Confessions of a Hormonal Pregnant Lady

Because I have larger babies, I often get comments about how big I am. And are we SURE that it isn't twins.  It gets old after a while, but usually I am able to just laugh it off. But the last week or so, I am starting to feel HUGE. And for the first time in my life I feel like even when I try to make myself look cute, I just look fat and ugly. (I know rationally that I am not fat, just pregnant, and that I am not ugly. I know that I am beautiful because I look like my sisters, and they are two of the most beautiful women I know.) But that is how I feel. So on Sunday, after hearing again and again "you just look so big" and "haven't you had that baby yet?" and "you have how much longer to go? You're sure?", I cried the whole way home. Then yesterday I went out with my friend for a girls day. We went and got pedicures. At the salon, 2 different people came up and asked me if I was having twins. And one person asked how I was enjoying my 4th trimester. I didn't cry that time, but it definitely didn't help my state of mind either.

Now the reason I am writing this post. It isn't because I want sympathy. I don't. I KNOW it is just the hormones. And I am so grateful that I get to be able to bear my own children. That is a huge privilege, honor and blessing. I know some women who would give anything to be able to feel huge and ugly if it meant they got to feel a baby inside of them. I truly am thankful for this experience. No, the reason I am writing this. The next time you see a huge pregnant lady, instead of gawking or asking her some ridiculous question, just tell her that she looks beautiful. (Lie if needed.)

A Little Bit of This and That

Orion played his first "season" of soccer this last fall/spring. At first, he really didn't like it and I was the mean mom dragging him to practice in tears. Now he loves it, and I think will be sad for it to end. We haven't decided yet if we will sign him up again only because he has expressed an interest in . . . baseball. (And I say to myself REALLY?? Could there be a more boring sport to watch?)

It was gotten warm enough that we have been able to spend a couple of days at the lake. The boys LOVE going, but prefer to hang out in the little freezing spring puddle as apposed to the actual lake. Except Ollie, he will venture out into the murky waters.

 We went to the park the other day. Philip had fun playing with his basket ball. If we had a more even driveway I might invest in a hoop for him for Fathers Day.

And lastly, possibly the last pregnant picture I may ever take. Here I am at 37 weeks. 

No more Babies in June!!

I would just like to start off by saying that William was my last June baby, and 12 days early he weighed 11 pounds 2 ounces. My December/January babies are little guys in the 9 1/2 pound range.

So . . . I had my 36 week OB appointment today. And because I have noticed a huge decrease in fetal movement the last three days, they did an unplanned ultrasound. Everything looks good. He is taking lots of "practice breaths". It was neat to watch the lungs inflate and deflate. His heart rate is good. And best of all, he is moving, I am just not feeling it.  And while my OB didn't ask her to, the ultrasound tech did a growth scan, and measured our little guy. Turns out, he isn't so little. As of today, he weighs 9 pounds 14 ounces. (That's give or take a pound.) My doctors reply: "Well, we know she can deliver large babies, so we aren't really concerned with the size." He says that because HE isn't the one carrying a 10 pound baby!! Or the one who has to push him out!! Sadly, we didn't get any great pictures. His face was smushed up against my uterine wall, and he just wouldn't move it.

And as a quick update: I got a call from the doctor today. My blood platelets have dropped significantly since the last test that they did. They had to repeat the test because they were a little low to begin with. Anyway the normal count is 150 thousand. The first test I was at 144,000.  Just under normal, but they wanted to recheck it just in case it dropped. Well my count as of yesterday was 105,000. If I drop below 100,00 I can't have an epidural. I'll admit, I am a little discouraged by this thought.

And the Good News Is

I feel like a huge slacker. A ton has been going on, and I haven't updated the blog in forever. Perhaps that is because a ton has been going on, and I just haven't had a lot of time to do it. So the big things that happened in April.

Orion had his Spring Sing Concert. (I am not sure this qualifies as "big" but we took lots of pictures so . . .)

He also drew this super cute picture of our family. I LOVE that he drew a baby in my tummy. He is pretty excited for his little brother to come.

(I have it flipped in my pictures, but I can't get it to stay flipped once I insert it here. )

Unfortunately he has been getting into trouble at school. The first incident I know of was when he walked out of the building with his head hanging low. He came right up to me and told me that he got in trouble for saying a bad word, and that Miss Mathys was going to come out and talk to me, but he guessed she forgot. I asked him what word he said, but he wouldn't tell me. I had him write an apology note to his teacher. And I told him that if he continued to use bad language that his YOUTUBE video privileges would be taken away until school was out. ( I know this was a little harsh, but I am pretty sure that that is where he is getting his bad language from anyway.) With tears in his eyes he said ok. We snuggled for a few minutes, and then he went to go play.

I got to go with Orion on his very first field trip. We went to a dairy farm. While there, I talked to Miss Mathys about Orions bad language. (They were just a few days apart.) Apparently he got into trouble for using the word "crap". He was walking out of the bathroom and some other boy was walking in. It startled him and he said "Whoa, you scared the crap out of me." I felt kinda bad for being so harsh. I guess Phil and I need to be more careful of the language WE use.

Sadly, a few days later Miss Mathys did have to come out and talk to me about Orion pushing another kid for butting in line in front of him. AND Orion told me that one day he had to spend 2nd recess sitting in the office. For screaming and not controlling his body. Any ideas on this sudden burst of bad behavior? I am wondering if it is just the stress of the upcoming baby, or if something else is going on that I need to be aware of, but am not.

William and Oliver are doing great. They love going to the library. They are LOVING the slightly warmer weather where they can play outside.

Sometime in either March or April, Cricket had kittens.

I had the crazy idea to organize our storage/utility room. At first I was just going to buy a few shelves from Costco, but then I realized that I would need a whole lot more shelving than I could afford from there. So then I decided I would just build some. So with lots of phone calls to my daddy to find out the best and cheapest way to do it, Philip and I built some shelves. I LOVE THEM!! So, here are some before pictures of the room.

Philip putting the final screws into the shelves.

And some after pictures. It isn't completely done yet. And I think we need more shelves still, but it is a HUGE improvement.

While we were building my beautiful shelves, Oliver decided to dump a bottle of baby powder all over the floor. Instead of making dinner, I cleaned that up.

 And then, because it was SUPER HERO night at Culvers,  (if your child dresses up as his favorite super hero or her favorite princess, they get a free kids meal.) and I didn't make dinner, we dressed the kids up and went out to eat.

Which brings us into May. I only have 5 1/2 more weeks until little Winston is born! At my last OB appointment, I met with a doctor I haven't yet seen this pregnancy. (I see 5 through out, and one of those 5 will deliver my baby.) She looked at me and said that there was no way I still 6 weeks left. That I looked more like I had 2 weeks tops left. And then she measured me. And then she explained to me why I look so big. Apparently my hernia (that only pops out when I am pregnant) is causing my uterus to tilt way forward. Making me look really big. But as soon as I lay down, and my uterus is pushed back into place, I am measuring right where I should be. So the good news is . . . Winston will most likely not be a giant baby.

And just in case you didn't know. A few months ago (March 17th to be exact) Our stake redid the ward boundaries  For the first time in my life, I now belong to a branch. Philip is the 2nd counselor in the Young Mens and I am the Primary pianist. It is a little different being in a NEWLY organized branch, but I do kinda like that it isn't so big.

And just for fun.  Why yes, Oliver DOES have a trash can on his head. Luckily, my trash cans are always lined before they are put back to have trash put in them.