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I'm back! I'm back!

Woohoo!  My husband fixed my computer this weekend so now I get to be back!

Now, I'm so overwhelmed, I don't even know where to begin.  This is a crazy house and there is always a million things going on, so I guess, I'll just dig in with the biggest and most life changing.

On my last big update post (that you can find here) I mentioned a strange reaction to the heat I seemed to be having.  If you follow me on Facebook, then you already know this, but as it turns out, I'm not experiencing a strange reaction other than PREGNANCY!!!!  We were so super nervous when we first found out since Sydney is now only 18 months old, but now we are so excited.  I was still nursing Sydney regularly and I was on the progesterone only pill so I didn't have a real period.  Because of this, the nausea was just passed off as heat related, especially since during the afternoon it was in the 80s in our house with the air on.  A couple of people made comments that I could be pregnant and then the biggest duh was when Sydney, who was nursing 6 to 7 times a day, weened herself completely.  I mean just woke up one day and decided she was done.  That's when I decided a pregnancy test was necessary.  When that was positive, we called the Dr's office.  After about 2 weeks I was able to get in.  The first appointment is with a nurse practitioner at the practice I go to.  She told me that we'd do a blood test to see if I was far enough along to do a sonogram and then we'd go from there.  She guessed that I was about 6 weeks along.  It took a full week to get those results back.  I'm not a patient person, so this didn't go over well with me.  Nobody would tell me anything other than "the numbers are high enough to schedule a sono" and they set the appointment for a week out.

This part maybe TMI, so if you are squeamish, or don't care to hear, you may pass this part up.  I'll put the TMI parts in a different color so you'll know when it's alright to start reading again.

The Saturday after my results came in, I was laying on the couch with Ben and I started to get uncomfortable and needed to re-situate myself on the couch.  When I sat up, I felt like a pee'd myself.  I didn't even have to go, and this was not a case of a little leaked out, it was a case of I full on pee'd all over myself.  I got up and went to the bathroom only to find out it wasn't pee but blood.  Shawn was at the gym and I was home alone with the kids.  I yelled for Ben, who had followed me into the bathroom, to go get my phone.  He, of course as any child experiencing something they probably shouldn't be, was so freaked out and upset.  He came running with my phone and my first thought was to call Shawn.  If I called my doctor and they told me to go to the ER, I needed the car to get there so, I called Shawn and told him to get home.  Then I quickly called the doctor.  As it turns out, my doctor was on call that weekend.  I don't know how everyone else is, but I'm not comfortable with doctors normally.  I find that they seem to be full of themselves and rude.  This is the first doctor that I've ever felt comfortable with, so given the situation, I was so glad he was on call.  He looked at my lab results and once again gave me the "we should be able to see something on a sonogram" line but didn't tell me anything about how far along the results say I should be.  This was disturbing to me.  Something was obviously wrong and nobody would tell me how far along this pregnancy was.  He told me that if the bleeding stayed like it was and didn't get any heavier and I wasn't in pain, I should just wait and come in to the office on Monday but that I was on bed rest until then.  I stopped bleeding that night, but still spent the whole weekend worried sick and in bed.  Ben also spent the whole time worrying.


Monday, we went in for a sonogram and appointment with a new doctor in the practice who was on call.  The sonogram showed us that I have a blood clot underneath the placenta.  As long as I'm on "light duty" until the blood clot goes away, everything should be fine.  We also learned that the nurse practitioners guess of 6 weeks was oh so wrong.  After seeing how the baby measured out, I understand why nobody would tell us about the results.  They were twice as high as they should be for 6 weeks.  No, I'm not having twins.  After measuring the baby, we found that I was actually 15 weeks along at time of the sonogram.  The sono tech thinks we are having a girl but when we go in again for our next sonogram at the end of the month, she'll check again.  We are so excited, and I'm mostly doing alright with this light duty business, although it is quite difficult with two small children at home.  The due date for this little happy, and final, addition to our family is February 21st.  I apologize for the blurriness of this photo, it was taken with my phone.  Hopefully tonight I'll get the scanner hooked up so I can put the original photos on here.



