to see my gifts, I remember opening some and re-wrapping them some years. Being patient and waiting for baby is no exception. The people who wait to find out the sex of their babies are a very rare breed. Sure, there aren't THAT many surprises in life, but I'm a planner, how could I NOT know what the gender of my child is? You have to get the proper accessories, paint the right colors, choose a theme, all things detailed!

I've heard for a while about "free" 3D and 4D ultrasounds for a while, some friends had had them in the past. Typically for a healthy pregnancy, a mom to be might have 2 ultrasounds the entire pregnancy. I had one at 9 weeks to make sure the baby was in fact in the uterus, and another at 20 for basic measurements and finding out her gender. Turns out these "free" ultrasounds are actually PAID ultrasounds. Cha-ching!!!! Phillips Medical has been working on trialing new and high tech ultrasound machines for some time and they actually PAY moms to be, regular Joe's, cardiac patients, and non pregnant people to come in for studies. $50 an hour.....yes, I'd like to come in and be scanned for 8 hours please. :) Hard do decline a chance to sit back with your feet up, see your child, and get paid, especially since no other ultrasounds are scheduled unless complications come up. Also, since ultrasound poses no risk to baby, why not just do it! (I might volunteer for non OB scans too it was so fun)

Today was my first of several appointments. Baby was in great position and did relatively little squirming during the scan. I'll go in another 2-3 times, more if I can schedule it. Hopefully Matt will be able to join me on one of the scans, he slept off his night shift today. It was neat to see the baby, she's got very chubby cheeks and continues to be interested in her hands, like she was at her 20 week ultrasound. She's increasingly more active each day. During the scans she was "waving" and opening and closing her fist and we were lucky enough to get a DVD of it. No 6 fingers on my child!

Enjoy the video and the few pictures!

Going Green

We've gone green! Literally! No, it isn't us being environmentally conscious, although we are! (we recycle, reuse bags, use fabric ones, come on, we're not complete wasters!!!)

Matt and I embarked on our biggest (and last!!!) baby project and in only 24 hours time, got it done and fabulous!

Furniture shopping for baby or adults can be challenging, particularly with "today's" prices and quality of craftsmanship. Initially in registering for our furniture, we decided to make it easy and register for a pretty simple looking dresser.....(see left) Eh, nothing to write home about. It certainly would have been functional, but the more we thought about it, the more we figured we'd be spending a few hundred dollars unnecessarily (might as well spend that on baby clothes, right? Or personal trainers? Or homeowner's insurance if we're getting really realistic), and we weren't sure if the quality of the wood and neither one of us really wanted to put another item together with nuts and bolts. Sooooooooooo, we got creative!

In our storage unit, amidst skis, golf clubs, a head board, boxes upon boxes of the most random stuff you can imagine, crutches, file cabinets, our Christmas tree, yadda yadda yadda was an old antique looking dresser that Matt's parents had bought 30 some odd years ago when they were in California. JACKPOT! The dresser had been beautifully made and in spectacular condition. Sure there were a few scratches here and there, but with 30 year old furniture, what do you expect? (yes, its 30, the dresser is older than me, lets all move on) . While the dresser looked great, I wasn't a fan of the cherry colored finish, as neutral as it was, it just wouldn't have looked right in the baby's room (and the rest of our house for that matter) where we have dark, espresso colored wood. Project time! We decided we'd revamp and refinish the dresser. Since there was a light layer of finish on the wood, we figured we'd sand it down and paint over it with an oil based baint similar in color to our crib and changing table. We weren't overly thrilled with the thought of using oil based paints so in doing research at Home Depot we were given the idea of trying spray paint..... what an idea it was! Matt thought bringing some more color to the room would be a good idea and to be honest, I was hesitant to have a green dresser but I figured, he's got vision, lets just go with it. (yes, mom, I am go with the flow!) We bought all of our sanding and painting needs and also bought new hardware for the drawers, a very nice brushed steel that looks awesome with the paint.

