hungry, hungry hippo

We've had a hungry, hungry hippo lately! Last night, Brecken at 65 at 8:30, 60 at 10:00, 90 at 12:30 a.m., 80 at 4:00 a.m., 60 at 7:00 a.m., and 70 at 10:00 a.m. And now he's squirming again at 11:30, I thought I might get lunch in before he does, but it's not looking that way! Glad he's hungry. It'll be interesting to see what he weighs when he goes in for his one-month shots. He'll be one month old next week already- man, time flies.

While I'm here, I just want to thank everyone that has sent gifts for Brecken. I really am writing thank you notes, it's just taking a bit of time. (But I AM halfway through the list!!) You WILL get one though!

first real bath

Brecken had his first real bath Sunday night and hated every minute of it, as you can see by the picture. The only part he didn't scream through was getting wrapped up in his towel at the end. :) He doesn't even like getting his face wiped- he screamed at me for that yesterday, too! I told him we can't go out in public meeting people with a messy face! (We were on our way to my school to help my sub out with some things after school yesterday.)

He slept for 4 1/2 hours this morning before I made him wake up to eat. He last ate at 5:00 a.m., and I woke him up at 9:30. He must have been sleepy! He's been sleeping pretty good (KNOCK ON WOOD), only waking up when he's hungry at night. He's awake a little more in the day, looking around at things. The dogs are still in love with him and love sticking their noses in the slats of the cradle and then growling at us- like they want him to come out and play! Charlie spends most of her time sleeping, so I'm not sure what she thinks of him still.

we should buy stock in Pampers.

Brecken hasn't even been home a week and we already had to empty the diaper genie. MAN, that kid goes through diapers like there's no tomorrow. The fortifier packets are all gone though, so maybe drinking regular milk will help with that problem. And his belly button FINALLY fell off last night, (now we can give him a real bath!!) so maybe he won't leak through his diapers so much anymore because now we can pull them up all the way. That will help with the wet jammie problem. :) He's been getting on his own schedule to eat since sometimes he's STARVING after 2 hours instead of 3 hours. I'm not going to make him wait an hour just to keep him on schedule, that would be mean! He's also eating a lot more now- he can eat 70 ml's instead of 60 sometimes. Last night he ate 70 at 9:00 p.m., 70 at 11:30 p.m., 60 at 1:45 a.m., and 70 at 6:00 a.m., I believe. He's hungry sometimes after 2 hours, sometimes after 4 hours. I guess it all averages out to 3 hours. :)

The dogs were so excited to get home on Friday. They've been really good with Brecken, too. Birdie likes to kiss Brecken on the head and Hogan likes to know what's going on, but after that, they leave him alone. They've only gotten up once with me to feed him in the night, too. When they came in on Friday, Brecken was in the cradle in the living room. They both could smell a new smell right away, and figured out it was in the cradle. They stuck their noses through the slats- it was pretty cute. Then Hogan discovered he could put his head over the cradle and see the baby up close. They haven't bothered him though- they've been really good with him!

Josh's team lost on Friday. :( They played Burns and lost 28-6 or something like that. Now Burns HAS to beat Southeast and Saratoga has to beat Pine Bluffs if they want to be in the playoffs. That's the only way it will happen now. Josh is pretty nervous. I just became a Burns fan so they'll beat Southeast. :)

Being home sure is nice!! We've already been on a couple outings- one to see Josh at school during lunch, and last night we went to the head coach's house for dinner with the other coaches and their families.

Nights are getting better too. We have to work on our swaddling technique- if Brecken gets his hands out of the blanket he will wake up. That happened several times the first two nights home. Last night we must have done a better job because he only woke up to eat. We also have to work on our diaper technique. The first night, Brecken peed through 3 sets of jammies and 4 blankets. The second night he peed through 2 jammies and 2 blankets. Last night, he got to wear the same set of jammies and the same blanket all night long, so we must have done a better job at securing those diapers! :)

This afternoon we're going to Brecken's first football game- Saratoga vs. Burns. Josh's mom is coming this afternoon, his brother Jeff is coming this evening, and Josh's dad is coming on Sunday. Jeff has never met Brecken so it'll be exciting! I'm also super excited for Lennie to bring my dogs back to me. I miss them! It's so quiet in the house without them!

Here's picture of my little guy with no tubes or wires!!

we're FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NO MORE HOSPITALS!!!!!!!!!!! BRECKEN GETS TO GO HOME!!!! The pediatrician released him from the hospital this morning. WHOO-HOO! I'm so excited. I haven't gotten very far yet since I don't have my own car here in Laramie. My brother-in-law David is on a business trip this week though, and I have his car to drive around, so we got as far as my sister Kristen's house. (I had my car seat here and used my nephew Ryan's base that is in David's car.) Josh will come get me after work tonight. Then we'll be home for real. YAY!!!!!

I also had my doctor's appointment this afternoon, my 2-week post-c-section check up. I'm within 10 pounds of my original weight, and I'm excited about that! My incision healed great. And the nurse saw Brecken and gasped, then said, "He looks like Josh!!" She couldn't get over how much the little guy looks like his daddy. No mistaking who this kid belongs to! :)

Come on, clock, hurry up! I want to go home!!!

Here he is, my beautiful little boy!!

Nothing TOO too exciting to report today, besides Brecken getting to have visitors. He got to come to a hospital room where they let us stay during the day with us today. That meant his 3 month old cousin Ryan got to visit and they got to meet for the very first time. They had matching football outfits on, it was pretty cute. He also got to meet Josh's Uncle Bryan and Aunt Anne this afternoon. It was nice to have him in our own room. He's off all his monitors and oxygen so we got to pick him up and walk wherever we wanted with him! That is a nice feeling.

His last bottle of the day got eaten all by him too. It took FOREVER but he was a trooper and did it. Daddy was a trooper and got him to finish it too.

Kara

in laramie

Well, here we are in Laramie. Yesterday morning we got Brecken loaded up in the ambulance isolet (he looked so cute in real clothes! An outfit daddy picked out for him.) and got out of Denver about 9:30 or so. We got here just in time for him to eat lunch. Brecken was a great rider- slept the whole time! He was a good eater in Laramie, too- 40 ml at noon, 32 ml at 3:00, 50 ml at 6:00, and Daddy got here just in time to feed him his 9:00 bottle, where he ate 46 ml. He must have a stomach irritation though, he keeps puking. One time was projectile. Gross. I'm wondering if it's the fortifier they put in his milk to give it more calories to gain more weight.

We saw the doctor yesterday too. I asked him why Brecken can't be like the other babies, eating what they can when they're hungry, instead of this 58 ml every 3 hours thing. He said we have to make sure Brecken knows how to eat well enough to gain weight. He's a half ounce away from hitting his birth weight again, so maybe it won't be TOO long before we can finally go home!!

They took his oxygen off yesterday too! Surprised all of us since Laramie is at such a high elevation! But when we left the hospital last night he had been off it for 5, almost 6 hours and was doing great! Hopefully they were able to leave it off overnight.

He also had to have a new feeding tube put down his nose- somehow, the one he had fell out. Hopefully, we won't need that for long either.

It snowed here in Laramie! Good thing Josh was able to make it over for the weekend. His football team won! Against Southeast! The score was 20-8. HOORAY!

Kara

we're moving again!

Brecken ate all 58 ml's of his bottle this morning. Hooray! Then he was scheduled for an echocardiogram (news to us...) to see if the heart murmur they've been hearing is a "real" one or what they call a PPS one, which will go away on it's own. The person that did the echo said it was the PPS one and not a "real" one. So that's good. Of course, it was scheduled during his feeding time so we missed his window of opportunity and he only ate 15 ml's. Frustrating. And that was after we had a visit from the child developmentalist who came to visit, I think our nurse told her to visit with us since we were *heaven forbid* feeding Brecken in bed sometimes to help him stay awake. She then proceeded to stand over Brecken and analyze every movement he made, like after he was unswaddled, he streches, and she said that wasn't stretching, it was "searching for his boundaries". Whatever, lady. After you were all bundled up and you couldn't move, wouldn't you want to stretch, too?

And I'm less than impressed with our nurse today. I pumped some milk at 11:00 this morning and I could not find her again until 1:00. She said the milk was still OK, but I'm not too sure. She did pop in at 12 to give us Brecken's milk for his feeding, but she just put it on the counter and left and with the developmentalist and the echo going on and on, I couldn't give her the milk I pumped. She hasn't been too helpful.

The GOOD news is though, we get to transfer! We're pretty sure we're transfering to Laramie, but it might be Cheyenne. Last I knew, they were checking with Laramie to see if they could handle a baby with oxygen and a feeding tube. I'm pretty sure they can since they were talking about a feeding tube while we were there the first time. While the developmentalist was jabbering at us, I heard the nurse pick up the phone and go get the nurse practitioner because a Dr. DeHart was calling, so I wonder what was said. We haven't heard an update. But I know we get to go, because Josh called our insurance company this morning and asked if we could, and they said, "Sure. We cover up to $1000 for ambulance rides so just tell them where you want to go and we'll get you there!" HOORAY! It would be so much better for us to be in Laramie, because Josh has to go back to work tomorrow. So being in Laramie would be much, much more convienient. I don't know if we'll get to go this afternoon or tomorrow, but it's going to happen! Yay! If we go tomorrow, I'll just ride in the ambulance with Brecken.

The insurance also said they cover 100% of Flight for Life trips, so that is excellent!!

So that's the news for today. I'll keep you posted about moving.

Kara, Josh, and Brecken

another new record!

Almost a full bottle!! Brecken just ate 53 ml's out of 58. (They upped his feedings again and are putting some vitamins in my milk to try to boost his weight a little- he's at 6 lbs 3.5 oz right now.) WHOO-HOO! Another new record! We tried the naked in bed thing again and it seemed to work! He's pooped from it but he stayed awake for about a half our after he was done. He was just sucking on his binkie and looking at us. He spit out his binkie a few times, but one of those times he grabbed it with his hand and put it back in his mouth! Don't know how he managed to do that!

