Cutie Chewies on Etsy

Aiden 1 month appt and Reflux

Aiden had his one month appointment a few weeks ago (i know it takes me forever to update, sorry).  At that time he weighed 7lb 14oz and measured 20 inches long.  He did decent but did not like the shot AT ALL!

At that time the dr prescribed Zantac for his reflux, which is first line in the reflux defense strategy.  Well just like with his sister the Zantac doesn't work.  Unlike with his sister though I demanded he be switched to Prevacid and it didn't take 10 months to get it approved!  He started Prevacid 2 days ago, so we will see if it helps him as much as it helped Lily.

Only catch with him being put on prevacid so early is that now we have to go see a GI specialist and get him evaluated, which I'm not thrilled about because I don't want them pushing to do a scope on the poor thing just to tell me what I already know, he has reflux and needs prevacid!  I guess i'll have to put my mama bear hat on and tell them they aren't scoping my baby without good reason!

Success!

We started potty training March 18th and Lily is officially potty trained and hasn't had an accident as of March 20th! She really shocked us with how well she did and how fast she got the concept!  We are already done with stickers and prizes and she just does what needs to be done! So proud of her! :-)

Adventures in Potty Training part 2 "I'm too young to poop on the potty"

Yes, you heard right.  Lily announced today, after peeing in the potty all evening with no accidents or issues (HUGE HOORAY!), that she is too young to poop on the potty.

Our day today started out iffy.  She kept coming over to me right after she peed and telling me that she had peed and needed changed and wanted to sit on the potty.  By nap time I had a feeling that she KNEW when she needed to go but she just wasn't going on the potty because of the fact that she knew she had a diaper on and it would catch everything until she was "ready" to part from her toys and shows to tell me she needed to go.

So during naptime I decided that we were going to test out the old "strip them down" tactic.  Let her go naked and IF she did end up having an accident at least she would actually FEEL the consequence and not have the diaper there to absorb it all.

So she got up and went with no bottoms on from 5pm until 9pm and "amazingly" made it to the potty every single time she had to pee and never peed on the floor.  She ended up with 11 stickers just in that 4 hour period which meant that she got to pick out of the prize buckets 4 times!  She picked a dora washcloth that "grew" in water, a mickey mouse puzzle and a goofy coloring book and then will get to pick another prize tomorrow morning when she gets up cuz we didn't want her getting a brand new toy right before bed. 

The only snag we are running into is that she refuses to poop in the potty.  It seemed like she needed to and we kept encouraging her to go but she proclaimed that she was "too young to poop on the potty" and just would not do it.  By bed time she was asking for her diaper which I know meant she wanted to poop in the diaper so i'm sure i'll wake up to poop in the morning.

Hopefully eventually she accidently poops when she is on the potty and she can realize that it isn't going to kill her if she poops in the toilet!

Seems like we are making progress!

Enfamil A.R. to the rescue

Monday we took Aiden to the doctor because he was still crying constantly and not sleeping.  The doctor said that he felt he had reflux and took him off the Alimentum, which was the third formula we had tried.  He said the Alimentum was the worst formula that he could be on if he had reflux because it is so thin.  The doctor gave us some samples of Enfamil A.R. and told us to call him back today and let him know whether there was an improvement or not.

The first night he cried for 2 hours (down from 3-6) and then slept for a 6 hour stretch.  I was thrilled but was skeptical.  The second night he didn't cry at all and slept for a 5 hour stretch.. hey still better than before and i was willing to take it! Last night he didn't cry at all and slept from 11pm-7:30am straight!!!!

I am amazed! I'm still scared its a total fluke but we are keeping him on the Enfamil!

I called the doctor and told him he is doing 150x better, he isn't crying, he is able to poop and he is finally sleeping again!  The doctor tried to petition to WIC to get it covered but WIC refuses to cover this brand of formula so we have to rely on the doctor's office giving us samples and hoping and praying that the walmart brand that is compared to the Enfamil AR is the same and works as good considering it is almost half the price ($17 for a 24oz can compared to $16 for a 12.8oz can)..

Adventures in Potty Training

So here starts our adventures in potty training.  Yes, it has begun!  Lily has been overwhelming her pull-ups lately because she will hold it for a while and then just "unload" and it ends up overflowing the diaper and soaking her, her pants, and anything she is sitting on at the time.