So off to the in-law's (aka Grandma and Grandpa or whatever they're deciding to be called when the baby arrives) we went ready to trash their garage. Our project began pretty simply, removing hardware, sanding fronts of drawers and the various sides to the dresser. Luckily, as stated before, not much sanding was necessary. We got everything sanded and washed a bit and we hit it with apple green spray paint. I continue to be amazed at how easy of a project this essentially was! For anyone who needs to refinish furniture, spray paint is the way to go! There are such good quality paints now it is nothing like you expect grafiti to look like, which is what I was envisioning for our daughter's room... The paint we got was "satin" finish and looks like we labored for a long time painting it, and all after one coat! We've definately been pleased with the progress we've made in essentially little time. Ironically, even the hardware we chose fit the holes from the initial peices, all except a few drawers where we had to do some drilling, although you'd never know by seeing the finished product.

It was really fun (maybe more so for me than for Matt) to do a project together, especially since Matt has long proclaimed that he's not a project guy, I'm pretty sure that stems from mild PTSD from another life. :) The dresser came together beautifully and from start to finish was a mere 24 hours. (that being said, its still drying a bit in the next room). Its neat to be so pleased with a finished product and know that we only spent $100 on this, primarily because the hardware was $5 each. Money well spent!

This dresser is similar to ours but from Pottery Barn Kids... I'm not one to knock PBkids, it is afterall where we got our crib bedding. Sure this dresser looks nice, decent amount of drawers, seemingly well made, as it should be for $899!!!!!!

So to that I say, Pottery Barn Schmottery Barn! Take a look at our project!   

Pictures of the work in progress:

Just a few clothes waiting for the dresser.....

Baby Room In Process

Matt and I have been intermittently working on converting our former office into the baby's room and its definately been a work in progress. This past week however, we've gotten a lot accomplished.

Matt painted our "accent wall" a few weeks ago and it looks great.

This week we were able to clear up some of the boxes of stuff around the house and either take them to storage, toss them, or open and build whatever has been inside of them, the main attraction this week being the crib.

We also brought home and assembled our stroller and car seat set after the inlaws and my mom graciously purchased them for us. With all of the boxes and various styrofome bits around the house, it was a perfect opportunity for Landon to come over and not only help Matt build the crib, but build his own fort/castle as well. The attention span of a 4 year old is clearly not too much, but was pretty helpful to Matt in handing him tools, parts, opening boxes, but Landon really just wanted the boxes. I pretty much just fed the construction crew while things were getting built.

Earlier this week as a project for myself, I began designing the baby's wall with vinyl wall decals. I love the finsihed product and would advise anyone who wants to decorate but not paint to buy decals. Very easy to apply for the most part, easy to remove, and no clean up. At this point, the decoration on the accent wall is done. We have another decal with the baby's name on it to put up but will wait until we either stop keeping her name a secret or until its much closer to her due date since people will likely be in and out of her room checking things out. A few people know her name but have been sworn to secrecy upon threat of being shot, most have complied. Matt slipped at work the other day but is pretty sure that the people he was talking to didn't catch on. We'll see. Its a matter of time before one of us slips again, we call her by her name a lot.

This past week we also got THE chair which we both love. Its an ultra plush very soft gliding chair with matching ottoman. The neutral color looks great in the room and can either be a nursery chair or an every day chair. Can't go wrong with chocolate brown.

We've got most of our big nursery stuff done, next we'll eventually set up the matching changing table and get the box as well as numerous other baby things out of our guest shower, we're beginning to look like hoarders. Our BIG project will be to get the dresser out of storage, sand it, refinish/paint it, get new hardware and bring it in so we can start putting clothes away. It'll be nice to have a usable shower again, even though it hasn't been used as a shower in years. It does make a great storage locker though.

We might buy a few more must haves over the next few weeks as well, like a crib mattress and changing pad and cover, other than that, our main purchases are done!

Enjoy the pictures of the progress we've made.....still more to do!