The nurse wasn't going to even tube feed him the rest of his feeding, he only missed out on 5 ml's. I think we'll tube feed him at 6:00 to give him another break (the nurse said he slept right through the noon hour) and try again at 9. If he does this good every other feeding, that's great. Then tomorrow we can start adding more feedings in with his bottle.

I keep forgetting to say that he had his hearing test the other day and passed. That's good. :)

what a trooper.

We decided last night that we want to put in for a transfer back to Laramie since Brecken's only real problem is his eating now. That way, Josh could go back to work and I could stay in Laramie and it's much closer to home and I can stay with my sister. She said she'll go call the people she needs to call and let us know. It will be up to the insurance people, if they think they'll be saving money or not. She said they'll ask her best guess on how long we'll be in the hospital still and she said her BEST guess is one more week. Obviously it's up to Brecken but that's what she's guessing. So if the insurance thinks it's in their best interest, we'll get to transfer. If not, we're stuck here.

Brecken was a trooper this morning. Overnight, not so good on feedings. He only ate 2ml's at 6:00 this morning. But when we fed him at 9:00, he ate 45! WHOO-HOO!! Best ever! He only had to eat 10 in his tube. He's going to get it all in his tube at noon since this morning really tuckered him out. The nurse said he wouldn't do anything probably at noon, so best to give him a rest and try again at 3. Josh and I are going out for lunch outside the hospital, we figured if he's eating through his tube at noon it's a good time to go out. We don't want to miss any awake time if we don't have to, but he'll be sleeping through his noon feeding.

During his 9:00 feeding, he didn't start out so well. He fell asleep after 15 ml's. He had made a mess in his new diaper though, so we undressed him to change his diaper and change his jammies. He ate the rest of that while laying in his bed with only his diaper on. So maybe he needs to be a naked eater to eat so much! :) We'll try it again at 3:00- sure doesn't hurt!

hurry up and wait.

Still a slow day- we switched to the VentAir bottles at lunch to see if that would help. His other nipples seemed to be a little too fast and overwhelming. Plus, when he stopped sucking, it kept going in his mouth and he ended up wearing a lot of milk. These new bottles seem to help him control his intake better. The most he's had on his own though is 25 ml today. That's out of 55. Almost halfway there. Some day, he might realize how to eat the whole thing, since that's what he has to do in order to go home! The hurry up and wait is really trying my patience.

They started the check-out process with us today though. We had to watch 3 videos- one on carseats, one on oxygen at home, and one on CPR. We have to watch them before we go home, and I've seen several sets of parents have to wait around for forever before they go home after being told they get to, just to watch the videos. So I'm glad we got those out of the way. That will save an hour or two on the real check-out day, whenever that will be. We were also told we could get our carseat check done any time- we just have to bring the carseat up, put Brecken in it, and for 30 minutes they make sure his breathing is good and stuff. We didn't want to go out to the car to get that today but we'll bring it in with us tomorrow morning when we get here.

not too much new

We just saw the doctor, not much new from yesterday. He took 30% of his milk orally yesterday. It would've been more but his nurse last night put two of his feedings down his tube and only one with the bottle, and he hate 44 mls with that one! Hooray for the 3:00 a.m. feeding!! His 9:00 one this morning wasn't AS good but still not too bad- he took 27 out of 60 mls. He just gets so worn out from eating. I wish he'd wake up a little so we could be on our way!!

Well, Brecken had a pretty good weekend. He was weaned a lot from oxygen, he's down to 25 ml of oxygen in his nose tubes. As one nurse put it, it's "Barely a whif of air". :) They tried taking him off his oxygen today though and he didn't do that great- his numbers went down pretty low, into the 80%s, so they put him back on the oxygen. So as soon as he can prove he can do alright if he pulls the nose thing off his nose in the night (he's very good at doing that), that's one problem down.

His other problem is still eating. He was doing great at the bottle feeding by Saturday night I think it was, and then we started nursing again. I think we lost ground by doing that, because it was just too much work for him. This morning, I decided I wanted to concentrate on bottle feeding him my milk and getting him going on eating. He hasn't done so great today, he's a lazy eater! He stayed awake for over an hour this morning, a new record, but didn't eat much. When I fed him at lunch, he didn't eat a thing before he fell asleep. They had to put it all down his tube. So be praying hard for the "feeding fairy" to visit- the doctor and nurses keep telling us that it's like the lightbulb goes off in these kids and all of a sudden they start eating like pros. We're really, really hoping his feeding fairy will visit very very soon.

Other than that, he's a healthy little boy. He's got a heart murmer but the doctor today wasn't worried about it, she thinks it's going to disappear on it's own. We'll just keep an eye on it. So as soon as he can be OK without oxygen for an hour, and eat like a champ, we'll be headed home. MAYBE at the end of the week, they are now telling us. Keep your fingers crossed. Four babies got sent home between yesterday and today, so we're hoping it's our turn soon.

Love,
Josh, Kara and Brecken

moved

Lots of moving yesterday! Brecken's x-ray came back perfect- no more air bubble around his chest at all. That's great news! At 5:00, he got moved to the Infant Care Center, where the healthier babies are. We're relieved about that. The nurses here are fantastic. As soon as a beep goes off on a baby's monitor, they are right there finding out what is wrong. He finally got the hang of eating last night about 9:00. We figured out that he will not wake up enough to eat unless we change his diaper and get some cold air moving down there. Then he'll wake up enough to chug his bottle instead of take an hour to get half of it down!

Josh and I also moved yesterday. A room at the Ronald McDonald house opened up so we moved over there. It's right across the street from the hospital. It's lots different than I pictured it, it's much like a hotel. Our room is big, it has 2 double beds, a tv, a nice dresser and mirror, and it's own bathroom. Hooray! No more walking down a long hallway to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night! :) And it's really cheap which is nice, only $15 a day and we get to stay there until Brecken comes home. The sleep room at the hospital was a day-by-day thing, we never knew if we could have it the next night. So the assurance that we have somewhere to stay for sure is nice.

This morning we got to the hospital and the nurse asked if I wanted to start nursing. Of course I did! It's quite a process, we have to change his diaper, then turn off his monitors for a few minutes, then unhook all his tubes, then put him on a scale to see how much he weighed at that moment, then hook everything up, then he can be passed over to me. He latched on right away but doesn't have much interest in eating at this time. He likes snuggling much more. He's a great snuggler. After eating, we're supposed to weigh him again to see how much he ate, but he hasn't eaten enough to ever bother weighing him again. So he gets fed in his tube. I asked why we can't do the rest in his bottle to practice sucking and the nurse said it takes too much energy to nurse and take a bottle and he needs to conserve energy. That makes sense. So his next feeding, we'll do a bottle instead to make sure he can maintain eating that way. It's all my milk so it really doesn't matter how he gets it.

The doctor came to visit him today and he said Brecken is doing great and he hopes we can go home by the middle of next week. Brecken will probably go home on oxygen, but we can deal with that. He has to keep getting his oxygen lowered (which is going really well, he's maintaining 100% oxygen levels in his body and his intake gets turned down every hour!) and prove that he can be OK if he pulls out his oxygen tube from his nose in the middle of the night when we can't notice it, and he has to get his feedings up. Then we can go home. Right now, we're increasing his feedings by 4 ml every 3 hours. His last feeding we were at 17 ml, and we have an ending goal of 40 ml. Hopefully that won't take too long!

The family with the baby next to us in the NICU has a rough day today. They are taking the baby off his life support today. He was born on Wednesday and never got any better. Josh had talked to the dad a little bit. Keep that family in your thoughts since they had such a rough day today. That's any parent's nightmare and I can't imagine having to make that decision.

So that's the update for today- we'll keep you posted in what happens!

Just a quick update for the afternoon, not much has changed. Brecken got fed by Daddy and took about half the bottle, the other half had to be put down his tube. He'll be getting a chest x-ray this afternoon sometime to see how the air bubble around his lung is, and if it's doing alright without that chest tube being in, he'll probably get moved down the hall. Hooray!

We got asked to be in some photographs the hospital is doing for a calendar- we got our first professional family pictures taken. :) I guess Children's is putting together a day planner type calendar and it will have pictures of the kids here in the hospital. So we got our picture taken with Brecken in his bed while we're looking at him. That was pretty neat. We'll get a copy of the calendar mailed to us and of course Brecken's grandmas are wondering where they get to buy their copies.

Other than that, not much new. Brecken's had a stable morning and is sleeping sometimes, awake other times. He's now been held by both parents so we're happy about that.

Later gators,
Josh, Kara, and Brecken

more good news

Things are improving all the time here with Brecken. Last night, we got to feed Brecken his bottle. I did half, Josh did the other half. He was still in his bed because of the chest tube, but it was nice to get to feed him ourselves. The nurse had to turn off his heat on his bed though, since he was so nice and cozy he wouldn't wake up to eat. Once he got a little chillier, he woke up and was awake for a long time! Everyone got to see his eyeballs. What was really special was when I was all alone with him for about 20 minutes, and he just stared and stared at me. We chatted for a long time about how he was going to love going home and meeting his puppies, and seeing his room, and seeing Daddy's football games. He just stared and listened. He loves to hold hands too, so that was fun.

This morning Josh and I got downstairs just in time for the doctor to visit, after a quick chat with the nurse. She said twice overnight, Brecken's heart rate went way down but self-corrected and they don't know why it did it. Hopefully his heart will quit that, because it scares me! Anyway, small world- the doctor is from Gillette and graduated 7 years ahead of me. Crazy that your child's doctor at Denver Children's Hospital went to the same high school as you! Anyway, she came to take the chest tube out. Thank goodness! He's still hooked up to dozens of wires, but I was able to hold him and feed him a bottle. He wasn't interested in the bottle much, he was too busy playing with it with his hands. He wasn't interested overnight either, I guess, because they put a tube down his nose to feed him. We ended up having to go that route for his breakfast. But we got to rock and chit-chat for quite a while this morning. I feel bad for Josh, he still hasn't held him yet. If Brecken didn't have so many wires, I would've traded spaces with him in a heartbeat, but we were afraid to move him with all the wires! So the next time we go up, Josh will get to hold him. We're just taking a quick break for breakfast right now.