So I finally got sick of changing her 100x a day and figured if i was going to have to change her because she peed she might as well start potty training..

At first (yesterday) we tried the "pee on the potty and get an M&M" tactic.. What was the result you ask?  Nothing lol.  Yes she wanted M&Ms but she didn't manage to go on the potty at all.

Next tactic?  Sticker chart with reward buckets.. We have a sticker chart on the wall outside the bathroom and she gets 1 sticker for peeing, and 2 stickers for pooping.  She is allowed to pick a toy out of the reward buckets after 3 stickers, 5 stickers and 7 stickers.

At 3 stickers she gets to pick out of the small bucket, which has small rewards like candy, stickers etc.  After getting 5 stickers she gets to pick out of the medium bucket which has medium toys like little figurines and toy cars.  At 7 stickers she gets a big reward which would be a coloring book, reading book or stuffed animal.  (Everything came from the $ store).

Is she motivated? Yes, she is obsessed about getting stickers to get a toy out of the bucket(s).. Has she managed to actually make it to the toilet and get a sticker yet? Well, no.  We did just start this today though, so hopefully soon she will manage to get a sticker on the chart and see how this whole thing works!

Wish us luck, I have a feeling we will be spending a good amount of time in Adventures in Potty Training.

Reflux? Colic? Both?

So the last week we have been trying to figure out what is causing Aiden so much discomfort.  Starting last week (at the 2 week mark, which is when colic usually appears) he started getting fussier and fussier at night.  At first I assumed it was what Lily went through (a milk protein allergy) and after a call into the doctor and a switch to soy formula for 4 days it was apparent that Soy was not fixing the problem.  Another call to the doctor and a switch to a hypo-allergenic formula (Alimentum), which is what Lily was ultimatly put on for her protein allergy and after 3 days the issue was 10x worse.

So I again called the doctor and finally they agreed to see him instead of just telling me to switch his formula over the phone.  So we went to the doctor today and the doctor said he thinks it is probably refulx (and possibly some colic on top of it - since the worst of the crying is at night and pretty predictable in times).  So now we are trying out Enfamil A.R. (which isn't even covered by wic, but the dr said if it helps he can get us samples and try to help us out). 

Hopefully it works, but it would be nice if WIC would pull their heads out of their rear ends and help cover the cost since it would be medically necessary but since they don't have a contract with Enfamil we are out of luck.. I just hope we can work out something.  God will provide..

A lesson in consequences..

Wow i'm a blogging fool today..

Poor Lily got a lesson in consequences today in the form of "do what your asked to do or there will be consequences".. the consequence? I took 4 of the books she had in her bed away from her (for the duration of nap-time). Why am I such a horrible mother, you ask?  It was nap-time and every day she tries to be cute and put off going to sleep by messing around during me changing her diaper and then refuses to get into bed.

I was feeding Aiden so Andy changed her diaper a few minutes before nap-time and after I was done w/ Aiden I took her in to put her down for nap.  Well she started messing around and running around her room so i told her if she didn't get in bed by the time I got to "3" i was going to start taking books... 1.... 2.... 3..... still rolling around on the floor so 2 books were taken and placed on the dresser.  Again I look at her and tell her if she isn't in bed by the time I get to 3, i'm taking 2 more books.. 1.....2.....3.... "NO MOMMY DON'T TAKE THEM!!" Cue freak out.. 2 more books went up on the dresser and a screaming 2 year old was placed in bed.

I told her that she would get them back after nap-time and that this was her lesson in consequences, when you don't listen then there are things that happen that you don't like.  She screamed for a good amount of time while I cleaned up the disaster we call the living room and then she started to quiet down and is now napping quietly, and I think i'm going to take advantage of the fact that both kids are asleep and try to nap too!

Mr. Fussy-butt

Aiden was pretty fussy last week, acting like he was having tummy issues so we called the Dr. and they switched his formula to a Soy based one.  He seemed to do better on the new formula, he wasn't having as many fussy periods and seemed more relaxed after feedings.  Then last night happened.. Fussy again, and he was having trouble in the poop department.. Now i'm thinking the soy formula isn't really the answer.  The first formula he was in pain from gas he couldn't get rid of but his poop was nice and soft.. Now he is able to pass gass and isn't fussy until he has to poop and then he is miserable and needs help to poop.  So now I need to decide which is better, fussy all the time w/ no sleep or just fussy every few days.

