Lots going on since my last post....

I was going to do a post, but thought I should see where I left off. I left off 4 days before all the madness in our life began (it has since calmed down). Sheesh, my last post was about my excitement for my baby shower, which, I ended up not getting to attend :(. I'll just start from the beginning of when the madness began:

Dec. 7, 2010 - I woke up like I usually do at about 3 AM to do my usual pee business, the norm when you are 30 weeks pregnant. I went back to sleep (luckily). I keep feeling like I had to go again, but was so tired I didn't want to get up, so I was keeping my legs crossed like a little kid does. It was finally 6 AM, so I decided to just get up and start getting ready for work. As soon as I got up, a gush of water went running down my legs. To say I was in shock would be an understatement. We had been sleeping on the couch since it was more comfortable for me, I wake up the DBF and tell him, "I think my water just broke". His response, "Are you sure you didn't just pee yourself." I look down, I don't think so!!! I go to the bathroom to see if I'm bleeding, I'm not, awesome. DBF gets on the net to see if he can find any symptoms of unusual leaking. I tell him I don't think he is going to find anything. I get in the shower, tell him to get ready cause we will be heading to the hospital to get checked out. I try calling my dr's office after my shower but it's some stupid recording and then I'm put on hold for what seems like forever, I hang up. I call my parents to ask them to let my other two sisters know DBF can't watch the kids today. My mom asks why, so I have to tell her, I am not good at lieing. My mom calls me back about 2-3 more times. First to ask what hospital, then to ask about DSD, I tell her we will be dropping her off at school at about 7:45 and then head over to the hospital. She wants to know why I'm not rushing over there, I'm not really having any contractions. I tell them I'll call them to let them know what is happening, they don't have to rush to the hospital. We get to the hospital around 8-8:15 AM, there is no one in the lobby/waiting area. I do have to sign in and wait to be called. I had not yet registered with hospital as I had not done the Birthing Classes (those were to start in 2 weeks). So I had to register, they put me in a wheelchair (all the while, I keep feeling little gushes of water coming out). My BF rolls me up to triage, I tell them I think my water broke, I'm 30 weeks. At first the nurses are skeptical, but when I get up from the wheelchair, it's wet. I get undressed, go lay down in a bed and they do the litmus test, sure enough, my water broke. I immediately get a steroid shot to help the babies lungs develop quicker in the event he is born soon. When they get done, I tell DBF, I bet my parents are downstairs already, he doesn't believe me. The on call dr comes in to check me, I am barely dilated to a 1, not really having any contractions, which is a good thing, baby needs to stay in there as long as we can keep him in there. The dr tells us our options at this time, we can stay at the current hospital, but if baby is born, he will have to be rushed to the Children's Hospital (and I won't be able to see him until I am released from the hospital) or I can get transferred to the other local hospital that does have a NICU. We say we will think about it. As soon as the dr is done checking me, who walks in, my mom. I looked at DBF and tell him, I told you so. My mom had walked in earlier but they were checking me so she stepped out. I get my IV put in, then I get to go to my own room. My dad & DBF go to get something to eat, it's about 11:30 AM now and no one has had breakfast (including me). I order something from the hospital menu. The dr comes in and lets us know that they have made room for me at the other hospital and that the ambulance will be picking me up soon. At this point we had not decided, but thought it be best for me to be seen by the high risk pregnancy dr and have the Neonatal team on site for the baby. I get transferred about 2 PM and get settled into my room. Nothing is happening labor wise and all is calm with the baby, good signs. I eat an amazingly disgusting dinner and try to sleep. It's pretty hard with blood pressure readings, IV drips, antibiotics drip, bathroom trips (which include unhooking the baby monitor and hooking it back up, traveling with the IV's).

Dec. 8 - I get my next steroid shot (ideally 2 within a 48 hour period is awesome). It's quite an uneventful day, we try not to have the baby today (it's my nephews 9th birthday today). I spend most the day alone, my parents come by in the evening and DBF comes by after putting DSD to bed. Not too much goes on. I'm not getting checked to see if I'm dilated as to not make it happen.

Dec. 9 - Another quiet day. One of my sisters comes by in the morning before she goes to work for about 1/2 hour - 1 hour. DBF goes home so he can shower during the day and watches my nephew and picks up my niece & DSD from school. They have dinner, then he comes back to spend the nights with me. He is a real trooper sleeping in the awful pull out beds they have. They do end up having to remove my IV, it's not working right anymore. While it's off, I take a shower, yeah!!!! Then they have to put another one, ughhh! Then come & check me cause they notice the babies heartrate drop. The nurse is moving around the monitor, she hears it, and it's good.