The even better news is that Brecken will be moving "down the hall" sometime today. That means he'll be out of the NICU he's in and into the "step down" nursery. If he does great there, we'll be on our way home soon! That is a big sigh of relief!

Thanks again for all your good thoughts being sent our way- they are working and we are thanking each of you from here in Denver.

Love,
Josh, Kara, and Brecken

what a great day!!

WOW, Brecken had a great afternoon! We left him around 10:30 and went outside the hospital for a change. We ran to Target to get some supplies (since we didn't know we'd be spending time in Denver this week!) like shampoo and stuff, then ate lunch outside the hospital with my mom, dad, and Josh's mom. We were pulling into the hospital parking garage and Brecken's nurse called. My heart stopped for a minute, until she said, "He's OK! We just wanted to see when you'd be back to talk to the lactation consultant." WHEW! So I went straight there and oh, my gol. I had to check to make sure I was visiting the right baby! He no longer has his big ol' machine in his nose, his hat was off, he only has a little oxygen tube in his nose, and he was laying on his back again. I hardly recognized him!! The nurse came and told me he was able to breathe pretty good now so they took the big machine off and just put a nose tube in. Because of that, his eye swelling is much less now. They also did not put another chest tube in as planned. They'll see if getting that big machine out of his nose helps any. He hasn't had any pain meds today so that's great too! They did change his IV- his hand was getting sore so they put it in his head. Owie. But he doesn't seem to mind.

They ALSO told me that they were ready to start feedings this afternoon. So I pumped and prayed and what do you know- I got a full feeding for him! I was really hoping that would happen so they didn't have to start his feedings with formula! He's allowed 10 ml every 4 hours. I didn't get to feed him but I did get to change his diaper. The nurse fed him and it took him a while to get the hang of swallowing with a bottle but he finally got his 10 ml down. What a great boy!! I was so excited. As soon as his chest tube comes out, we can hold him and I can feed him myself instead of with a bottle, if he'll take it. Hooray! The nurse was talking like that might happen tomorrow because she was talking about getting Brecken dressed as soon as that tube comes out, too. So be praying that happens sooner than later!

So, a great afternoon! Hopefully tonight and tomorrow will bring more good news!

Love,
Josh, Kara and Brecken

We went to see Brecken before we went to bed last night and had a great nurse. She explained everything to us, kept his blood pressure cuff on his stuffed cow that we brought down for him, and was just really neat.

Brecken had a pretty good day yesterday. They tested him for infection and he didn't have any, so they stopped antibiotics. They were also able to bring his oxygen level that was being given to him down from 38% to 35% when we left. His poor little eyes are super swollen from his nose thing that he has in. It's like the mask that people with sleep apnea have, but it's the tiny baby version. It's really doing a number on his face. But the nurse let me wash his eyes and mouth and change his diaper, so that was super exciting for me. They also put in an OG tube yesterday to let the overflow of oxygen back out of his stomach. He's spending a lot of time laying on his belly to try to get the air bubble out of around his lung.

This morning we went in before breakfast and found he had a pretty good night! His oxygen level being pumped in is now down to 25%!! Hooray! Normal air that we breathe is 21%, so he's almost there! They did another x-ray though and found that the chest tube isn't quite getting all that air out, so they'll either put another tube in this morning, or re-do the one that's already in there. Hopefully if they can get that all cleared up, he'll be on the road to recovery super fast. From the NICU, he'll go to the "Step-down" nursery to see if he can handle everything on his own before coming home. We're very encouraged by the 25% oxygen though, that's great. It's great to know he can keep his breathing pretty good with that little help.

Also today they started a nutrient IV. It will give him vitamins and stuff he needs since he hasn't eaten anything yet in his short little life. He's only been on glucose since he has been born. Hopefully soon my milk will come in and I can get that pumped and they'll feed it to him. They have a nice mommy pumping room for me to use whenever I want and they gave (we'll probably find it in our bill later!) a nice Medela Symphony pump I just hook up to their motors. They are super accomodating here, I really appreciate that! The room Josh and I are staying in is on the 3rd floor. It's just a room with a bed, but that's all we need and it's only $1/day. :) Hopefully soon we can get into the Ronald McDonald house and start staying there for the rest of our duration.

Thanks for your emails, it's nice to hear from people we know and love. It lifts my spirits for sure, as I'm sure it does Josh's as well. Keep them coming and we'll keep this webpage updated as much as possible!!

Love,
Josh, Kara and Brecken

it's a boy!

I'll post a birth story when we get home and things settle down, but I want to use this site right now for info regarding our little guy, Brecken Levi. We are now at Denver Children's Hospital with him, he was flown in the Flight for Life down here from Laramie last night. Josh came with him, which I am grateful for! I got released from the hospital this morning, one day early, so I could be here too. My mom came down from Gillette last night just in time to meet Brecken before he was put on the airplane. So she drove me down today and Josh's mom came also. My dad is on his way and should be here any time.

Brecken will be OK. His official diagnosis is TTN, which means the fluid that is in a baby's lungs while in utero is supposed to be absorbed by the body during the first big cry after birth, and his wasn't. It was stuck in his lungs. He also has immature lungs due to being born early. His breathing was scary in Laramie yesterday- about 130 breaths a minute, they were pumping 60% oxygen in him at all times, (that's too high!) and his chest would really cave in at each breath. I asked if I could hold him for the first time ever before they put him on the plane but he only tolerated being without his oxygen for 10 seconds. So my little boy is 2 days old and I've only held him for 10 seconds. He was under a breathing thing I called his Tupperware bowl, as you saw in a lot of the pictures my sister sent out.

Today however, he is much more calm. He's not grunting all the time to work at breathing, his breathing is down to about 45 breaths a minute which is fabulous, his own oxygen level is in the high 90%s which is also fabulous, and the oxygen they have him on is only 38%. MUCH improved from yesterday. He's also sleeping finally, he's not having to work so hard to breathe so he can sleep. I haven't seen his eyes yet today, in fact! They're about to do some x-rays on him to see how things are. Right now, he has a feeding tube in him because he cannot suck and breathe at the same time. I'm pumping for him, but my milk hasn't come in yet. Hopefully soon. He also has a chest tube since an x-ray this morning showed an air pocket around one of his lungs. They got that deflated and his breathing is SO MUCH BETTER.

Like I said, he's in the Denver Children's Hospital NICU and will be for a week or so. Josh and I are staying here at the hospital for a couple nights and then we'll go from there. Our families are going to find a hotel.

We'll keep in touch through this website- feel free to email us!!! I'd love to hear from everyone.

Love,
Josh, Kara, and Brecken

we have a birth date!

We have an end in sight. We went to the doctor yesterday and ended up scheduling a c-section for Friday, September 29. My placenta hasn't moved any, it's still right on the edge of the cervix. We could try a natural delivery, but then when Dr. Keeler did his cool color image thing, he found a bunch of blood vessels that he bets are covering the cervix, which is dangerous. Put that together with the fact that the baby is breech as breech can be, there's virtually no chance of having a natural birth! Dr. Keeler won't even try to turn the baby, for two reasons: One, with the placenta that low, there is no room for the baby's head down there. Two, if he tried turning the baby, all those blood vessels could rupture which would make it very dangerous for both of us. So, a c-section is the way to go. He wants to deliver about 10 days before my due date to lessen any risk of me going into labor. So Josh and I will go over that Thursday night and have our last quiet meal together and stay in a hotel for our last night as just me and him before we bring something noisy back home with us. :) It will work out nice with the dogs, too. We can drop them off Thurs. afternoon at the kennel and then go pick them up Monday morning. Dr. Keeler said I'd be home by Sunday night.

The baby looks good though- heartbeat was 146, he was moving around a LOT, and his estimated size is still only in the 40th percentile, but he's at about 5 1/2 pounds according to the ultrasound. My belly, however, is measuring two weeks ahead! Dr. Keeler had to measure again to make sure. But yep, it's measuring at 37 weeks and I just hit 35 on Monday!! I also gained 5 more pounds in the past two weeks. Oops. :) I'm up to 155 now- 33 pounds heavier than when I started.

Our dog Hogan is hurt- he has a big gash on his side. He got it yesterday sometime. I think the dogs must have been wrestling and he got caught on something. He whined a little last night, but I think he had bumped it and it hurt. He lets me touch it with a cool paper towel though, and it's not bleeding. But it's about the size of a quarter so Josh is calling the vets in Rawlins today to see if I can bring him in after school because we think it might need stitched up. Poor dog. He's walking fine and acting fine, so I don't think it hurts, unless he accidentally bumps it.

a nice, quiet weekend

Josh went home to Lingle this weekend to play in a tournament with his dad and Uncle Bryan, which he does every year on Labor Day weekend. I decided that riding in the car for that long just didn't sound like any sort of fun for me, at 35 weeks pregnant, so I opted to stay home with the dogs and cat. It's been very relaxing. I got very worn out at school last week, so it's been nice to sleep in, take a nap when I want, etc. I've got a tiny bit of housework done, too. Not nearly enough, but it's a start until Josh can get home to help me. I have a load of baby sheets and stuff in the washer right now, then will start with our adult laundry. I really am wanting this house to be totally cleaned before the baby comes. Hopefully we can get that accomplished. I get super exhausted doing it though. Even this morning, just getting the jammies that are too big for now put into the dresser in the baby's closet, and clearing some things out of the closet to make room for the baby things, wore me out. Phew!

I'm looking extremely lovely today, in Josh's athletic shorts and one of his sweatshirts. They are a lot more comfortable than my own clothes! Too bad I can't go out in public looking like I am. :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

back to the grind...