"I'm not a sister, I'm a Lily-Bug"

Yes, according to Lily she is not Aiden's sister she is just Lily-Bug :-) However, even though she doesn't accept the label of big sister quite yet I have to say she is such a great big sister (so far) :-)  She is gentle and loves to help me out and while I am getting Aiden's bottles ready she stands at the pack n' play and tells Aiden that it is okay, that i'm getting his bottle, that he needs "patience".. lol  I'm SO GLAD and relieved, that she is doing so well with this adjustment! I was very very nervous about her being jealous or upset and she is neither! She is just thrilled to have Aiden out of my belly lol.

He is here.. ya i'm a little late updating!

The Short Story: Aiden Elijah came into the world on Feb 20, 2011 at 8:23am weighing 6lbs and measuring 20 inches long!

The Birth Story:

I started having a few contractions around 11 o'clock and by the next hour they went from 10-15 mins apart to about 5-6 mins apart. The contractions were decently painful and I had burning in my thighs and back which made me wonder if they were really the real deal or not. I contracted at 5-6 mins apart from 12:00pm until 2:30pm when I decided to head to L&D after putting Lily down for her nap.

My mom and I got to L&D at around 3:30pm, and I thankfully had one of the nice nurses! She hooked me up to the monitors (the right way) and checked me and at that time I was “2 and a wiggle and about 80% effaced” up from “solid 2cm” 2 days before. She called the doctor who was on call, which happened to be MY doctor and she said to hold me until 6pm and recheck and if I made any progress then I was staying.

My contractions were down to about every 4 mins by 6pm and when the nurse re-checked me I was “solid 3cm and up to 90%” so she called my Dr. and I was being admitted! Andy had gotten to the hospital around 5:30 from work so my mom left to go home to take care of Lily and my sister in law came in to be my other support person. By 7:30 I was officially admitted and had both Andy and my Courtney with me. However, the staff changed and I ended up with one of the snotty nurses as my nurse!

At around 9:30 after feeling like I was stalling out a bit and knowing I stalled out at 3cm with Lily I asked to walk and see what happened. I was allowed to walk around so as we were walking we saw that they had a birthing ball in the one hallway on a shelf. I asked the nurse if I was allowed to use it to see if we could get Aiden to drop some (he was still high at -2 station). Her response was “we haven’t used that in years” so I asked “well can *I* use it?!” she said “no we aren’t into all those progressive birthing techniques”.. ok wtf.. So no ball.. I was irritated and gave up on walking about 30 mins into it and decided to squat beside my bed and bounce to “simulate” being a ball..

So I bounced for like 10 mins then paced for 10 mins, bounced for 10 paced for 10.. about 45 mins later the nurse came in and said I needed to get back on the monitors for at least 30 mins to see where we were at so I got hooked up and according to the strip and Courtney timing the ctx they were 5-6 mins apart lasting 1 min long. However, miss know it all nurse decided that my ctx were still “irregular” and were “7-8 mins apart” so therefore she flat out REFUSED to check me for progress several times.

By about 11:45pm I was starting to feel super-hot and nauseous and I was PISSED so I paged her and told her “I’m hot and nauseous and I want checked NOW!” she said “ok” and came in the room and I was like “If I’m not making any progress I want to know cuz I can be In pain at home!”

So she checked me after me having to get nasty and I was 4cm so I made a little progress. She asked me if I felt like I needed any pain meds or anything, she said that she could get me some stadol with benedry to help me sleep if I felt like I needed it. I told her I wanted to wait another hour and see where we stood. So 1am comes around and my ctx were getting more painful so I decided to give in and have the stadol so I could get some sleep before I had to push cuz had no idea how long of a night we were in for..

So she gets me my meds about 1:30 am and I just start to doze off when 3 nurses run into the room and throw oxygen on me and start trying to find the baby’s hr on the monitor and they are pushing buttons and calling people in to help. Now at this point I’m like 15-20 mins into the stadol I am freaking OUT OF IT! I felt like I was dreaming, it was like everything was in slow motion and animated and people were talking and I heard them, and I understood the language they were speaking, but it was like the words were all out of order and jumbled and I just COULD NOT follow what was going on. I kept asking them what was wrong, and what time it was and kept apologizing cuz I was so effing confused!

