No change :)

Nothing has changed which is good and bad. I am happy to still be pregnant and able to do somethings. Although the days drag on because I am in quite a bit of pain and am still limited to what I can do. My doctor wants me to continue only working part time, but I have her talked into letting me go to work as long as I am careful. Which just means I come home and can't do anything the rest of the day. Spring break is coming and I am excited for that!!

I have a massage set up for this week, I am so excited my body is so tense and tight from contracting all the time.

I will try to post some pictures later this week!

March Madness!

Crew, my mom (Nana) and I had our own March Madness today by going the Easter Extravangza at the fair grounds this morning. It was HUGE, 30+ carnival games, face painting, train rides, Easter egg hunts, puppet shows, you name it. My mom's church was putting on the event, there were over a 1000 people there.
Crew of course didn't understand what it meant to wait in line. Any game that had a ball at it, he would run up and start trying to play. My mom did all the work of course, I just stood there and tried to sit too.
Spin art, cool huh? Too bad we didn't stay long enough to pick it up dried. It got to be way too crazy, and Crew was running everywhere cutting kids in line and wanting a turn right away so after 30 minutes we ended up leaving.
Before we left we did manage a picture with the Easter bunny, but of course there was too much going on for Crew to look at the camera!
We concluded our outing with a trip to Burger King so Crew could play on the toys, he loves going head down on the slide.

This is Chris' version of March Madness. Him and Crew watching games in our bed, just chilling. Crew loves to hang out with Chris, although it doesn't last long until he is on to the next thing.
Here they are doing a litte pre game stretching. There was a big game a head and they had to get ready!
Big stretch!
I just had to throw this picture in here too, Crew is really starting to like showers, and getting water on his head, before he would always freak out, and plus because of his tubes in his ears I didn't want to encourage it.

The results are in!! Thursday's Apppointment

Good News:
I can go back to work! After a lot of persuading on my part my doctor is letting me go back to work. She would prefer that for my overall comfort level and the contractions for me not to work, but understands what a stress that would put on our family. She would also prefer that I only work 2-3 days a week, and half days, but we are just going to take it day by day.

Since my cervix is still the same she is allowing me to come back on a day to day basis, meaning if I start having any warning signs or extreme pain like I was having last week I need to take 1-2 days off. If I allow myself to do too much again, she will make me stay home for another full week because that is how long it took this time to get my body somewhat comfortable. Everything is still pretty limited, can't be doing things with Crew on my own, and need to be laying down when I am home. Things look okay right now, but things can change very quickly. Another concern is with all of my contractions, even though my cervix isn't continuing to shorten, the contractions can make my membranes become week and my water could break. Key word, could, there is such a huge gray area in all of this, so much unknown that is hard to predict what the upcoming weeks will look like.

Right now I am happy to be given the oppurtunity to "try" work again, hopefully my students are nice enough to let me sit the whole time so I can continue to be there. Being comfortbale really isn't something I will experience until after the baby is born, I am still contracting and cramping, which seems to be normal to me at this point. But the contractions are not showing a pattern.

My goal is to eliminate any stresses and stay positive. A lot of people have pain and I am lucky to have a healthy baby inside of me. Which by the way I get to see every week by ultrasound, which is probably the only perk of this whole situation. He is still measurig quite big, so watch out Crew, you are going to have some competition!!!

Tuesday Update

The days are passing by and overall today I feel okay. The weekend wasn't great because even though Chris is a TON of help with Crew when they are home it is hard to stay down and not do anything. On Monday I probably got out of the recliner a 4-5 times, so I felt a lot better yesterday. Still contracting, just not as painful. However I did notice if I was up for more than 5 minutes my body would scream at me to sit back down, the same thing happens if I am late on my medication, things pick up within 15 minutes of a missed pill.