I've been having teacher work days since last Thursday, but today is the kids' first day of school. They are all quite excited to see my big belly since in May, I was much smaller! On Saturday at Josh's football scrimmage, I saw one of my now-2nd graders. She told me, "Man, you got bigger!" I said, "Yes, I did!" To which she replied, "But only a little bit. I don't want to hurt your feelings." I told her that was very nice of her while I was fighting back laughter. :)

My day hasn't been too busy, but I have only had two classes so far. My mornings will start off with 1st grade, 2nd grade, 3rd and 4th grade, and then kindergarten. During 3rd hour, I have two students learning new instruments. They're great kids and on Josh's team, so it's going to be a fun class. Then I have my prep time and lunch until 12:30. 5th hour, I'll have my high school choir, then my 5th and 6th grade class during 6th hour, and then last hour of the day will be Jr. High, alternating between band and choir depending on the day. I didn't have my elementary kids today (except for kindergarten, she still brought that class...) since they do their big "Back to school rules" thing in the mornings. I'll see them first thing tomorrow morning.

So, we're back to the grind. I have it in my mind that I only have about 6 weeks and then a nice long "vacation" (aka maternity leave), so it's kind of hard to get back into the swing of things! Especially when you're used to eating whenever you want to during the day and now that's reserved for when I have breaks. That's a bummer.

it's begun already.

I started washing all of the baby's clothes today, so I don't have to worry about it later. The first load was all his onesies, socks, and a few outfits. And wouldn't you know, I got done folding all the clothes, and there is ONE LEFTOVER SOCK. Now how in the world does that start already?! I have no idea where the one sock is. Apparently, our washing machine likes to eat tiny baby socks as much as it does our big adult socks.

sad, sad day

It is a sad, sad day in the Sandlian house. My favorite maternity jeans, the real-waist button up ones, will not button this morning. I thought about wearing them still and just not buttoning the button, but the zipper will not zip up either. Time to say goodbye to those. Good thing I have some elastic-waisted ones that do not have to button up. I must have grown a lot in the past week.

Sad, sad day. :(

I'm on my way to the football field, where Saratoga will be scrimmaging Hanna at 10:30. Wright wanted to come too but I think they're scrimmaging Midwest now or something.

I feel huge.

Can I just tell everyone how HUGE I feel right now? I'm really uncomfortable because of it. My maternity shorts don't fit anymore, I don't think. They were hurting my belly so I took them off when I got home from Laramie and put on a pair of Josh's athletic shorts. They feel much better. My maternity shirts are all too small too. They don't cover my belly anymore. Oy. I hope my school clothes fit, otherwise I will be teaching in Josh's shorts and t-shirts. :)

I don't even have to tie Josh's shorts tighter because my waist size is bigger than his now. 41.5 inches. I don't know how I'll last another six and a half weeks.

The good news is, after all those wonderful restaurants I ate at last week, I only gained TWO pounds in the past two weeks! HOORAY! I was dreading getting on that scale but it wasn't so bad. :)

I have another appointment in 2 weeks and we'll do the Group B Strep test then, as well as another ultrasound. If the placenta is still in the way, or the baby is breech, we'll probably schedule my C-section. If neither is the case, we'll let it go naturally. I keep telling the baby to hurry and get his lungs finished so he can be born at any time. I'm ready to be done being pregnant. My hips hurt so bad I can't hardly walk sometimes, and I get shooting pains when I roll over in bed. I WILL miss feeling him move around in there though- that's the part of pregnancy I'll miss the most!! :(

back to the grind...

Sorry it's been so long since my last post! We had a wonderful trip to Chicago and just got back on Wednesday. My grandma that lives in Chicago got to see my sister's 8 week old, and she was SOOOOO excited about it. So I think Josh and I are going to have to find a way to get back to Chicago for a couple days during our spring break. Grandma needs something to look forward to, and babies, especialy her great-grandsons, are just the ticket.

The boys all had a great time working at the PGA. Us girls had a fun time shopping. :) Let's see- Sunday we ALL went downtown to see my grandma. Monday, we girls went to the Woodfield Mall. Ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, and my nephew Ryan loved seeing the lights inside. Tuesday, we went back down to the city and explored Navy Pier. It was a beautiful day to do that! Ryan had his first ferris wheel ride and slept through the whole thing. Wednesday, we went to the PGA practice round. Kristen and I got a lot of great autographs, mainly thanks to Ryan. MAN, people stop to talk to you when you have a cute baby with you!! Even Rich Beem, the 2002 winner, stopped to talk to him. Pulled the blankets away from Ryan and everything. Next time I go to a golf event like that, I'm going to make sure I have cute kids with me! :) Wednesday night, the whole gang headed out to Wheaton for Chicago Deep Dish pizza at Gino's East. The best pizza EVER!!! My two cousins, Chris and Catie, met us out there and it was great to see them.

Thursday, we just took it easy. Dad didn't have to work so he, Mom, Kris, Ryan, and I went back to downtown to see Grandma one more time. The afternoon, we just took it easy while all the guys were working. Friday, my grandma Smith left for the airport and Josh flew in. He had enough time at the hotel to say hi to me, change his clothes, and off he went to the golf course. He was pretty excited to get out there!! Friday afternoon, we took Lennie to the Babies-R-Us store- she'd never been to one and she found out she loved it!!! :) Saturday, we took Kristen and Ryan to the airport so they could fly home. Saturday night, the whole gang went out to my aunt and uncle's house for a BBQ of ribs from my uncles company, Rose Packing. SO DELICIOUS. And it was nice to have a "real" meal after eating at restaurants every day for every meal! Sunday, Mom and Lennie and I went to IKEA. HOLY COW- next time I need to furnish a house, that's where I'm going!! I bought some good stuff for the baby's room and could've bought a lot more! Sunday evening, the whole gang went out to Millrose Restaurant, a restaurant my uncle's company, Rose Packing, owns. It was delicious!!!!!! Everyone needs to eat Rose's meat sometime. Actually, you might have already without knowing it. I think McDonalds gets their sausage and stuff from Rose, and Pizza Hut also. After that restaurant, we all went mini-golfing and that was a great way to end the trip. Monday morning, Craig, Lennie, Josh and myself were up at 3:15 to leave for the airport at 4. Very early morning!

The baby did great during this trip- no complications from my previa at all. We brought Dr. Keeler some PGA Medinah golf balls as a thank you for letting me go on this trip. :) We have a doctor's appointment today (last one before school starts- I'll have to start using sick days again to go to the doctor!!) so I'll update when we get back.

Some better news!

The doctor's visit was pretty good yesterday. I gained 6 lbs in a week and a half though- oops. :) The nurse said that was good though and that I look great so to quit worrying about it. I'm up to 148. 2 more pounds and she'll have to move the big heavy part of the slider to the 150 mark!

The baby has flipped again, he's breech now. His head is in my upper right. He likes to flip! Dr. Keeler said he might stay like that, because babies like to have their heads where the placenta is not, and mine is so low, the baby might stay breech. But the placenta, we found out, isn't covering my cervix. It's just right on the edge of it, so I have "marginal placenta previa". I COULD deliver naturally, if it's far enough away from the cervix. BUT, only if the baby flips again and isn't breech. If he's breech, it doesn't matter where my placenta is. So, it's a waiting game still. I have to have another ultrasound in 4 or 5 weeks to see if the placenta has moved and the baby has flipped. We don't know if it's moved really, because Dr. Keeler couldn't get that good of a picture last ultrasound. So either it's been like that the whole time, or it's moved up a tiny bit. We don't know. But I got the OK again to go to Chicago and just to take it easy like I already am. And Dr. Keeler said about 4 times how jealous he was that we get to go to the PGA, so Josh and I thought we better find him something small from the tournament and bring it back for him, especially since he's letting me go. :)

The baby is a little on the small side right now, 30th percentile at 3 1/4 pounds. Dr. Keeler said we won't be having a 10 lb baby, that's for sure, and I said that was just fine with me! Kristen said she thinks starting at 34 weeks, the baby should be putting on about a 1/2 pound a week, so ours might be around 6 1/2 lbs when he's born. Just an estimate of course. But small is good, I won't complain. :)

It was a long, tiring day yesterday. Josh and I went up with my sister, brother-in-law and new nephew to Worland for the weekend and met the rest of my family there. My cousin Robyn is stationed in Hawaii with the Navy and was home on leave. So we had a big family reunion there. It was great to see everyone and everyone got to see Ryan and hold him- he was the most popular person at the reunion! :)

We left early yesterday morning and headed home. We stopped in Thermopolis really fast to see Josh's Aunt Bev for a few minutes, then headed on home. We got home about 12:30, and Josh went to get the dogs from the kennel. Boy, were they glad to be home! We got great reports from the kennel lady though, so they had a fun time at the "Puppy Hotel". Poor dogs, we had to leave them in the backyard right away so we could get on to Laramie for my doctor's appointment. After the doctor, we met Josh's cousin Jason and his wife Joni, as well as Jeffrey for dinner. Jason and Joni are up in the Snowy's camping for the week. It was good to see them and catch up on stuff. We don't see them too often since they live in Kansas City.

After loading up on school supplies at Staples and their sale, and getting my B paper bound at Kinkos so I can mail it today, we finally were able to come home to Saratoga. Long day!

some good news!

We had a FAST doctor's appointment today! It was scheduled for 10:50 and we were out by 11:00. We got there at 10:30, so that probably helped. Anyway, I hit the 20 pound mark- I'm up to 142. And tonight I measured around my belly, and my waist is now 40 inches! Oofta!

We didn't have an ultrasound, but by feeling, Dr. Keeler thinks the baby flipped from 2 weeks ago and is head down now. The body parts we are feeling the most are probably feet. The baby actually stayed still for 15 seconds so we could get more than 4 beats of his heart, and then he started moving again after we were done listening. Good baby. :)

We talked about Chicago, which I was a little nervous about since it seemed two weeks ago that he did NOT want me going. But, since I haven't had any problems yet, he told me right now it would be silly for him to tell me to stay home. He said I just have to take it easy from now until then, watch for any problems at all, and we have an ultrasound scheduled for Aug. 7 just to check on things. And while I'm in Chicago (if things still look good on Aug. 7) I just have to make sure to take it easy. But right now, I still get to go. YAY! They way Josh and I figure, I'll be closer to any hospital in Chicago than I am staying here at home- it's 40 miles to the nearest hospital here, 96 miles to the hospital we go to, and in Chicago there's probably one every 5 miles. :)

Then, we just hung out at Kristen's until my defense at 2:00. We had a chase around Registration and Records this morning trying to get my degree check done. The guy I had to get to sign my papers was busy, so they sent me to another lady who, very snottily said, "Did you get an email saying you could come today?" I said, "um... no...." and she told me I had to go to the grad school because she couldn't help me. I told her I KNEW my papers are here, because my friend Erin saw them yesterday, and she said, "sorry." So I went over to the grad school and the lady said, "I sent them over yesterday!! I know I did, because I sent all of you music people, and I remember because you all did things wrong and I already chewed out your dept. head". So BACK to the other place I went and finally got to talk to the guy I was supposed to, and he said, "Yeah, I have them right here!" Sheesh. Got my work out, that's for sure.