At 2am they are prepping me for an emergency c-section, I have a little hat on my head and Andy had his scrubs in hand and I was looking around demanding that I speak to the dr before I am made to have a c/s especially under general anesthesia! They brought a form over for consent for the c/s for me to sign “to save time if we need it later” but I refused to sign it. I could tell I pissed the nurse off but I kept telling them I WANT TO SEE AND SPEAK TO DR NARCISSE FIRST BEFORE I SIGN ANYTHING! I wanted to know I wasn’t dreaming! I wanted to SEE her and have her tell me what was going on!

By 2:10 the midwife was there and my Dr came in about 3 mins afterwards and I felt calmer seeing them and knowing they were actually there. Jill the midwife came over to my bed and held my hand and explained what was going on and re-assured me that things were “ok” right now and that we just had a little bump in the road but we weren’t jumping into a c/s just yet. By the time they got there they had gotten Aiden back on the monitors and had slowed my contractions with terbutaline just to give him a break and it seemed to level his heartrate out enough to buy us some time.

Dr Narcisse came over as soon as she got in and again grabbed my hand and explained everything (I kept asking to be told again what was going on to be sure cuz of the drugs) and she said she was going to break my water and place an internal monitor on Aiden’s head so they could keep a better eye on him and that since I was 5cm now she felt that breaking my water would hopefully speed things up just enough that we could still have a natural birth.

I was SO RELIEVED I kept asking her to reassure me that we weren’t going for a c/s that things were okay, and that most importantly Aiden was okay! She kept reassuring me that things were fine and that they were here for the rest of the night with me and we would see where we ended up after she broke my water.

So about 2:30-3am the Dr had broken my water and had the internal monitor In place, she had the anesthiologist coming with my epidural FINALLY and although I was stuck in bed with my head basically on the ground, things were stable and we were doing ok.

Then around 4am Dr. Narcisse comes back in and says that everytime I have a ctx Aiden's hr drops and then rebounds and she said she felt that he prolly had his cord around his neck so she wanted to insert a cathedor and add more fluid into my uterus to help "cushion" things and hopefully help with his heartrate. So she inserted that and they started running a whole bunch of fluids back up in there and it solved the problem so we were once again in the clear.

It took until about 5am with a super low dose of Pitocin to get to 7cm and that is about when the epidural wore off.. idk why mine always wear off right at the end when you need them the most! So between 5 and 6am I was in transition.. without the epidural basically and I’m feeling the urge to push and I keep telling miss know it all nurse who was still there that I would feel better if I could push! She checked me everytime I told her to and I finally got to complete by 6am and I was allowed to push. By this time I was in terrible pain because I was still on the Pitocin (even tho it was a low dose it was still making the ctx harder and closer together). I told Dr Narcisse that I couldn’t focus on pushing because of the intensity of the ctx so she shut the Pitocin off for me.. this spaced my ctx out just enough that I felt like I could rest between pushes (like you are supposed to do!).

I started pushing for real at 6:45 and it took me until about 7am to get into the groove of focusing on pushing and not the ctx. The dr kept saying I was pushing really good and she didn’t think we’d be pushing very long but the lovely children I birth just like to cause trouble. Aiden had been sunny side up until I went into transition and the dr had me flipping from side to side to encourage him to also flip.. Well he flipped which was good but he ended up all jacked up in there lol. His head was face down but tilted to the left side and his shoulders (although not vertical like his sisters) were diagonal and to top it off his cord was around his neck! So he wasn’t coming down and out as fast as we were hoping but after about an hour we were in business and he was crowning.

So Aiden Elijah was finally born at 8:23am on Feb 20, 2011. Weighing 6lbs even and measuring 20 inches long.










heading home..

Anyone else need their car repaired.. might as well fix yours too

I am so over fixing vehicles! Every month since September (at least) we have had to put over $150 into one of our cars.  Some months it was as high as $500!! We only have a certain amount of money to live on and hundreds and hundreds of car repair bills over and over again is killing us. Then don't even mention the fact that we helped out my mom when her car broke down (to the tune of $1500) and basically that was half our income for the next 3 months and we were expecting to have it back by the time we needed it.. Well unfortunatly now we are looking another car repair in the face and it looks like we won't have that money back before we need it..

I don't know why I try to help people out and then get myself screwed in the process.  People always lay guilt-trips on me and make me feel like if I don't help them (even when it is obvious we can't afford to) then i'm somehow a terrible person/daughter.  So I shell out money i don't have to keep the peace and end up in a situation a few months later where we are short on money and no one is able to come to our rescue.  I should probably just start being mean and telling people too bad that I can't afford to help them but I keep clinging to the hope that one day they will actually appreciate the help.  I know i'm naive.