Now before all this crazy drama happened, we took the kids to the Missouri State Fair with a family friend of ours named Terry.  When I was a kid, we used to go all the time to this fair.  I have to say, there are a lot more animals than I remember there being.  This summer we also went to the Wyandotte County and Douglas County fairs, so we've been busy.  At the Mo State fair though, we decided to brave the food.  Doing this with a peanut allergic child can be scary but we had a really wonderful experience.  We ate at a BBQ place where we were assured that the only thing there with peanuts in it were peanut butter cookies and the only place cross contamination could happen was in the oven because they use the same ovens as the beans although none of the same pans and the beans are covered with foil.  I thought that was really cool, so we got the kids chicken strips and fries.  They were happy and dinner was a success.  Then we decided we wanted ice cream.  We went to a little stand and the two ladies inside were oh so friendly and showed us all the packaging.  Everything there was safe for our little man and we were all able to enjoy some nice soft serve frozen yogurt.  The fair was a major success and I believe the kids had fun.

Sydney is starting to talk now.   A lot of what she is saying still sounds like gibberish, but if you actually listen, she's really telling you real things.  Her talking is going from just words to putting together 4 to 5 word thoughts at a time.  It's exciting!  Ben's sense of humor is growing and growing.  The boy is a comedian, just like his father.  I was telling him yesterday how handsome he is and he said "Oh, go on!"

This weekend was the FAAN walk for Food Allergies.  My father-in-law found out about it and forwarded us the information.  Unfortunately all this happened around the same time that my pregnancy complications started.  Shawn took the lead on all of it and created  a team called Team BenT.  He ended up raising a bunch of money and really made me proud.  He did a lot of work to get ready for it and is such a good Dad.  Here's what he wrote on the donation page:

I am participating in this walk because my oldest child, Ben, has a severe peanut allergy.  I could go into a long story that explains how our life has changed and how we've had to be vigilant in preventing my son from accidentally ingesting or coming into contact with peanuts.  As a parent, however, none of those changes matter.  It is simply something my wife and I do in order to ensure that our child is safe.  Frankly, I'm walking because it is one of the few things I can do to help encourage a long-term solution for my son.  All of the measures we take every day are merely preventative, avoiding contact with his allergen.  Walking will proactively help my son, and there's ntohing I want more than to help him conquer his allergy.

I just loved how he put into words these feelings about our sons allergies that I've never really heard him express before.

In the end, I ended up going against better judgement, taking it easy, and enjoying the free goodies and the fact that the kids had a good time and it was all for a good cause.  We all wore yellow to support Ben, since yellow is one of his favorite colors right now (Ben likes it because it's his Pa's favorite color).  Ben even got to sit in a fire truck.  Since he wants to be a fireman when he grows up, this made his life!  He even wants a fire truck themed birthday and birthday cake.

Ben and Pa, checking out the firetruck.




This might be the happiest boy in the world.




Got their FAAN shirts on and are ready for the walk.


Everything has been super crazy, but to be honest I'm just enjoying being along for the ride.  Now, we have Ben's birthday to look forward to.  My little man is turning 4 on Saturday.  Our plans are to go to the Zoo on Friday and then a party on Saturday.  He also wants to see The Lion King 3D, so we'll be doing that at some point, maybe even Friday or Saturday, who knows.  This year he has things that he wants for his birthday, but he's more interested in fun activities and the cake then the actual presents which makes me a proud Momma.  I want him to enjoy his birthday and I'll do everything I can to make it special, but isn't that what these things are really about?  Doing fun things and building life experiences with the ones you love, instead of getting gifts?  I think my wonderful boy teaches this whole family something everyday.

Alright, I need to get going and get started on dinner.  I'm making cheesy pizzas, and the crust isn't going to make itself.  I promise I'll be back soon though.  I still have so much to post, including somethings we're totally into right now and recipes.

Comments

Unknown said…
Congratulations on the new addition!

I'm so glad you're up and running and back to blogging again.

We want to see you guys sometime soon; maybe we can bring you food since you are supposed to be taking it light?

Be careful with the zoo: there's no way to do that light with two kiddos! Plus you'll walk, like, five miles.

Happy birthday Ben!
Liz said…
Aww thank you! We want to see your beautiful family again soon too. This time with our kiddos also.
I'll be careful. I figured since we are going with my in-laws too, between all of them, I won't have to worry about pushing the stroller or anything like that, so I'm not too worried.

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