Dec. 10 - Morning starts out normal, just laying around, watching TV. DBF does his routine, so I stay by myself all morning & afternoon. I had just had lunch and I feel myself get really tired, as I'm dozing off, the nurses rush in. Telling me turn this way, turn that way, turn again. Put the oxygen mask on. I have no idea what is happening. They explain to me, the babies heartrate dropped and they are trying to find it. They roll in the U/S machine, but by then, luckily they had found it. I have to stay in the position I'm in for a while. Talk about scary, I call DBF and let him know what happens. I ask him to pick the kids up from school as early as he can and come stay with me. At about 4-4:30 the come rushing in again, babies heartrate dropped again. This time there is about 4-6 people. I have one person looking for the heartbeat, the RN is calling the dr. to update him. He was at another hospital delivering a baby and is on his way back. He says they are just going to do a c-section to start prepping me. I freak out, I call DBF and tell him to hurry up they are prepping me. I call my mom, no answer it's just about 5 PM and she is just getting off work. I call my dad, I tell him, I'm crying, I'm nervous & scared, he doesn't really understand why. As soon as my mom gets home they will head up to the hospital. DBF leaves the kids with his friend, my other sister was on her way, she has no idea what is going on. I text my other sister, she's worried and I can no longer respond. DBF arrives, packs up all our stuff. I get wheeled into the surgery room, get my epidural (I really didn't want one, but at this point, I had no choice). I lay down, I start feel my legs go numb. They check to make sure the NICU team is ready for when baby is delivered (at this point, I'm 31w1d). They bring DBF in. I didn't even know the dr had started doing anything, he tells me I'm going to feel some pressure as they are pulling baby out(I didn't feel anything). DBF tells me he's out, he is precious. I see the baby out the corner of my eye as they are whisking him across the hall. He does not cry, I am worried. I tell DBF to go with him. Dr. cleans me out, as DBF returns he gets to see my insides, asks the dr how things look for another baby, pulls out my ovaries and does bunny ears and states, they look great. He stitches me up, DBF goes back to check on baby. I get moved to the recovery room. They bring baby in for a few minutes, he has the oxygen tubes in, he is so tiny. Emrys John was born December 10, 2010 at 5:45 PM weighin in at 3 lbs 8 oz, 16 in long. I get sent to my room. I don't get to see the baby anymore until the next day in the afternoon (the day of my baby shower).

This is a lot to read at once, but I will update on the rest of the story very soon.

Counting Down

I am counting down the weeks until we get to meet our baby boy. I am getting really anxious and these brax-hicks contractions are no joke. I can just imagine what the real labor is going to be like. It is so exciting that there are so many women getting pregnant. Lots of them are like us with step-kids or they have older children (10-15 year old range). I'm sure with X-mas around the corner the time is going to fly by.
I'll be having my baby shower next weekend. I can not wait to see all my friends and family and eat yummy food (like I can eat alot). I feel very blessed as everyone is so excited for us to be having a baby. They all know how much I adore children and I have always wanted to have at least one baby. Sometimes I still can't believe it. Even though I have a little person inside of me kicking, punching, moving around, it still doesn't seem real to me. I know once I see his cute, chubby cheeked face it will be so real, but until then, I'm just enjoying the moment of being pregnant. Who knows if this will ever happen again for me.
We are in the home stretch, appointments are every other week until the first week in January, then every week thereafter. I get to have another U/S due to there being some extra fluid detected around the babies right kidney. The dr didn't seem to concerned with it, and said it should fix itself by the time I go in for my U/S in 2 weeks.
Anxious, Nervous and Excited is how I am feeling about all this.

Are you serious?

We had a nice weekend. SD was a little bit moody with us on Friday. Seems to be testing the waters a little, when I called her from her room, instead of sayin "I'll be right there", or "yes", I got a "What". Not once but twice. Was a little taken aback by that. Let's see how she acts with her mom this weekend and she called yesterday was something very important she had to tell SD. At least she had her dates and times of when she wanted SD for the holidays this year. Makes it so much easier on us when planning our time.
Do you want to know what was so important that BM tell SD? I thought that maybe it would be a trip or an opportunity that was coming up. But NO. She called to tell SD that she is pregnant, again, after only having taken at home tests and not having gone to the doctor to find out how far along she is, she is not out of the first trimester. It was Sunday that she called, so I know she had just found out, otherwise she would have called her sooner after she had her doctor appt on Friday. I congratulated her, and I am happy for her, but I do know that she did this on purpose. SD will have 2 siblings that will be months apart. I am due in February and her BM will be due in June/July. I felt like she rained on my parade a little by stealing my thunder with SD. We had also told SD that she could be in the room when baby was being born. Well, her BM decided to tell her that she could be in the room with her this time and SD got so excited. My sister happened to be there and SD yells to her, "You can go ahead and be in the room, I'll be in the room with my mom." Like it was no big deal. I was a little crushed to say the least. Not sure if I should feel like that or not, but I did/do. I shared with her how she made me felt and she did not apologize. She really didn't see anything wrong with her.
I let her know that I was excited for her, but not to forget about herself in this situation. At BM house she does not have her own room and belongings, she shares with her 3 year old brother and now with another on the way, things will be even more cramped. Oh well. I just hope her mom has a healthy pregnancy. I know she will be taking all kinds of precautions as the 3 yr old is also autistic. We will see how challenging things get for them.