Here is hoping for a fast tax-return and a little extra money to help us get by.

Sibling Class.. Oy Vey

Lily had her sibling class on wednesday night (yes i'm late updating.. i was still recovering until now ;) At first we thought we were the only people who were attending so the nurse started when we got there and Lily was doing decent until another family showed up.  It was a family with a little boy about 3 years old and when Lily saw them come in she stood up and screamed "It's Aiden!!!" lol.. I guess saying we were going to the hospital where I was going to have Aiden wasn't awesomely smart.  So we told her no, that isn't Aiden that is another little boy who is gonna be a big brother soon. So that was funny/cute we moved on and she sat and colored during the movie about being a "big kid". 

Basically everything went well until we went for the tour of L&D.  Don't expect Lily to sit still for 30 mins and then be allowed to get up and actually go where you want her to go! We went up the elevator and walking down the hall to L&D was fine we kept telling her to be quiet and she was whispering and saying "shhhh" until we got into the L&D wing.  Heaven help us.. We stood at the window to the nursery and the nurse showed us a little baby who was literly JUST born and was showing the kids how babies don't have teeth and they are small.  All Lily cared about? The heart window stickers on the nursery window.. ya.. she stood there and screamed "ME HAVE THEM! ME HAVE!" the WHOLE time. omg

Then we went to see the rooms where i'll be staying after giving birth.. all of which are private which is nice and THANK GOD for that because Lily was all over the room, trying to climb on the bed, on the chairs, on everything!

Then we came out of that room and the nurse went into the room next door and brought her baby out to show us another baby, who was a day old.  (Can I just say how SMALL these babies looked to me? Holy crap! I don't remember Lily being that small!) The whole time we were standing there Lily wanted nothing to do with the baby she just wanted to get down and play in the room again.  That was fun!

Then we went into the L&D room and it was over.. she was done and we had to remove her from the room several times while the nurse was talking to the other family.  OY VEY

Firecracker doesn't even describe this child lol! I don't know where she gets the energy but that paired with her stubbornness (which she gets from both andy and I) and her attitude (i don't know WHERE she gets that at.. o:) she just is a handful sometimes!

I feel so bad for the nurse who was doing the class thankfully there was just one other child there or we probably would have left early to keep from annoying too many people.

15 minutes to assemble? Really?

Well the necessities are all assembled and set up in the room for Aiden, meaning the bassinet, the rocking chair, the dresser is stocked and the storage bins have all the bibs and blankets in place.  All we have left to do is put the swing and bouncy seat together and get the living room set up, which i dont really think needs to be done until I actually have him.

So anyways we put together the bassinet and the rocking chair friday night.  Yeah, according to the directions the rocking chair was supposed to take 15 minutes for 1 adult to assemble.  First of all it took about 15 mins just to read the directions and then they seriously expect you to assemble the thing with a stupid allan wrench! UM HELLO! So that "15 minute" project took us almost an hour.. but it is together and I love it :-) I'm sitting in it right now it is nice!

Then the bassinet which we thought would take longer than the 15 minute rocking chair only took us about 30 minutes max.  It was pretty simple and looks so cute :-)

I have to take a picture and post it, and I will soon I promise!

Playgroup and boo-boos

I'm very late on updating this but I said I'd post an update about Lily after we went to playgroup thursday night, so here it is :-)

Because Lily is in Early Head Start they have playgroups to help socialize the kids two times a month.  The first one is always a friday morning and we have trouble getting to that one because it starts at 10am and Lily doesn't usually get up and finish eating breakfast until close to that time so we usually skip that one.  The other one is Thursday evenings, we try to attend this one as much as possible.

It was nice this was the first playgroup that Andy was able to attend in a LONG time.  He has had so many night classes since he started nursing school that unless playgroup fell on a break or a day off he wasn't able to attend.  It was nice to be able to attend with Andy with me!

So the theme for playgroup thursday was ball-play. Anyone who knows Lily knows she LOVES balls. So as soon as we walked into the gym she went nuts and was in heaven playing with the balls.  She had fun throwing them, kicking them, chasing them etc.

