Tu-tus!

So since I am stuck at home by myself all day *see previous post*, mostly in bed, I have spent the first 45 min. parusing the internet! My favorite brain-sucking activity. But I found this and am totally going to make one as soon as I'm on my feet again, and am now hoping to have a little girl so I can have a matching one for Chloe too. How cute of a picture would that be? (Sorry, I think I spend about at least 35% of every day thinking of scenes that would make cute pictures...and I wish I were exaggerating).
Here's the link for the tutorial, it's like two seconds long and looks super easy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7aSPMEn7S0&feature=player_embedded#!

And I bet this would work for heavier materials as well, it just wouldn't be quite as floofy. Like if you wanted a longer, tattered, but silky look, or a country-girl white cottony/denim look (with boots and a hat, of course), or for newborns in the winter, getting some really soft pink fleece...do you think I could trust Craig to go to JoAnnes and pick out some fabric for me over the weekend....? Mmm...that's maybe dreaming a little too much. I don't craft very often, but that's mostly because I don't have time, not because I don't want to. But hey! I've got a whole week to be off my feet. Maybe I could actually start Linus's scrapbook before this next one comes! What a novel idea...
Also, speaking of ideas for pictures, I've gone to Target two times in the last two weeks or so (something I don't do very often because I want too much and can't afford enough of it)- and saw some adorable rubber goloshes for little ones, but they were over $15, I had to love myself enough to tell myself that I can't afford it. Then I saw a tan pinstriped suit with a matching tie that would have fit Linus perfectly, and my hopes lifted as I saw it was on clearance! And then sunk again when I saw that it was $17 on clearance (really?! I thought the definition of clearance meant five bucks and under....again, guess I'm just dreaming too much!). So I put it back, and sadly let go of the visions I had in my head of dressing Linus up in the suit and giving him a large piece of birthday cake for birthday pictures, or of putting Chloe in the galoshes with her swimsuit on and an umbrella, like these:







PS- I didn't take these, but I wish I did!
PSS- So I guess this also means me and my blog will be buddies the next few days too...
PSSS- If any of you find galoshes or birthday suits at a thrift store somewhere, tell me ASAP!! And I'll....make Craig go get them...or something...

Another mopey day...

Sir-clot-a-lot...thou shalt meet thy doom for this treachery!
Middle school musical: next Friday and Saturday, rehearsal today after school, and then rehearsals every day after school next week until the show. Tons to work on, characters who are forgetting lines and songs left and right, dead spots, costumes, lighting, programs, Oompa Loompas who don't know where the heck they are supposed to be the entire show, lotta work left to do.
Choir concert: two weeks from today. Middle School I see every other day, 4th and 5th grade I'm supposed to see today, tomorrow, and the same next week and that's it before the show, possibly a dress rehearsal if I can get the accompanist to come and help us. Two songs memorized in one choir, two in the other, 8 more to go between the two of them, and yesterday I was still pounding out parts on Chile Con Carne, which I hope with all the hope I possess that I didn't make a mistake in assuming my small choir could nail this in their young years. Same thing, programs, memorization, introductions, planning, lotta work left to do.
K-2nd grade music: I have about five weeks to get all the rest of my curriculum taught to each grade, minus all the days they miss for field trips, parties, and other end of the year shenanagans (only see each grade twice a week). Lotta work left to do.
Trying to piece together full time work for next year: applications, letters of recommendation to obtain, resume to update, schedules to pray will miraculously work out, principals to try not to scare away when I inform them that (theoretically) I'm due the second week of school, LOT OF WORK LEFT TO DO.
Me: on bed rest for a week, possibley more.
Had a general, half crazy, half instinctual, half "I'm just stressed out and trying to get out of my responsibilities, nothing to worry about" "wrong" feeling the last week or so. The clot sort of passes on it's own time, sometimes it comes, sometimes it goes, and the last few days hadn't seen much of anything, but still passng something that requires me to continue to wear a pad all day. And actually, that something was a little more watery and a lot less colored than usual, no weird odors or anything, but not heavy at all either. A day or two ago I thought maybe it might be amniotic fluid, but brushed it away because I leaked amniotic fluid right before I went into labor with Linus, and I remember what that was like, and this was not anything like that. But I still just sort of felt like something was wrong. With nothing else to go on, I finally decided this morning that I would call and ask about it and just see what they think. Judging from how this pregnancy has gone, I've opted for the "better safe than sorry" route. I knew that they would want me to come in, I didn't think it would be that pressing, but of course they wanted to see me that day, and the nurse called me back right as I was leaving for school. Dr. B, my doctor, could see me then if I wanted to come in right away, and I knew that if I was going to miss some school, the earlier I did in the afternoon the better, so I arranged it with work (not the most convenient time for them either, a lot of teachers are gone today and tomorrow, but they made it work, bless secretary V, she has been my lifeline this entire pregnancy in finding subs for me) and took off for Loveland. Dr. B checked me, my waters aren't broken, my cervix is sealed, and I'm not going into preterm labor (whew). Last leg of today's journey was to get an ultrasound to check my cervical length again and be on my way. As I mentioned previously, at my last appointment, my cervix was close to 5cm in length (was also informed that it's not dialated to that length, which is where my confusion came in at my earlier post, it's just that long in length, which was a very good thing, long cervixes are strong ones), and today I measured in at 3cm. Which means it shrunk, below the normal level, which is 3.5 cm. Not only that, but as I laid on the exam table, it lengthened out a little to about 3.4 cm, which means you can deduce that when I lay down and am off my feet, there is less pressure on my cervix and it will lengthen, and when I'm up and about, it puts added pressure on the clot, which is pushing right on my cervix and causing it to shrink. The long dreaded official "bed rest" is upon me and I'm not to go to work for a week until they can measure me again.
I held it together at the office, even joked about it, got in the car and cried the whole way home, and after throwing away a few fistfulls of tissues and emailing and calling everyone I need to, I'm just riding the waves, baby. Craig and I went to the temple last Saturday, and I felt a calm assurance while there that as long as I take care of myself, everything will be fine with the baby. Now I guess I know what that assurance was for, and I will trust in it and do my best, even if doing my best right now means doing nothing.
Good part about today? It's been raining and thundering all day, which is cool enough as it is, but as I was driving out to the doctor's office, the sky opened up just directly over my trip there and a large patch of bright blue sky and warm sun followed me all the way to Loveland. I read an article that I skipped over in last month's Ensign about a woman who realized what it really meant to endure well and that it's not about finding joy when all the trials end, it's about finding joy in the journey, about realizing that our greatest periods of growth come not after the hard times are over, but during the hardest times. If I don't find joy now, even when it's hard, I won't find it when it's easy (which...incase some of you haven't figured out yet, "easy" is super relative and sometimes just plain doesn't exist! And that is a wonderful thing because if everything were easy we would never make it home to Heavenly Father).
So...life is hard, but life is good. Lotta work left to do. :-)