It's been a long time....

since I last posted. Things have been super busy in our household. SD is growing and continually changing into a young lady. We have been drama free for a while now, but that's because BM only calls about once a week. Last time she picked up SD was for Labor Day weekend, the beginning of September. She is trying to come pick her up some time this month, but I doubt it. She has only been picking her up on holiday weekends.
I too am continually changing, my boobs have grown 2 cup sizes and my belly has grown like I am ready to have this baby, but I have 18 weeks to go still. We are having a boy!!! I got my registry at Target completed, just wondering if I should do it anywhere else? Maybe. I have my spurts of energy but not as often as feeling tired though. I can not wait for this little guy to get here so we can meet him. I can feel him moving around and it is all just surreal. It wasn't supposed to happen, but it did and I am forever grateful that I get to experience this.
We have got some major cleaning to do at home, I just hope I have the energy to do some of it this weekend.

2 days in a row

Tomorrow I will be 12 weeks pregnant, woohoo! I don't know why. but I had/have this anxiety of having a miscarriage. I've had no bleeding, and just some growing pains. I'm taking a vacation day tomorrow, so today is my "Friday" at work. I wish I was doing something fun in the morning, but I get to have a 3 hour glucose test done at the lab, so fun. The late afternoon will prove to be good (I hope), SD comes home from camp. I can't believe school starts in 2 weeks, oh my. We will have to get some school shopping done in the next week. The trips have to be short in duration, my legs start to hurt really bad if I am standing for too long or walking too much.
I hope you all have a great weekend!

Long time....

It was a pretty quiet summer as SD was with her mom the day after school let out. We talked to her about 3 times the entire summer. Poor thing, she got promised so much between April & May. The plans constantly changed and ended up not being a whole lot. She was first told they were taking a "BIG" family trip. SD wanted to go to Legoland, that was nixed too far. BM suggested Disn.eyland, SD got excited about that possibility, then that was nixed. Also a long drive for them (her brother, who is 3 has au.tism, car ride would have been about 8 hours). Then another plan came about to go camping in Oregon for a week, SD thought that would be awesome, it didn't happen either. Something about no spots being available, only the week she was scheduled for camp. Then BM suggested that they would do a mother-daughter thing, which I was all for. Maybe they could go to a spa and get massages, mani/pedi, out to dinner, trip to San Franci.sco. Didn't happen. Can you imagine putting an 11 yr old through this. If you are not sure what is going to happen, do not tell the child. They did end up going to Great Ameri.ca and she did have fun there.
I had to pick her up closer to her BM's (last Thursday)or else we weren't going to be getting in SD in time, it was a 2.5 hr drive for me. SD was a hot mess when I saw her, her was all matted and wearing jeans and too tight white shirt with flip flops. Come on now, it's mid to high 90's, why is BM wearing a summer dress, while SD is looking like she lives by the beach. SD likes to talk, she talked for an hour straight and all she talked about was all the video gaming she did while at her mom's, come on now. No kind of educational stimulation all summer, we are in for some trouble when school starts in 2 1/2 weeks. This child needs to be kept reading and reviewing her multipl.ication & di.vision or else she forgets. For peets sake, they live right next door to a public library, why couldn't she go there for activities and read books.
SD is currently at camp this week, I dropped her off on Sunday afternoon and will pick her up Friday afternoon. Her BM wants her back next week, but her dad would like to spend a little time with her before school starts. They got to go water rafting last Friday & they had a blast together (I'm too chicken to go).
I also waiting for BF to tell SD that we are having a baby. He had her go and get my orientation paperwork from the medical group. She read one of the pages about preparing for a healthy pre.gnancy. She read it a few times and she finally got it. I of course got all emotional, she looked at me with shock in her eyes (a good shock). SD tells me, "but I thought you were sick and it couldn't happen." I told her, "me too, but it happened." She is excited about it though, but one of her first questions was, where is the baby going to go. If you have not moved to be a bigger place by the time the baby comes around, the baby will be in our room, but we are hoping to find something we can afford soon. It would be nice before the baby gets here.
My m/s is finally subsiding and next week I have an NT scan scheduled, hoping everything is okay. My clothes already don't fit me and my big shirts not ride up my belly. OMG, I am going to get big, and I am not even eating all that much, I eat about the same as before to be honest. I'll be 12 weeks on Friday. I'll try to write more often, for myself more than anything.

We're having a baby....

Make a pregnancy ticker

We have yet to tell the SD or BM. I'm pretty sure SD will be over the moon excited, not sure about BM, she kind of wanted another one (she has a 3 yr old boy). It's pretty easy to conceal this from SD since she is spending the summer with her momma. We won't see her until the end of July (maybe sooner if we can plan a trip up there). I know I've been silent, but our life has not been drama free to say the least. Luckily I document everything on a calendar, so I can go back and remember what happened.