After a little bit of free play we got in circle and we sang a few songs, its always funny during this time because Lily always stands there and looks around like "what in the heck are these people singing" but then at the end of each song she claps and says yay.  Its funny.

After we ate dinner they had more free-play in one of the classrooms and then we went back into the gym for more ball-play.  This is where the "boo-boo" came into play.  Lily was having a great time chasing the balls around with a few other kids and then she decided to climb into the playhouse that was sitting there.  There were steps to go up to the little club house and she started up the steps but there was a boy coming down the steps.  She freaked out and kept saying "mommy a boy! a boy!" and she started to back up down the steps.. ya put two and two together she fell backwards off the steps.  Luckily it was only from the first step up, but she fell back on her head and there were tears and lots of asking for lollipops and people freaking out wanting to make sure she was ok.  I kept telling everyone she was fine, my rule is if she is asking for a lollipop and it takes her more than 10 seconds after the initial boo-boo to cry she is probably fine! 

So they wrote out a little accident report that we had to sign, we went home at the normal time and Lily had to have her lollipop and everything was totally fine. 

Where'd the sun go?

I'm starting to feel like we live in some weird part of the world where the sun, along with the bears and other animals, goes into hibernation for the winter!  I haven't seen the sun actually shine in, oh, about a month.  Add to it that it just keeps snowing, every SINGLE day.. this winter is so dreary!  I am hoping that Feburary and March bring a change in the weather because the cold temps, and grey snowy days are pretty depressing!

So anyways I haven't blogged in a few days, I couldn't really think of anything to blog about.  We are stuck indoors 24/7 and needless to say there isn't a whole bunch of stuff going on.  We are slowly getting closer and closer to Aiden's arrival. I can't believe that in a few short weeks we will be so close!  Heck, I can't believe that we are close right now! 

I went through the clothes we had in totes for him and got out all the 0-3 month stuff, washed it and put it in the dresser, surreal to think that in about 3 weeks he *could* be here using that stuff!  I come off my preterm labor meds in 22 days.. i could basically pop any second after that so it makes it a little weird.  I still think he isn't gonna make his debut until around 38 weeks like Lily but the possibility is there for him to come a little early!

I hope to have his corner of the room set up this weekend.. i'll make sure I post pics.  Hopefully it will look cute and cozy for him :-)

I feel bad that there isn't really much to report as far as Lily is concerned.. She is a typical 2 year old haha nothing interesting has gone on since we are stuck inside cuz of the weather.  We are going to playgroup tomorrow night.. maybe i'll have something to report then :-)

Why I can't make mom friends

Another video since I can't really think of anything to really blog about..

We have everything we need... now to get it all ready

After waiting what seemed like FOREVER for our site to store orders to be shipped and finally arrive at Wal-Mart we finally have everything we ordered for Aiden in our possession.  Granted everything is in boxes downstairs and not actually set up and put where it all needs to go but at least it is here!  I have to finish up organizing and re-arranging our room to make room for Aiden's things and then we just have to start assembling items and moving them into place.. The thing i'm most excited about? A new rocking chair!! No, it isn't one of those cool gliders, which was a little out of our price range, but it is a NEW rocking chair non-the-less.  After dealing with a hand-me-down for the last two years with Lily it will be nice to have one that is new.  I don't know how many times we had to deal without a rocking chair while it was being glued/screwed or otherwise put back together because it broke. Yeah, it is the little things ;-)

It's a little early.. don't you think?

So since this blog is about being a mother and the kids, i guess i could update about the pregnancy since I just had an appointment.

A little back-story and yes it is TMI but I'm pregnant and these things happen when you are pregnant (which if you are not pregnant right now you prolly will be eventually and then you will know what I mean).  So Wednesday evening I lost part of my mucus plug (sounds exactly as disgusting as it is for all you non-mothers), I didn't think much of it cuz something similar had happened while I was pregnant with Lily.  It has a way of regenerating itself and usually doesn't "mean" anything if you lose a little bit here and there.  So I went on with my evening figuring things were totally fine.