My defense went well though. The professor I was worried about pretty much just kept his mouth shut and didn't make things hard for me. The special education professor on my committee was super nice (and it helped that she knows Jeffrey and LOVES him), and the other committee member said he learned a ton from my paper that he didn't know already. I have to change a few errors I made and just caught, and add a paragraph or two to my conclusion, but other than that, I passed! They all signed off on my form and I brought it to the grad school as soon as they signed it! So I'm officially done. That's so nice!!!!!

We're headed to Lingle tomorrow for the weekend. My friend Erin is throwing me a baby shower so I'm looking forward to that on Sunday. Our dogs will be super excited to learn that they get to go with us this weekend. When we went to Gillette last week, they had to stay in the kennel and they made sure to tell us how mad they were at us for leaving them when we got back. They LOVE going to Lingle. They have lots of room to run around and Craig and Lennie's dogs to "play" with.

29 weeks

Here we are, just 11 weeks away! Man, time flies. Here's a picture of my big belly. No stretch marks (yet, knock on wood) but some fine looking blue veins and some scratches from who knows what- probably my cat, who you can see in the background being totally lazy on the glider that will be going in the baby's room.

Still feeling pretty good. I get worn out really easily and don't have much lung capacity left. And getting comfortable? Forget it. Just sitting here, I'm feeling like all of my insides are being shoved up into my chest cavity. Not a comfortable feeling! The latest development for the week is cool though. Friday, we began being able to feel body parts in my belly! We don't know what they are, but we can assume from the position he was in at our last ultrasound. He sticks those little body parts out a lot too, making big lumps in my belly and really entertains us! If you push on the lumps, he either pushes back or moves real fast, it's pretty funny. Even just poking around my belly, you can feel parts. It's so cool. NOT cool when you're trying to sleep and it feels like he's running on his treadmill in there, but cool all the other times. :)

We spent last week at my mom and dad's house. It'll probably be the last time we get to go without a baby in our arms!! Soon, school will be starting (goodbye, summer!!) and football season will be in full swing, meaning our baby isn't too far away, either!

We have another doctor's appointment on Thursday morning to check on things and see if I get to go to Chicago or not. I don't know if we'll have another ultrasound though. I KNOW we will by week 32, because if the placenta hasn't moved by then, I'm on bedrest. I don't know if we'll have one this week though. I'm also (FINALLY) defending my paper on Thursday and then I can be done with this Master's degree. It seems like every time I turn around, there's another road block in the way. It will be good to have it done. Then on Friday, we'll head to Lingle for my baby shower on Sunday! I'm looking forward to that.

Our dog Birdie is deathly afraid of thunder. The only room in our house without a window is our guest bathroom so when she hears thunder, she heads back to the bathroom to hide. Here's a funny picture of her this afternoon. She was IN the bathtub for a while, but then must have thought the rug was more comfortable but she was still safe with the shower curtain over her. Dumb dog. :)

doctor's appointment yesterday

Good news and bad news- good news is we don't have to return any clothes, he's definitely a boy! Bad news is, my placenta is too low still and covering my cervix. If it doesn't move, I'll be scheduling a c-section. If it doesn't move by 32 weeks (I'm almost 28 now), I'll be on restrictions and not allowed to lift anything, do any housework (RATS! :) ) , walk to much, etc. because the placenta could detach and that would be life threatning to me and the baby. I asked what about Chicago since I'm going there at 32 weeks, and he scheduled me for another appointment in 2 weeks before I go and we'll talk about it. If I haven't had any health problems, no signs of contractions, no bleeding, etc., I can still go. IF I don't get to go, my sister Kristen will get my plane tickets changed to her name and she'll go in my place so Grandma G can meet Ryan. So either way, one of us will get to go! And for any of you reading this that hear Lennie talking about maybe not going if I'm not going, SHE IS GOING. You need to tell her that- she'll love Chicago so she still needs to go! Never mind the fact she already paid for her plane ticket! :)

We had the ultrasound this morning to check on the placenta but couldn't see much. He is turned towards my back so we got to see his butt and the back of his head. :) His head is up by my right ribs (so he's been PUNCHING my ribs this week!) and his feet are in my left lower area. He's diagonal right now. Much different from my last ultrasound where he was horizontal and his head was the thing on my left lower area! Didn't get to see his face though since he's turned the wrong way. Sill very wiggly though, Dr. Keeler had a hard time getting measurements on him because he wouldn't sit still long enough. :)

Yesterday afternoon after meeting with some of my professors to try to get this master's degree completed, we went and hung out with my sister and nephew for a while. Ryan is 3 weeks old already! He's filling out a little more. His preemie clothes now fit. :) I think Kristen said he's about 6 1/2 pounds now. He was a bit grumpy yesterday though. Amazing however, how Uncle Josh could hold him and Ryan would quit crying and fall asleep. Must be magic! Good to know though- our kid cries, he goes to Daddy. :)

oh, so tired.

Oh man, it's been forever since I updated this! I can't believe how busy I've been. I'm so exhausted. But it's all been for a good reason. I finished up my summer schooling today!! Our big final tests were this morning. I'm just waiting around now to hear from my committee chairperson so I can get my B paper bound and turned in and hopefully I can get that defended this week. I HAVE to get it defended by next Monday- my chairperson is leaving for Bulgaria on Tuesday! Hopefully he gets back to me soon so I can go home! I can't believe I'm finally done. Now I can spend the summers at home and not have to move away for a month or more! This summer was a bear- tough, tough. I'm glad it's over.

Some new developments in the baby world- the baby has now discovered that my bladder is not only a good pillow, but a good punching bag! That is the most uncomfortable feeling in the world, to feel like all of a sudden you are going to pee a little in your pants and you can't do anything about it! Not nice. Another development is the baby has found my ribs. Oh, the joys. I thought maybe after the first kick in the ribs, he'd figure out that it hurts and not do it anymore. Nope. He likes those ribs. He's definitely getting bigger- he's moving around ALL THE TIME (hardly EVER sits still- can you have ADHD in the womb? :) ) and it's spread out on my belly now. No longer am I just feeling him moving down low, but now up high and down low at the same time. We have another ultrasound on Thursday, so it will be fun to see what exactly is where so I know if it's him punching my ribs, kicking my ribs, or head butting my ribs. :)

HOORAY!!

Some of you may remember last Christmas, I was so bummed because I couldn't find my Christmas village that I had started the year before. I had no idea what happened to it when we moved. I knew EXACTLY where it was in my house in Lingle, but lost track of it when we loaded everything from the house to the storage unit, and from the storage unit to Saratoga. We looked all over in the garage, where most of our stuff is stored now, and we couldn't find it when I set up my Christmas stuff last winter. I was so sad. I was pretty sure someone had come in my garage and stole it. And only it. :)

Well, Josh called this morning and had been in the garage, and he found my village!! It was in a box in the garage. Don't know why we couldn't find it when we looked all over, but there it was today, plain as day! I'm so happy. I loved those village pieces- Josh had picked out a fire station and a school house for me, my Mom had given me a nutcracker house, and my grandma had given me an egg nog pub, each of those pieces meant something to me. I'm so glad to have it back! I want to set it up tonight, but Josh said it can wait a few more months. :)

lies, lies, lies.

I made Josh call Dr. Keeler's office this morning (because I thought I'd get mad and cry again) to see exactly WHY we had to go see a dietitian. He started off talking to his nurse who didn't know, so she actually got Dr. Keeler on the phone. That never happens!! Dr. Keeler told Josh he never told anyone to send us to the dietitian. He said, "I DID say to go to the lab to get your blood drawn, but not to the dietitian!" Josh said that was fine, lab work was no big deal, but that we were pretty upset about the rest of the hospital visit since nobody would tell us WHY we were there and Dr. Keeler had never told us anything about it. Dr. Keeler apologized and said he'd look into why we were told that by the nurse at the clinic. Josh told him I was pretty stressed and freaked out crying yesterday and he laughed and said "It's not the first time- we can deal with crying mothers". :)

Makes me feel better though, that Dr. Keeler actually DIDN'T send us to the dietitian. I'm glad I was mad enough yesterday to not stick around for that consult- the dietitian won't talk to you unless you go through admitting, which would cost us money! To hear the same stuff Dr. Keeler told us at my appointment on Tuesday, we don't need to pay for that! I wonder why that nurse was making things up, sending us there.

For now, we're trying to keep my sugar levels up overnight by having me eat some protein before bed and eating right away when I get up in the morning. I felt good today, so hopefully that will control things. I also have to keep some candy with me so if I DO have some episodes again, I can get some sugar in me right away. Hopefully, we'll get this under control and keep it that way!

It was super hot here today. My internal heater (aka- baby) does nothing to help keep me warm when it's cold out, but when it's hot out, watch out! I'm hotter than hot!! And things are beginning to get extremely squished in there- my lungs I think are now half the size they used to be and my ribs aren't liking the invasion of things squishing them. :)

sugar

I called the doctor's office on Monday and talked to the nurse about my sugar levels. She told me to come in Friday at 11:30. However, yesterday morning, my sugar level went down to 36. Yikes! So I called again and had an appointment sent for 4:00 yesterday afternoon. Josh was on his way back from Cheyenne, so he was able to come with me. I gained 4 1/2 pounds in a week and a half. Yikes. :) I'm up to 135.5 now.