Diggin

Oh how I love Spring. I love all the seasons, but I wait with extreme anticipation for Spring to come for all that it signifies and promises for the future 5 or so months. We've been so busy each night, it's not always been warm enough when Craig gets home, I'm tired, the kids are sick, whatever the excuse, we definitely have not been spending as much time in the warm weather as my heart has been demanding. Last night I got home from my two and a half hour rehearsal after school and Craig and I enjoyed our dinner outside while we let the kids play. Craig started working on a sprinkler in the corner of our lawn where a shed will be placed in the next month or two (it's a high school project- Craig's parents paid for the materials and the high school construction class puts it together for free- not bad!) so Linus and Chloe wanted to help. I've definitely been noticing that I've been taking way more pictures of Linus than Chloe lately, which is mostly because his birthday is coming up in a month and I had like a two month haitus where I hardly took any pictures of them at all because of my strange pregnant aversion to photography. Chloe is still loved just as much, I promise. :-)








Quick update on sir-clot-a-lot: I had another appointment on Monday where they did the official 20 week ultrasound (I was at 21 weeks, but my doctor was out of town the week before), which would have been my first ultrasound if it weren't for all this shenanagans that have been haunting us these last couple of months. And we're happy to report that we are having a.....baby!!! And yes, we are waiting again to find out the gender of the baby until it's born, so anyone waiting in anticipation will have to wait a little longer. :-) The baby is very healthy and well and fairly squirmy, although the nurse did get a good shot of the spine and the brain, which she said is rare to get a good shot of both, so apparently the baby is very cooperative right now as well. Lets hope it sticks beyond the womb. The clot is still there, even though I've been passing it for over three weeks. It's not as big, but I was so hoping that they would see that it was just about done and almost gone. When I got to my room after we did the ultrasound and weight (which I've finally gained some, I'd lost two to begin with and hadn't gained any after 18 weeks, but then I gained 5 in three weeks, so I can stop gloating in the fact that I can eat ice cream again, unfortunately...) and blood pressure, the nurse gave me a packet explaining that it was just some general information about delivery and that the doctor would be in in a few minutes. I read through it, and thought it quite odd that it only addressed things that happened in delivery that were unusual, like being induced, C-section, or premature delivery and covered nothing about general things to look for when you think you're going into labor. Also...isn't that sort of weird that they would give me a packet like this when I'm only halfway there? You'd think you'd get one closer to the end. And this is my third pregnancy, I have been through it a couple of times, I think I know what to look for...so when my doctor came in I decided to ask her about it. I guess I already knew this, but she just came out and said that because of the clot I am at risk for a preterm delivery. There's of course no way to tell when it would happen or if it would happen at all, but I geuss that explained the "general information" packet. But she happily reported that my cervix is nice and long still. In fact she said it's almost at 5 cm...which I still am sort of confused as to why it's no concern about it getting longer and longer. I mean, when I hit 5 cm with Chloe they admitted me into the hospital for labor! But it's not like I'm effacing or contracting regularly, so I guess it's nothing to worry about. But really...5cm is normal?! Oh well, not going to worry about it.
So the baby is healthy, the kids LOVE watching the ultrasound. In fact Chloe about died laughing when she made the connection that when the baby kicks like it was on the TV, that it is actually kicking me on the inside. Then she was extatic to also make the connection that she kicked me as well when she was inside of me. Linus knows that I ask him where the baby is, he should point to my tummy, but I don't think he quite realizes what is going to hit him come August. Chloe at the dinner table the other night blurted out "Mommy, when you have the baby, I'm going to hold it, and go 'rock-a-bye', and give it loves, and then I'm going to put it back in your tummy!!" Good thing she has no control over things like that. :-)