So today, I thought I would adventure around SLOWLY just to see what LITTLE bit walking around the house would do. I am upstairs working on some things that I wanted organized before the baby gets here. So of course I am contracting more today, and pretty much just tight with light cramping. So I am heading back down to the recliner, and going to go resume in my "TLC" position. Chris calls it that because I sit there all day and watch the baby story, and all of those other shows on TLC all day long. I hate day time TV!!!

So all in all, things are better when I do nothing, and not good when I try to do things. Who would have guessed that?? At least I have somethings to share with my doctor on Thursday. I am going to do everything in my power to get back to work, I may be uncomfortbale, but as long as my baby is safe, I will try to battle.

Bedrest :(

So the last 4-5 days have not been fun. Basically I have not stopped contracting for the past two weeks, the contractions just very in strength and consistency. I guess I forget what it is like to not be contracting and for my body to be relaxed, it is really hard to sleep and stay comfortable. Even just sitting here at the computer my stomach is a big knot, and so tight with small shooting pains running up. I have to take at least 1-2 baths a day, and Chris has had to give me quite a few massages to relax my body enough to fall asleep.

Let me back track to when all of this bed rest began....Before Wednesday I was able to get through the day at work with restrictions and be "okay" just really uncomfortbale. I would then come home at 3:00 and basically not be able to walk or do anything without a ton of pain and discomfort. So that led me to another doctor's appointment on Thursday. They ran some more tests, another swab test (negative, which is good) and they found that my cervix was still the same as 10 days ago, another good sign. The problem was that my contractions were/are so strong that it is extremely painful and hard to do anything. Plus my doctor wanted to get them stopped and controlled with a new medication since my other one was not working. She also knew if they could not get them stopped they would continue to get worse and worse, which I was thinking "is that possible"?

So my doctor sent me off to Labor and Delivery again. I am begining to really hate that place, they ran more tests, and blew out another vein trying to get another IV in. My hands look as if I were a drug addict with all the bruises! They tried more pill form meds, but I was still contracting way too much, so they had to give me another shot which slowed things down considerably. They have me on Terbutaline now, 2 pills ever 4 hours, which really only controls some of the pain. Even now (Saturday) 2 days being on pill on being home not doing much I am still very uncomfortbale. I am not allowed to miss dosages, and I am suppose to take this bedrest deal seriously, which means that I can't be home alone with Crew. Can't lift him or anything else more than 5 pounds, and need to try to get my body out of this rythym.

My next doctor's appointment isn't until Thursday, so I have to wait until then before they will make a decision if I can go back to work yet. It is very frustrating because we can't really afford for me to miss this much work, I only had enough days to take once the baby was born, everything else is paid out of pocket.

So all in all, I am trying to stay positive, take it easy, and focus on the end result. The baby looks wonderful, very active and healthy, so that is great news. The hard part is that my doctor can not guarentee or predict anything forsure. Most likely I will have to deal with this pain and contracting until the baby is born, and the goal is to make sure that that doesn't happen anytime soon. I might just continue to contract and it may never change my cervix, just make me miserable. I have what is called an overactive uterus. Most people experience labor for 1-4 days, I might be lucky enough to experience it for 3 months. This is way worse than with Crew, which makes me wonder if this might be the last??? :) I hope things get better!!!

So sorry if I haven't returned calls or updated sooner, I really shouldn't even be on the computer because I am not suppose to climb stairs, so I will update again when things change.

Love ya all!

Only Monday!

Sorry I didn't update my blog sooner, but sometimes it is just a process to sit down and actually do it!

My contractions are still around, but things are going a lot better since they have put me on this "limitted" bed rest. In other words, I can go to work, but I have to sit most of the day while I try to teach 32 freshman at a time. Not exacty fun! At home I try to lay around, but being lazy is hard, especially as the weather gets nicer and Crew wants to play. So Chris has had to help out quite a bit. I do have some medication that I take when the contractions start picking up, but mainly I just deal with crampiness and try not to over do it.