Dr. Keeler told me what is probably going on is pregnancy-induced hypoglycemia, making my sugar level really low in the mornings. Dr. Keeler told me to come in to the clinic this morning and they'd draw my blood real fast, we'd check my sugar with the glucometer I have, and we'd compare. He said it would take 5 minutes. No problem. Josh and I got there a little after 9, I think, and sat for 30 minutes until they finally called me in, but it was only to tell me that they weren't testing me there, I had to go to the lab at the hospital and then they were going to send me to a dietitian to make sure I get some tips. Ugh. Wasn't planning on spending that much time doing this!

SO. We go to the lab, where they are PACKED. We didn't have to wait as long as I thought, but had to wait anyway. They drew my blood and sent me on my way. We went to see the dietitian, so sent us to some other lady who apparently was waiting for us, to teach us how to use the glucometer. HELLO, I don't need to know how to do that. She couldn't pronounce my name (Even my FIRST NAME!) and murdered it even after Josh told her my name, SLOW, and she repeated it back, WRONG!! Dummy. That happened about 5 times. She then got all worried because we didn't go through admitting first (nobody ever told us to) and she told us the lab wasn't even supposed to draw blood without me being admitted. Josh told her the lab had all my lables printed out for my vials and everything, and she got real concerned. Josh was telling her we don't need help learning how to use the glucometer because he does it every day on the EMT stuff, and the dietitian was telling us she couldn't give us any "health education" without being admitted, and by this time my pregnant hormones had kicked in and I was bawling because I wasn't planning on spending this whole time at the hospital, I figured I was going to still have plenty of time to study for my test this afternoon this morning, and now I didn't, so on and so forth. The dietitian asked if I had eaten anything lately, and I said, "How could I? I thought I was only going to be away from home for 5 minutes today!" She said she'd go make me a half a sandwich (that I'm sure would've cost me $15) and I told her I was not waiting for her to make me a sandwich, I just wanted to go home. I also told her I don't NEED health education, I just needed some tips on how to keep my sugar up in the mornings, when it's low, and that Dr. Keeler had told me some tips yeterday, and that I did NOT want to be admitted into the hospital so I could pay to get the same tips. (Not to mention, Josh was the manager of dietary, and my mother-in-law still is!!) All this time, I'm still bawling. Finally, both ladies suggested I come back another day "and go through admitting first!!" Fine. So we left. I felt bad for taking my stress and hormones out on them, but give me a break. We didn't need to do all this! Dr. Keeler was in surgery so we couldn't even talk to him.

SO, we didn't get out of the hospital until 10:40 or so. Ridiculous. All this for a 5 minute blood draw.

So my morning didn't start off too well. :( And I still have this stupid test that I'm going to fail because the stupid professor pulls things out of thin air to test us on. But I've decided that I don't get paid any more money for a 4.0 GPA instead of a 3.7 GPA, so if I don't ace this class, I really don't care anymore.

Scary episodes

I've had a couple scary episodes lately. First one happened two Mondays ago, on our first day of summer classes. I didn't walk very far, but when I did, my legs got numb, my belly got real tight, I couldn't catch my breath, and my vision kept getting blurry. I felt like I was going to pass out. I finally made it back to the apartment and sat down, and my vision blacked out. I mentioned it to my doctor at my appointment that Thursday, and he said he wouldn't worry about it unless it happened again, since I don't have a history of heart problems or things like that. We just attributed it to the heat since it was pretty hot in Laramie that day.

I felt pretty good until this past Friday, when it happened again, and it happened again on Saturday while in Target with my parents and Josh. I actually had to sit down in the middle of the aisle to keep from passing out. With my vision changes, I wondered if it might be blood sugar related. So since we were at Target, Josh bought a blood glucose monitor and stuck me with it. HOLY LOW SUGAR- it was only at 45! That's dangerous low. "Normal" is between 80-120. He got me a 7-Up to get my sugars back up. Finally after a day of eating a lot, it got up to 88. He stuck me again before I got out of bed this morning and it was a tad low still- 73. At lunch time it was up to 78.

So now I'm debating whether or not to call my doctor. My next appointment is in 2 1/2 weeks. They'll be doing the glucose test then too. I suppose I should just call and see if they want me to come in. I'm going to be in Laramie this week anyway, so I might as well since the drive will only be 5 minutes instead of 90!

Time to get my laundry in the wash so I have some clothes to wear this week- it would be awfully embarrassing if I didn't have any shirts. :)

He's Here!!

I have a new nephew!! Ryan Dean Winegar was born at 9:05 a.m. on Tuesday, June 20. He weighed in at a whole 5 pounds, 8 ounces, and is 19 inches long. A long skinny guy!! He's in perfect health though. They got to go home this morning. Here are a couple pictures.

doctor's appointment

My doctor's appointment went well last week. I decided I like the morning appointments- It was scheduled for 9:45 and I was out of there by 10:10! They thought my blood pressure was low (104 over something) compared to the past couple times I've been in, but when Josh takes it for me at home, it's always that low. So no biggie. I gained 7 3/4 pounds, so I've gained a total of 9 so far in 23 weeks. I'm up to a whopping 131 now. I've never been in the 130 range, it's a new experience for me. :)

The baby's been moving a lot the past few days. Wonder what's so exciting in there. I didn't sleep worth a darn last night, my back has been hurting so bad that I would just rather not go to bed at all. Last night, I was in tears because no matter what I did, it still hurt. I even tried sleeping in the recliner in the living room, and that didn't do anything either. So I ordered an expensive pregnancy pillow finally this morning. Hopefully that will help, because it will be a l-o-n-g four months if I can't sleep ever!! Last night, however, every time I was awake (which was most of the night- I think I only got good sleep between 4:00 and 5:30 this morning), the baby was up moving around too. Must be quite the party in there.

in school. :(

So we just finished our 3rd day of summer school. It's sure different this summer. Our two morning classes don't meet, they're just "work on your own and check in with me" type classes. One is to type our B Paper, and the other is an instrumentation and arranging class where we have to arrange a song for our own group at school at home. That shouldn't be too hard.

I tried real hard to work on my paper this morning, but technology got in my way. First, my Adobe Acrobat wasn't updated on my laptop that I hardly use except for in the summers, but we have dial-up internet here so it took almost 2 hours to download. Then my printer ran out of ink. THEN I find out that my committee chairperson is only going to be in the country from July 1-17. So I have to be done and defended by then!

I'm living in the same apartment that we lived in our first summer when I met Josh. I think that's kind of neat, it's like making a full circle since this is our last summer. We started and ended in the same apartment. This apartment has lots of good memories for me, that's for sure! :) I'm living with Erin, who I've lived with every summer, and our friend Kris. Kris is the choir teacher in Torrington and he's always hanging out with us, so we told him he might as well just live with us since he was over at our apartment all the time anyway! We gave him Josh's old room- it's the biggest and has it's own bathroom.

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning, so I'll let you know what happens. Probably nothing too important. Our next ultrasound isn't until next month, so I'm assuming they'll just make me pee in the cup again and measure my belly. We'll see how much I've gained, too. I have a feeling it's more than the 1/4 pound I gained last month.

moving!

I keep forgetting to post this, but the coolest thing lately about this baby is that now when he kicks, you can see my belly moving! It's so fun to watch. Especially when he moves whatever he's moving all the way across my stomach- you can see the whole movement go across.

The baby went to his first football game last night, the Shrine Bowl. I think he liked it- he was moving and squirming and kicking for most of the game. And most of the way home. He's been quiet so far this morning- yesterday must have worn him out. :)

No big news here, but some big news for my sister. Kristen is 37 weeks pregnant now and has been having problems for the past 5 weeks or so. The poor girl- her husband's wedding ring doesn't even fit on her fingers, and her feet and ankles remind me of an elephant's feet and ankles. :) She's been diagnosed with pregnancy-induced hypertension along with pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel syndrome and she can't keep her blood pressure down. She has another doctor's appt. today, and they might just decide to induce her. The baby isn't growing enough because her body is so strained, so maybe they should just induce her, get baby Ryan out, so he can grow and Mom can get better! If they don't induce her today, I bet she won't go past next weekend anyway. So I should have another nephew very, very soon!

Tomorrow Josh and I are headed to Casper for the Shrine Bowl. One of Josh's players for the Saratoga team got chosen to play in it, along with the Saratoga head coach and Josh's coach from high school getting chosen to coach. So we'll go up and watch. Then we have to come back because Sunday morning Josh gets his big chance to play at Old Baldy. He's in a tournament there, and then when he's done, it's time to head to Laramie so I can start my last summer of my master's degree. It's only 4 weeks this summer, so that is super nice. I will then just have to get my paper done and defended before July 25!

21 weeks, 4 days

Here it is: Here's what I look like at 21 weeks, 4 days. My waist is at about 37 inches!

catching up

Summer's here!! We got out of school Friday and Josh and I headed up to Lingle. Josh's aunt Barbara, his cousin Holly, her husband Caleb, and their kids Benjamin and Gabriel came from Missouri for the long weekend too. It was fun to catch up with them. Holly is about 5 weeks behind me in her 3rd pregnancy. Josh golfed in a tournament Saturday and Sunday, then Monday afternoon we headed for Denver for our anniversary. Monday celebrated 2 years!

We shopped until we dropped in Denver, that's for sure! Hit some great sales and came home with a summer wardrobe for me, some new things for Josh and some new things for the baby, too. He has a great start on clothes now! Josh got a little polo-shirt happy. He bought 7 for the baby in one store. I told him the baby would look just like his Daddy now, since Josh has something like 53 polo shirts. :)

The baby had a pretty quiet week until today. He's been wiggling like crazy today. I'm pretty sure he had hiccups too- felt the same movement every 3 seconds for about 30 seconds. That was pretty fun! He also moved hard enough to make me jump awake from my nap this afteroon!

We got registered at Babies-R-Us this week. If you want to look, search for our name, but make sure you put in WYOMING for the state we live in. There is another Joshua and Kara Sandlian registered there (VERY STRANGE...) but they live in Colorado and they had their baby already. Plus, I think the stuff she registered for is kinda ugly, so please don't buy anything from hers. :) We bought our crib and stroller this week, and ordered our beding this afternoon, so things are coming along!!

