Tuesday, April 28, 2009

introducing baby natalie joy!

hello all!
here's some pictures of our newest addition!
the basics:
7lbs 10 oz
19 inches
born at 11 15am on april 23

natalie is doing well as are the rest of us. it's funny how much easier things have seemed the 2nd time around. from the beginning to now things have just felt so much better than when teege was born. the delivery was so easy it was almost funny. i was so nervous about inducing and it turned out to be a breeze!
things are going so great i wonder sometimes if i'm dreaming.

i'll be around again soon! enjoy the pictures!



























































Friday, April 17, 2009

update

i've made it to friday so far.
no baby.
i did have bad enough contractions in the middle of the night that i got woke up. but i drank a whole bunch of water and prayed and prayed for baby to stay in and i was able to go back to sleep.
i feel rotten that i'm holed up back here and can't play with my kid.
he won't stay on the bed for cartoons or books or colors and paper. yet he'll stand outside my door(mom and dad put the baby gate up so i could leave the door open so as not to feel totally cut off from the world but they weren't having to chase TJ in here ever 3 seconds) and holler "MAMA! MAMA!" he's managing ok. he doesn't seem to act like he thinks i'm ignoring him or don't want him.

Big TJ is on his way home! he got out a day early. he should be here early this afternoon depending on how much rain he hits.
our plan is to try and make the baby wait to make her debut until wednesday.he's been warned if that's the case that he'll be the one up doing everything for the next several days.he seems prepaired.
but he has never spent a whole day taking care of tj on his own. it'll be a true test for him.

dad is taking chewy to the vet for me after while. i wanted him to get a good bath and nail trim b/c it might be a while before i can get him back over there. and the plans for my pedicure are out the window.if i'm stuck in bed i can't very well ask anyone to take me over to marble falls to get my feet done can i? oh well, maybe i can get my mom to put a coat of hot pink polish on before they go home.

and that's all i know for now folks.
cross your fingers and i'll cross my legs!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

37 weeks

i will be 37 weeks pregnant tomorrow (or is it friday?)
i had an appt today.
i have been sent to bed.
of course i'm not IN bed right now. but i am sitting. i'm not walking or standing or anything like that. did you know there is nothing on tv in the afternoon?? it's so boring! i might have to bust out twilight just so i don't go bonkers! you can only watch so much tv.
what we know:
we have scheduled to be induced on the 23-a week from tomorrow. BUT i am at 3 cm and atleast 50% thinned out. the active stages of labor start at 4 cm.
so, even though we are planning on inducing in a week, there is a very very very big chance we won't have to.
my dr told me that 'staying off my feet would be very beneficial as far as keeping the baby in atleast til TJ can get home -hopefully she'll stay in til sunday so you'll be close to 38 weeks. but it's not likely.so lets just try and keep her in til your husband gets home.'

so mom and dad sent me to bed and are taking care of teege and just planning on staying here until TJ can get home.
needless to say TJ is in panic mode. he's trying to figure out how to get released sooner than saturday. fingers crossed he does. and fingers crossed the baby stays in at least another few days if not the whole week. we don't really want her to be born 3 weeks early.

anyway, that's that. forgive me if you don't hear from me forever.
i'm supposed to be paying bills that way they don't get forgotten.
i better get it done so i can lay back down!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

progress

i'll try and spare you all the gory details of the last few weeks of pregnancy.

i had my 36 weeks check up yesterday.
i'm dialated at 2cm
a little over 1/3 of the way efaced
the dr still wants to induce - as do i.
i wasn't sure at first that i did, b/c the labor is harder-but with the epidural it shouldn't really matter. inducing is just so much more convenient. we can arrange child care for teege and make sure that big TJ is home for everything.
the dr told us we could induce as early as the 23 or the 29th. we picked the 23.that's 2 weeks from today! ACK!
the dr doesn't think-based on my examination yesterday -that we won't make it to the 29th without her coming on her own. (which wouldn't be a bad thing. the 23 is a tad bit early -2 weeks anyway- but if we go with the 23 then TJ won't have to go back to work the day after he gets home from being going so long.he can just be at home with us, making the mad dash to stock the freezer and clean the house and make sure we have all the things we need before we go in to have the baby)