Spring Break: Day...the rest. And Easter

Okay, so I originally planned to post something everyday over Spring Break. That didn't last very long! Quick recap and then a buncha pictures: I basically played everyday with the kids! Outside when I could, inside when I had to. Thursday night we drove up to Denver to stay with my parents for a night. The next morning we got up and visited the Museum of Nature and Science with the kids- it was fun for sure, but I wish we had thought about all the dumb field trip kids that flooded the place around 10:30 a.m. Somehow we thought we would be beating the system by going on a school day...DER! The kids enjoyed it until it got too crowded, though. For as excited as Chloe was about seeing all the dinosaurs, she sure got freaked out at the T-Rex bones when you first walk in. It didn't help that I accidentally bonked her in the head with the door when we were walking in, so she was already upset and then she saw the T-Rex when we walked in and her first reaction was to cling to my leg frantically and announce "MOMMY! Don't let it EAT me!!!" I'm not sure Linus even saw the T-Rex, really, he was happy just to sit in the stroller and kick his legs around...that is until there were too many kids. Then he was sort of cranky and we didn't stay much longer than that. On the way back to my parent's place we stopped at McDonalds and let teh kids play on the giant play place they had there. Then we went back to my parents place and let the kids nap while Craig and I watched a movie on their big screen downstairs. Then we all drove to Boulder and ate dinner with my brother and sister, which was fun. Chloe got a little sugar happy by the end (after having a huge chunk of cheesecake and a chocolate mushy warm gooey cake as well). They were beat by the time we drove back to Windsor that night.
Conference weekend was great! We went to the town Easter Egg hunt for the kids (which lasts all of about 30 seconds, if you are lucky). Chloe stopped to help a girl who dropped and egg and that was it, all the eggs were gone! She got three and Linus got four- but they didn't care, they were happy to eat their two starbursts a piece and open the eggs themselves. We dyed eggs that night, and unfortunately I didn't take out my camera, but Linus had a ball. Instead of gently dropping the eggs in and letting them stir, it was war, the eggs against the dye, causing a lot of dye to splash everywhere and two of us to man him the entire time. They had fun finding their baskets and eggs the next morning as well and ate way too much candy. WAY TOO MUCH. Typical Easter. :-)
And Spring Break is over. 6 more weeks until school is out!








Blogger is being dumb and won't let me upload the rest of the Easter pictures, so I'll try again later. Toodles!