Here's our bedding:
http://www.beyond-bedding.com/caca9pcinqua.html

This is our stroller:
http://tinyurl.com/ptz5y

This is our beautiful crib:
http://tinyurl.com/mrq6t

And this is our diaper bag:
http://tinyurl.com/sx2gw

And since BRU has had our high chair out of stock online since I registered for it, we found it at Target so here's a picture so you can see what it looks like:
http://tinyurl.com/nkz89


Kara

scary!

Well, the baby gave us a little scare last night. Yesterday, about 1:30 or 2:00, my belly started getting sharp, sharp shooting pains going through it. It was killing my back, too. I could hardly walk, and nothing was helping. It didn't go away. I went home after school and laid down on my side, and they went away, but then I had to get up and go to Encampment's athletic banquet and they started up again as soon as I got up. When we got dinner, I took 2 Tylenol and they went away for an hour, but then came back pretty strong again. I was almost in tears. And the baby wasn't moving anymore. Dr. Noton, our only doctor in town, and who loves Josh because of all his EMT stuff, was at the banquet so when it was over, Josh asked her if she'd come take a look at me. She asked some questions, poked me in some places, and said I need to go to the clinic. They had an intern this month, (none of us knew about him!) that is leaving on Friday to go back to Casper to finish his OB stuff and do that full-time, so that was handy, since our clinic doesn't normally do OB! She called him to see if he could meet us at the clinic.

So we got there about 8:45 last night, and he took my history, asked lots of questions, and thought he better find a heartbeat. The dopplar at the clinic HURTS! It has a tiny little poky end and he practically had to push all they way through my stomach to get a sound. Owie! But he found the baby's heartbeat, 156 bpm. Whew! He took a urine sample to rule out a UTI. It came back that I DON'T have a UTI (thank goodness), and he doesn't *think* I was having pre-term contractions, even though I was pretty dehydrated, he said most likely it's those three sets of muscles on each of my sides stretching and they all got pulled yesterday. That's why they hurt. I had done one dance with my kindergarteners, but it wasn't a strenuous dance, but it must have been enough to pull all my muscles. So he told me to go home, lay down (he liked that I felt better when I laid down, that showed more that it wasn't contractions), and drink water. He said he'd send me to the hospital to get hooked up to all the fancy machines, just to make sure they weren't contractions, but he had a feeling they'd just tell me the same thing he did and charge me a lot of money for the "fancy water" that I could get for free at home. :) He was really nice.

It was a pretty painful night, every time I rolled over, I woke up hurting real bad. But this morning I only ache on my right side and it's not nearly as bad as it was last night. Josh is pretty cute- he put restrictions on me. I cannot move around today, I have to drink LOTS of water, and tomorrow during clean-up day, I am NOT to walk with the kids, I am to ride in the pick-up with my co-class sponsor. :) He even told me if I don't drink enough water, he's calling his little EMT friends to come put an IV in me.

I joked to my family that now I'm catching up to my sister in Dr. visits- she now has to go 2 times a week, she had to do a 24-hour urine collection Monday and Tuesday, she's back on modified bed-rest, etc. Sheesh. She has about 5 weeks to go, but the dr. doesn't think she'll go more than 2-3.

Today is better- I only am sore sometimes. Nothing like yeserday's pain though, so that's good.

HALFWAY!

We're halfway there! I hit the 20 week mark today. I can't believe how fast time has flown. It seems like yesterday that we found out that we were finally pregnant, and now we're halfway through! The baby (who shall remain nameless- we HAVE a name, but you don't get to know it!!) was pretty active yesterday. Lots of partying going on down there. He did stop moving around and took a nap at one point, until Josh decided to see if he could wake him up by using his finger to push on my belly gently. Gently, but enough to wake him up, because it worked! He didn't stop moving for several more hours. I even got a kick hard enough to move my hand! He's a mover and a wiggler, that's for sure. (Maybe he'll be the next star kicker for his high school football team?) I made Josh promise that after the baby is born, when he is sleeping, there will be NO waking him up just to see him move. :)

I have now hit the 11 day mark for no throwing up! It's a wonderful feeling.

ultrasound!

Well, we're pretty sure my Grandma won't be getting her great-granddaughter she's been wanting. Dr. Keeler wouldn't confirm anything since we weren't totally positive we wanted to know what the baby is, but he knows we saw (as far as we know,) some boy parts, and at the end of the ultrasound, he said, "Well, you already have your suspicions", with a knowing smile on his face. So we're pretty sure we're having a little football player. We can get it confirmed on our next ultrasound if we want to, which I'll get to in a minute.

We got to the appt. at 2:00 yesterday, and there was NOBODY in the waiting room. I thought that was strange. The lady at the desk then told me that Dr. Keeler had to go do an emergency C-section, and could we come back at 3:00 and see if we needed to re-schedule? I said no problem to the coming back at 3:00, but we couldn't re-schedule because we came from so far away! So Josh and I went to Wal-mart to kill time and then came back at 2:45. Good thing we came back early- Dr. Keeler was on his way back from the hospital and we got in within 5 minutes! (And when we were done, there were no empty chairs in the waiting room- we would've been there all night!) My blood pressure was high though- need to watch that. It was 134/64, and it never gets that high. Josh took it later that night and it was pretty low- 104/something. Crazy. And I've gained a whole QUARTER of a pound since a month ago- I'm "up" to 123.25. A whole pound and a quarter heavier than where I started! :)

The baby looks great- everything is measuring as it is supposed to, and there's no thickening of the neck, which could indicate Down Syndrome, no extra vertebrae, we saw the footprint, meaning no club feet, no cleft palate, etc. He has a good beating 4-chamber heart, too. :) It was beating at 150 bpm. He pushed the "camera" away at one point, we saw him turn towards it, then put his hands up and his hands got bigger while his face got smaller- he was pushing away! He was awful squirmy, too, Dr. Keeler had a hard time looking at things at times!! He flipped around since the night before, too- Josh felt him kick on my right side Tues. night, and yesterday, his feet were on my left side. But then when we went to bed, he was kicking on my right again! Dr. Keeler said they flip a lot when they have this much room. Yesterday was the first day I've felt distinct kicks- and they're coming pretty often now! Josh felt them last night and giggled each time it happened. It was pretty cute. :)

The good news is, I get a 3rd ultrasound. (They usually only give you 2- once at the beginning, once around 20 weeks.) The bad news is, it's because my placenta is really low, which could indicate placenta previa. That's when the placenta is really, really low and covers the cervix, meaning I can't deliver "normally", I would have to have a c-section. We'll check it again in an ultrasound in July and see if it's moved up any. The next ultrasound will probably be a 3-D one, so we'd really get to see what the baby looks like!!

moving

Josh got to feel the baby last night! We were laying in bed watching
teh 10:00 news and I felt the baby get all wiggly. He put his hand
there and a minute later, BAM! He felt him move! Just once though,
then the baby must have decided to go to sleep because he quit being
wiggly. I'm beginning to be able to feel him move a little more often
now too.

kids say the darndest things.

I've had quite a few humorous things said to me by my elementary students as they figure out I'm pregnant. Most classes know now, I think it's only the kindergarten that hasn't figured it out. A few of those kids know, but not all of them. (Don't know how they could miss it the past couple days- I've gotten pretty big this week!) Anyway, here's some of the highlights of what has been said:

2nd grade found out first, since our principal's son is in that class. They came to music one day and Guy said, very accusingly, "I know about you." He then told the rest of the class and they all looked straight at my belly and said, "You don't look like you are." (This was very early in my pregnancy.) I told them to wait until we got back from summer vacation, and I was going to be super fat! A few days later, I was wearing an empire-waisted dress shirt that I love and Hunter said, "You're right, Mrs. Sandlian! You ARE getting fat!"

An aide in our school has a kindergartener who was VERY upset one day because she had to share her birthday party at school with a boy in her class who has the same birthday. This little girl, Micaiah, cried the night before, because the little boy was bringing the cupcakes and Micaiah was bringing the punch. "Mrs. Sandlian is having a baby and the baby NEEDS a cupcake! And Mrs. Sandlian LOVES cupcakes! Can't we cut into my birthday cake early so I can bring a piece to Mrs. Sandlian?" That story just about made me cry. How sweet that she was so worried that I wasn't getting a cupcake!

5th and 6th grade found out next. They were all just very worried that I wasn't coming back next year. Coming from a class that is a continuous struggle to get them to do anything, that was a nice compliment.

1st grade came in about a month later and one of the girls said, "I heard on the playground that you are having a baby." I told them that was true, I was having a baby! Mollie, our secretary's daughter, said, "OH! Are you getting married now?" HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Still laughing about that one. Her mom was so embarrassed when I told her that. It's still the joke in our faculty- they want to know if I've found a husband now that I'm "in the family way". I'm telling them I'm still looking. :)

3rd and 4th grade were the latest to find out. WAY later than the other classes! They figured it out when I was about 16 weeks along! One kid said in class, "I can't wait to see your baby!" The rest of the kids gasped at the same time and I heard a big, "YOU'RE HAVING A BABY!??!!" Keona told me, "No offense, Mrs. Sandlian, but I wondered why you were gaining weight in your stomach." Still laughing about that one, too. :)

Oh, kids say the darndest things...

This is cool!!

Every once in a while, we get out the stethescope to see if we can hear the baby's heartbeat. We haven't been able to yet, but last night I got it out and could hear the baby moving around for the first time! I gave it to Josh to listen, and he found the baby kicking!! It was so cool! I listened and heard the baby kick 4 times. Sounded like a thump in there. Then I had Josh check my blood pressure, just to check, and then listened again but either I couldn't find him kicking, or he got bored and stopped. I could still hear him moving though. I've felt movements that feel like little twitches for the past week or so, but nothing too strong and no kicks yet. Soon, maybe!