the fun part of yesterday:
ok so when the dr's go in and examin things and see if you've made any progress toward delivery things can get irritated.
after my appt mom and dad packed us all up(me,teege, the dogs) and brought us back to their house for the easter weekend.) we'd been here for a few hrs when i started having some significant discomfort. (great. the baby's going to decide to come and i'm an hr away from the hospital and there's no way that TJ would be able to come home b/c he's not done with school)
i went to rest on the couch, thinking that if i relaxed so would my contractions.
i've had millions of contractions already. it's something that your body does to ready it's self for labor. when i asked several months back now if the 'practice contractions' were supposed to be more frequent and uncomfortable with a 2nd pregnancy i was told it was normal. not to worry unless i was having any kind of pain or more than 6 of them an hr.
so i've been going about my business all this time just kind of ignoring them.only stopping to pay attention when my legs would hurt or i'd feel like i couldn't breath for a few seconds.
yesterday that all changed.
i had 9 contractions -with some back pain- in less than an hr.which means that most of them were about 5 minutes apart -hint hint-this is when they tell you to go to the hospital-and then there was one that was 10 minutes apart and the next one was 8. at this point i called the clinic.
i knew to expect cramping and achiness for the rest of the day after my appt.but this was crazy. it was very similar to when i went in to active labor with teege, only not as unbearable.
the dr said this: "if you're just too uncomfortable then by all means go to l/d and i will meet you there. or you can put your feet up for an hr or so, drink lots of water, and see if things slow down first. if you get to l/d and they hook up all the machines and start to monitor your activity and the discover that your dehydrated the first thing they're going to do is make you drink water anyway to see if things calm down.then you'll be sent home if it works and then you'll just be frustrated"
so i handed teege over to my parents and sat back down with LOTS of water. and after about an hr and a half things were almost back to normal. a few small easy contractions an hr.
the thing is -it can take your body weeks to go from prelabor -where you have all those easy contractions that 'get things ready' for active labor- or it can take a matter of hrs. to be that uncomfortable and have made that much progress since my last appt i was afraid to go to l/d for fear that i had made even just an ooch more progress. if they decided i was in labor they would have to try and stop it. i'm not having this baby without my husband here.not if it can be helped.
so since i was an hr away and didn't want mom and dad to have to drive me all the way back and bring me all the way back to their house once we knew it was a false alarm was more than i wanted to deal with.
so things are better. i'm still a bit uncomfortable, but that's just the price you pay i guess.

i'll keep you posted.
i have another appt next wednesday.
over the next 2 weeks i have to get the house ready and make up a few meals for the freezer.get some cleaning done, some bottles washed, find my breastpump and get it steralized......and hope that in the meantime i don't throw myself in to labor by overdoing it. and do the little luxeries i want to have done before i go to the hospital like get another pedicure, get my eyebrows waxed, get the dog to the groomers -just b/c to my still pregnant nose he still stinks.
i'm just going to take it one day at a time.

and it will be alright.

Monday, April 6, 2009

sweet berry farm II

heres the rest of the pictures i was telling you i coudln't get.
it appears that when i am logged in to my email thru microsoft outlook i can't right click and "save pitcure as" -BUT if i go in to my email thru MSN i can.
wierd.
so here they are.
the ungracefully bent over butt in the air pics of me gatherin up yummy ripe berries.
and i am SO SORE!
i wans't aware the i was smashing the baby in to my pelvic region while doing thig -but i did.
and now i pay for it when i need to walk around -which is often.
but it was still worth it!



















sweet berry farm

we went and picked strawberries at the berry farm in marble falls this weekend. we were at the park that morning and mom pointed out that a couple sitting at a picnic table had a berry farm box. i immidiately flipped over the idea! mom and dad went to pick up my niece that afternoon and we kind of thought we may not have time to go berry picking before the farm closed. but we did.
when we got there and got out of the car it was -well- amazing!
the scent of fresh ripe strawberries floated on the cool breeze.
it was like walking in to a jelly factory or something while they were making strawberry jam.
who would have thought that actual fresh sun-ripened berries would have such a sweet smell -almost like artificially flavored strawberry candy!
oh and we got a fresh strawberry lemonade to share too.it was super yummy! ESPECIALLY after being out in the hot.
and teege did great picking his own berries.
he needed a little help b/c his first instinct was to grab and pull the fruit itself, and there was a lot of squishing involved.but he did alright! we did a lot of picking and handing to him to put in the box.
we picked almost 6 lbs of berries in a half an hr.
it was so much fun!
i wish i had more pictures but at some point i just coudln't stop picking long enough to snap pictures!
mom has all of the good pictures of my niece, i can't figure out how to get them out of my email.
it made me miss auntie shades. i kept thinking 'who's missing?" the whole time we were at my mom's this weekend. especially when we went to get berries.she would have had such fun.
i wanted to take teege over to see the horses, but they were way on the other side of the farm from us.
maybe another day.
the blackberries weren't ready yet. they don't get ripe til may. and by then i'll have a new baby.
but i might have mom drive us back out there one more time before the baby comes.it was so refreshing to be out there picking berries.
but i am so glad i live in modern times.
i was so sore the next day from all the bending and then up and down and it was super warm out and i just kept thinking "this is what women back in the day had to endure all the way up to delivering their babies out in the fields! it's hot and sticky and i'm tired of bending down and my belly is heavy and i'm sure i look like a giant hippo out here all hunched over with my butt in the air. but i don't care. this is fun! but i'm glad i don't have to work a farm every day!"
i have a great pic of fat ol' me all bent down trying to pick berries.if i can figure out how to get it saved to my computer out of my email i'll put it up!