Spring Break: Day 1

I heart Spring Break

March Madness

Yesterday I had my second appointment since this fat clot sat it's fat derriere in my uterus. It'd been two and a half weeks and I was hoping that something might have changed and that I might have a glimmer of hope that we might be able to start moving through this instead of just sitting and waiting. The clot shrunk a bit (my body absorbed some of it) and my cervix stretched out to 3.9 cm, both good things. Other than that? Stay the course. I wanted to ask if there was possibly some way to remove it, but I already knew the answer so I didn't ask. So I went home afterwards a bit crest-fallen, yet also very grateful that the baby is still okay (this time it waved at us from the ultrasound a few times! I now have three sets of pictures to show off to people and more yet to come, more than my other two pregnancies combined!).
Second part of the story is this: I have still been taking Zofran religiously for nausea. I shrank down to two pills a day instead of three and have honestly been feeling nausea free for a while, which I hadn't yet experienced even when I was taking three pills a day. I was cautiously optomistic that I could shed yet another pill a day and hopefully be done with them by the time Spring Break was over. So I didn't take my pill before bed two nights ago. The next morning I woke up and didn't puke. I ate breakfast and my day went on normally. Success!! Again, last night, I skipped the pill and we went to be earlier than we usually do because we were both exhausted. I woke up around 3:30 when Chloe had to use the bathroom. When I put her back to bed, I too used the bathroom and then climbed back into bed. I remember thinking that perhaps I should go downstairs and take my pill now so as to avoid any potential mishaps in the morning, but I ignored it. And tossed and turned for nearly an hour and a half before I fell back asleep, the whole time feeling hungry for breakfast but too tired to get out of bed and eat it. As we all know, pregnancy + prolonged hunger on an empty stomahch = bad news bear. The alarm went off at 6 and after a few snoozes and after my body came fully awake and fully aware that I had not eaten food as it so pressingly requested hours earlier, my stomach began churning. I'll spare you the details, but it did not end well. However, from all the heaving and putting pressure on my abdomen, my clot started to pass as soon as I finished. I didn't know whether to feel guilty that I may have caused it by not taking my pill or grateful that my prayers were finally being answered and that change was finally occuring. I went and administered CSAPs at school and then called in a sub for the rest of the day.
SO- that being said, things seem to be going according to plan, as much as the doctor knew anyway. No red bleeding. The clot I passed this morning was nickel sized, but I know there is more yet to come. I've had uncomfortable cramping and even contracting, but I have experienced that all week, and the doctor told me that it was probably because my uterus was irritated at this unwelcome guest in it's doors, as am I.
In the meantime, just taking it easy today so I can get a feel for how this is going to go. I will probably go back to school in the morning as long as nothing changes between now and then. I'm hoping (more like desperately wishing) that if this all passes before Spring Break that I will be able to go outside with the kids and go on a walk around Windsor lake and enjoy every minute of the sunshine with my little ones, but I doubt the doctor will say anything conclusive until my next ultrasound and that's not for two more weeks. So we'll see.
On a different note, last week a friend posted this on facebook and I can't stop thinking about it. It's an amazing, heart-wrenching (and I do NOT say that word lightly in this case....really, I still ache about it) and miraculous story for any of you interested in reading/following it. I must warn you, though, especially you Moms, you will cry. It's not negotiable, so if you're not ready for it, don't read it.
Stakerz Xposed
Read the post for February 1st and then if you are a stalker like me, go on from there. Really incredible.

No news IS good news

I meant to post like three days ago, but I had a program last night and have spent every night this week preparing for it and also just being beat tired, so I'm posting this morning instead!
Tuesday's appointment yielded these results:

• The baby is still healthy and well and was squirming around happily during the ultrasound. Yay!
• Last week my cervix had shrunk down to 2cm. The doctor told me this, but I didn't know what it meant, so I asked about it when I got there this time. Smaller cervixes are not as strong as longer ones and are less able to hold the baby in. Seeing my cervix so small was the biggest indicator last week that I might be miscarrying, in addition to the large blood clot. This week my cervix stretched back out to a nice long 3 cm and my doctor was "thrilled" to see this.
• The clot has not yet passed, but it has darkened significantly in color and my doctor said it looks as though it will dilute, break up and pass. I will start bleeding again when this occurs (oh joy!), but as long as it stays dark than I'm okay. I have no idea when it will pass, I have no idea how long it will take to pass, I have no idea what to expect other than to make sure I'm not bleeding bright red.
• The blod clot is 8cm by 6cm by 2cm, roughly the size of a silver dollar. It's big.
  
• I still have to take it easy and in the meantime have to reluctantly sit down and let other people do simple things for me. I feel dumb because I myself feel fine, but I have to remember that it's not my life necessarily that I'm trying to preserve here. Whenever someone offers to move a chair for me or insist that I sit down, my initial reaction is to shoo them off and tell them I'm fine, and then I think about how I would feel if the worst still came around and I only was left with trying to scrutinize and figure out what stupid thing it was I did that caused it. So I just bite my tongue and say thank you. Last night we had a music program and I had to finally leave as everyone was cleaning up because I couldn't move the curtains, I couldn't pick anything up, I couldn't stack chairs, I couldn't move stands or props and I was only sitting there for moral support. But if it means that everything works out fine in the end, I will be grateful for it.
  

My next appointment is in two weeks and until that point I just stay the course and hope this clot passes sometime so I don't have to sit and fret about it anymore. We're just happy the baby is still okay and that things are significantly better than they were last week! Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers. If there is one thing I've realized through all this is that it's okay to rely on other people's faith as well as my own and trust that things will be okay. We all need each other and we all pray for each other and we all are loved and prayed for in return. It's a beautiful thing.
And life is good. :-)