Busy week this week- I have my photoshop class tonight, and Josh has a fire meeting. Tomorrow, all 3 animals go for their shots at 4:30. I'm making Josh come with to help. Last time I did it by myself and it was a disaster. Birdie is nervous and whines and cowers, Hogan is all excited and wants to run and play with everyone, and Charlie sits and howls and hisses in her cage. So much fun. Then, we have to hurry and get to Encampment for Josh's football meeting at 6, then my elementary program at 7. Each grade is doing a couple songs on their own, instead of like the Christmas concert where everyone did all the songs together. That's nice so I don't have to rehearse them all together, but I have a lot more stuff to get organized, like the 2nd graders' kazoos, the 1st graders' rhythm instruments, etc. One more concert after tomorrow's- on teh 16th. Then I'm "done" for the year!! No more concerts until after the baby's born. That's kind of a weird feeling!

so tired!

For all you ladies that read this, and haven't had children yet, here's something that probably nobody else will tell you. NOT EVERYONE'S FATIGUE GETS BETTER IN THE SECOND TRIMESTER!! Everyone always tells you, "oh, don't worry. You're only tired the first trimester and then it's so much better." Not for everyone! I'm so tired STILL. My house looks like a tornado went through it. I have every intention on cleaning a little when I get home from school, but I just can't. I sit down and I pretty much cannot move again! Last night, in fact, I fell asleep on the couch at 7:30. And that's only because I MADE myself stay awake that long! I woke up at 8:45 and went to bed right away. I DO live with 2 boys that should be cleaning up for me though... Wonder why they haven't started that.

I hit the 16 week mark yesterday. Didn't take any measurements because my tape measure seems to be missing. I did weigh myself, but my scale is different from the doctor's office because I only weighed 120 (barely) on it, when I weighed 123 at the doctor's office last week. So I really can't count that weight. I know I'm not losing weight, so I'll just have to wait until our next appointment.

catching up

I had my first run-in with the pregnancy police last Wednesday. I was talking to a teacher friend of mine about my headaches and migraines and how they've come back since week 13 after not having a single one for the first trimester. I told her the doctor prescribed me Midrin and that caffeine helps sometimes too. In walks another teacher and starts chewing me out. HARD. Tells me I need to start thinking about my baby (hello, like I don't always?!) and how all this is going to make the baby's head wired wrong and so on and so forth. I told her that I'm going to trust my doctor and what he tells and she starts in on me again about how none of this is good for the baby. I walked out the door at that point, saying, "And the baby's mom, laying in bed in pain so bad that she throws up until 4 in the morning, then has to go to work on 2 hours of sleep isn't good for the baby either, so I'll take the pills and ceffeine." Next time, I'll tell her to be glad she won't have to have my "mis-wired kid" in her kindergarten class because there's no way I'd chose to send my kid to Encampment if she's still here teaching! She's a grump anyway and is ALWAYS "right" about anything and everything.

I went to Salt Lake City Wed. night-Saturday last week. WHAT A BLAST! I had so much fun. I found some great bargains while doing some shopping, too. A $30 yellow newborn sweater at Baby Gap for $8, some maternity clothes on sale, and on Saturday coming home we found the Outlet Malls in Park City where I found more great deals. More maternity clothes, and a green sweater and Christmas onesie at Osh Kosh B'Gosh for $11 total, and a sleeper and 5 washcloths for $11 total also.

While at the conference, Mom and I got to meet Keith Lockhart, the conductor of the Boston Pops Symphony. He's awesome! We also got to sit 20 feet in front of the Army Herald Trumpets, which only presidents of the US get to do. Those herald trumpets play so great! That was an awesome part of the trip. We also got to see a concert by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Oak Ridge Boys!! It was recorded to put on TV this summer, so make sure you keep your eyes out for that and watch it! What an amazing experience that was!

Josh left early yesterday morning for the week- he took the 8th graders from Saratoga to the Teton Science School. I can tell the dogs miss him- they look all over the house for him in the morning. I miss him too. :(

I thought maybe my morning sickness was going away, since I didn't throw up for 5 days. But it came back this morning. Maybe it's a fluke. Keep your fingers crossed. :)

Another doctor's appointment

Well, Josh and I took a half day each off work yesterday, using my precious sick days that I want to save for maternity leave. Our doctor's appointment in Laramie was scheduled for 2:45. At 4:20, we finally saw the doctor. If I would've known that, we wouldn't have had to take any sick leave!! And we saw the doctor for a whole 10 minutes. What a good baby I have though, he (or she) kicked Dr. Keeler. Dr. Keeler was trying to find the heartbeat with the dopplar, but the baby was moving around too much. (I wish I could feel that! But I can't yet.) Dr. Keeler pressed a little harder with the dopplar, and BOOM! The baby kicked him like he was saying, "HEY! Leave me alone!" We finally heard the heartbeat though. Steady and strong, that's for sure!!

I did get a prescription for my migraines. The first 3 months of pregnancy were WONDERFUL. Like headache heaven. I didn't get a single headache, let alone migraine! Then 13 weeks hit and not only do I get a headache every day, but last Monday got my first pregnant migraine. I was up all night in throbbing pain and throwing up until 4:00 a.m. What a long night! Poor Josh was probably pretty tired the next day too, since he was up with me! Hopefully this medicine will help when I feel one coming on.

It hit 71 degrees on our way to Laramie, and on our way home, it was 32 and blizzarding. No joke. Gotta love Wyoming weather in the springtime!

Hope everyone had a great Easter! It was just me and Josh this year. We didn't get any days off school for traveling, and I HATE eating Easter dinner in the afternoon and leaving to come home right away. Especially now that I get so carsick now that I'm pregnant. So we had a nice quiet day by ourselves. It was very enjoyable.

I'm off to Salt Lake City for the MENC National Convention tomorrow, so I'll catch you all up when I get home!

Ultrasound

Finally, it lets me post our ultrasound picture! This was taken at 11 weeks. It's only one baby, but two pictures. I think it has Josh's head. :)

This was taken at 13 weeks, 1 day. Weight- still 121. Waist- 33 inches and a tiny bit. Sorry, it's a little blurry.

PS....

I just noticed for the first time that Robyn left me a message! Whoo-hoo! :) Robyn, I have the Sea Bands. I've been wearing them for several weeks now. They do help a little! I recommend them to anyone!!

Changing

Boy, has my stomach changed in the past couple days. Not only is it getting bigger, but it's getting wider. My belly button is pretty shallow already. And Josh noticed a few tiny stretch marks the other day. I'm thinking maybe they were just marks from my waistband of my pants, because I can't see them any more.

Whacky weather here- it was in the 60's Wednesday and then today and yesterday it's been snowing. Supposed to be 60 again tomorrow. Strange.

Have a great weekend!

Man, I'm not very good at keeping this updated, am I?! I guess that's because there's really nothing new to report. My morning sickness is getting WORSE. I'm now throwing up every single morning unless I get to sleep in. But when I get up for work, forget it. I spend the first 5 minutes of my morning over the sink!

It rained and rained yesterday. At one point, our dogs were outside and when I went to let them in, both dogs were dripping wet and Birdie was just caked with mud. She had a great time playing outside. And she went straight into the bathtub when she came in, I made sure of that! The drain got plugged with so much dirt. She doesn't mind a bath though, she knows she'll get a bone afterwards. :)

I'll be 13 weeks tomorrow- one more week until the 2nd trimester starts. Then maybe all the puking will stop!!! (HA! Wishful thinking!!)

long time, no hear.

It's been forever since I've posted anything! We've been pretty busy. Josh and I are on Spring Break this week (and it's been MUCH NEEDED!!). We left last Friday to go to Gillette for the weekend. On Monday, we had our first dr. appt., which I'll get to in a minute. Since we've been back home, we've been remodeling our master bathroom. We put in some new tile in the shower, took out the vanity so we can put in a pedestal sink, and once we got the vanity out, realized there's no tile under there, so we had to completely re-do the floor, too. I say WE in all this, but really, it's been Josh. He doesn't want me smelling fumes or lifting. He's so great. Tonight we'll try to get the walls painted and the floor in over the sub-floor Josh installed this afternoon after pulling out all the tiles. Poor Josh is very sore tonight!!

Now for the doctor's appt. We got to have an ultrasound done, and I'm posting pictures up. The baby is just under 2 inches long. :) The heartbeat was 180 bpm, and everything looks great! We go again on April 17th, but won't have another ultrasound done until I hit about 20 weeks. I'm at just over 11 now.

I tried to post the ultrasound picture, but it won't work for some reason. I'll have to try again later.

boring, long night.

Since I'm stuck at work until 8:00 tonight for Parent/Teacher conferences, I thought now would be a great time to update the blog. It's 6:43 right now. Conferences started almost 3 hours ago and I've seen a whole 2 parents. It's always the parents of the good kids that come to visit you, never the parents you NEED to talk to. Like the mother of one of my jr. high kids, who, out of 17 assignments for 3rd quarter, has 11 0's. That's right, ELEVEN 0's. Now, when I was a kid, NOT turning in my homework was never an option for me. I never even thought about it. Thank you for raising me right, Mom and Dad!

The worst part about this is that I won't get home until almost 8:30 tonight, meaning I'll miss most of the Amazing Race. Grr. And then I have to get up and go to school again tomorrow. Thursday night, another night of conferences. Good thing we have Friday off to compensate!

Baby Hannah

I mentioned earlier that my great friend from college, Beth, has a little 11 month old girl who was born with Down Syndrome. They found out a couple weeks ago that Hannah has Leukemia. Please keep Hannah, her parents Beth and Jerry, her brother Colton, and the rest of their extended family in your thoughts and prayers! Here is a website for those of you that want to see some great pictures of Hannah and the family, and keep updated about her condition:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/hannahhopster

She's a strong baby girl with an even stronger family, so I know they will pull through this with flying colors!

8 weeks

8 weeks today! The Zantac and Sea Bands seemed to help today. I felt better and had more energy than I've had in quite a while.

Here's what I look like at 8 weeks:
It's all belly, no bloat anymore! I feel big from the front, and I also noticed today how much I've gained on my sides! I now have "fat" on my rib cage through my hips, which I've never had before. I haven't gained any weight though, I've actually lost it. Weight at 8 weeks: 118

Here's another picture of our baby's first shoes. I bought these little tiny golf shoes for Josh about a year ago and we can now get them out!!