I woke up thursday morning feeling "weird", which while pregnant isn't usually a good thing.  People tend to feel "weird or off" right before they go into labor, but I tried to chalk it up to just being up a lot the night before with Lily since she had been sick.  Well around 11am I started having contractions.. again normal during pregnancy, they started out pretty irregular so I figured they were wonderful braxton hicks contractions (practice contractions for non-mamas).  Well by noon they were getting into a pattern, but still weren't hurting.  Now this would be the time *most* people would freak out and head to L&D and I would tell almost anyone to follow the advice that if you have more than 4 contractions in an hour to call your doctor but I have what is called an irritable uterus and these things happen often while i'm pregnant and i've never had issues w/ pre-term labor because of it.  So I ignored them and went on with my day.  I knew I had an appointment at 4pm and I figured i'd mention everything then.

I left for my appointment at 3pm and on the way i started loosly timing the contractions on the way to the dr's office because I knew they would want to know how frequent they were.  I was timing them at about 3-5 mins apart, they still weren't bad though so again I wasn't that concerned.  I got to my appointment and did all the appointment things and then the dr came in around 4:15.  She asked if I was having any "issues" (including but not limited to: contractions, loss of fluid, bleeding, decreased movements etc).  So I very calmly mentioned that I had been having contractions since 11am at about 5mins apart and that I thought I lost some of my plug yesterday.

My Dr. did not find the humor in it as much as I did and immediately yelled at me for not going to L&D.  So she "checked" me and lo-and-behold I am 1cm dilated.. not great.  So she ran a test called the fetal fibronectin test which screens for pre-term labor (or rather tries to predict whether what you are having will produce a baby in the next 2 weeks).  So she sent me and my test up to Labor and Delivery for them to run that test and have me on the monitors for a while to see what was going on with my contractions.

So I got up there and of course they were busy so I had to wait a little while but I was finally hooked up to the monitors and after a 40 min battle with the nurse about not having the monitor on right.. they finally started picking up the contractions that I swore up and down I was having whether they were picking them up on the screen or not.  So after 40 mins of them actually seeing my contractions in a regular pattern of 5 mins apart they had to give me a shot of terbutaline to stop the contractions. (second time so far this pregnancy i've had to have contractions stopped with this medicine and it isn't fun - think heart beating out of your chest, headache, shaking and overall yuck feeling).

After I got that shot time went by and the contractions didn't slow down as much as they liked so I was given the pill form of terbutaline on top of the shot and left to wait again. I waited an hour after taking the pill and the Dr. came in and asked how I was doing.  I told her that the contractions were still there but they were a lot less intense, she said that was good enough for her.  Since my fetal fibronectin test came back negative it gives a 95+% chance that I WON'T go into active labor and deliver the baby in the next two weeks, so she was happy with the contractions just easing up.

However i'm not totally out of the woods, I am now on terbutaline pills every 4 hours until the middle of February when I will be a little over 36 weeks, in which case it will be "safe" to deliver. 

So I'm just kind of hanging out hoping that the next 30 days goes by fast and that we can get to a point where if Aiden decides to come out it won't be a problem.

A #1 for #2..

Non-parents beware.. we are talkin' poo!

So we are not actively potty training right now but we do have a potty chair and when/if Lily asks to sit on it we let her.  So today she asked to sit on it while I was in the bathroom drying my hair so I let her.. and she didn't do anything, she just sat there.  I told her good try and we went on w/ our day.  Then Andy got home and she asked to sit on the potty again.  I was making her lunch so I told him to let her sit there for a little while and *drumroll please* SHE POOPED!

Now this is a pretty big deal in our house! She has done #1 on the potty several times (not consistently tho) but we were struggling with getting her to "do the poo".  So now she has overcome that hurdle.. maybe potty training is closer than we thought!

Waiting for #2

Just thought i'd write a little update about #2. I am currently pregnant and we are waiting for our second baby to arrive.  We found out in October that this little one is a boy, so yes one of each.. (insert witty comments about being done since we have one of each).

Yes, we will have one of each but I don't think that means we aren't allowed to consider more children in the future, I hate when I say that we are having a boy and people assume that means we are totally done because we will have one of each.  I didn't know that the only way it was acceptable to have more than 2 kids was if you didn't have the "prized" one of each.

So anyways <rant over>, I am currently 32 weeks pregnant and things are going pretty good. Starting to get a little (ok a lot) uncomfortable but that is part of the third trimester.  We are working on getting things ready for this little one to arrive (nesting anyone?) and I know I am excited to meet him! Only about 6-8 weeks left!

And for anyone who is baby bump obsessed... here is my baby bump :-) And excuse the fact that I look horrible lmao

SAHM

I love this youtube channel.. a funny look at a stay at home mom's day.