I am hoping things get better, I am not asking to be able to go running, I would just like to have to ability to go on walks, play with Crew, and not be so careful about everything!!! So keep us in your prayers :)

Have a great week everyone!

CONTRACTIONS!!! Update...

So a little bit of a CRAZY week so far, and it is only half way over. On Sunday I was having more contractions (braxton hicks) than normal. With both pregnancies I have had a ton of Braxton hicks contractions and my doctor just says I have an overactive uterus. If you remember with Crew I went into preterm labor at 33 weeks, and continued to have labor contractions until the day I had him.

Back to my Sunday, I was starting to have a lot of discomfort and pain with my braxton hicks, so I tried to just write it off as, well this happened last pregnancy I am sure it will pass. Monday I came to school, and couldn't even walk without contracting or cramping so I called my doctor and they wanted to me to come in.

So I drive myself into Labor and Delivery (Chris met me in there later). They hook me up to the contraction monitor, and they could tell right away that I was having real labor contractions consistently at every 4-5 minutes. They have this new swab test now they can swab your cervix with to test if you are going to deliver in the next 2 weeks. They did that test, and also checked my cervix. I was not quite one centimeter but I was 50% effaced, and the baby was already at a -1, which meant the baby was low. Not great news yet. With Crew I didn't start effacing until the last week of my pregnancy, and my cervix was never that short, and he also never dropped that low. Hmmm. My mind is going crazy, thinking of what the heck is going on.

Because they couldn't get the contractions to stop on their own, they gave me a shot which finally gave me some relief. They wanted to give me an IV as well, well that didn't go so smooth. The nurse blew out two vains in both of my hands and couldn't get it to stay. If you know how I deal with needles you can only imagine. So I am left with two huge bruises on the tops of my hands, and in some pain.

In the mean time my swab test came back negative which was good, which means if I do the right things hopefully these contractions won't turn into labor. So the shot was starting to work, my contractions became not as consistent and less intense. Thank God! They sent me home with strict instructions (7 hours later), and I am not really suppose to be at work. I did not go to work on Tuesday, but I am here today, making sure that I just sit and teach from my desk.

Tomorrow I go back to the doctor to see how things are going and to check on some things. They will determine if things are changing and what my limitations are going to be until I get out of this scary zone. Chris has really had to step up because of course lifting Crew or chasing after him causes me to contract. Just about anything does, so I have to be careful.

Theses contractions could also just be something that I have to deal with for the rest of pregnancy, which would not be fun. Hopefully these contractions don't continue to change my cervix, and cause labor to begin. Please keep us in your prayers especially over these next crucial weeks. I don't do well, doing nothing!!!

Happy Birthday Courtney!

Actually Courtney's birthday was on the 26th, but we got together with, Court, Shane Baby, Kassi, Lane, Tay Tay, Jeff and us to celebrate on Saturday night. We went to Milt's Pizza, Crew and Lane played nice some of the time, fought each other, and fought other kids the whole evening. So we finally left and went back to Kassi and Jeff's house to play and have brownie sundaes. It was so much FUN!


Happy birthday also to Carolyn on the 23rd and Dale on the 24th!


Here is Crew helping mom make the brownies for the sundaes!

Crew got to wear one of this new spring outfits for the big occasion. He thinks shorts are really cool and likes to pull up on them.
I just had to add this picture. Here is Crew in his new Mickey Mouse underwear! They are too cute, I bought them for fun, even though he is not really ready to be potty trained. Although it might be a motivator!

SHOOT!!

Crew is finally able to shoot the ball in our hamper hoop next to laundry room. It is pretty high up, so he gets really excited about it. Plus he gets really pumped up to shoot when he gets to wear his basketball outfit "uniform". He thinks he is pretty cool.
Such effort!
Hi MOM!

Look at those back molars!
Bye Mom! I am done shooting, now I am off to play in my toy closet, probably with my farm stuff!