GC trip

We had a great time at GC this weekend. We were able to spend time with friends and family both. I made a photo album from Kent's birthday party. It's listed on Heath's Picasa albums, but the content is mine, so if the comments don't sound like him, that's why. :-)

Kents BDay

frustration

Can I just complain for a minute? I am so ready not to be pregnant anymore. I don't mind being huge and unwieldy, and I actually love feeling the baby move all the time, but I am so tired of feeling bad all the time. I never feel rested, I am almost always desperately wishing I could go back to bed. I can sleep 10 hours and still crave an afternoon nap (and my kids don't take afternoon naps anymore, so it's not a possibility). The last couple of weeks I have been battling heartburn. My emotions are off the chart, and I have lost all capacity for logical reasoning and at times for any coherent thought. I'm tired of feeling like a loser because of not having any energy to do my chores or to cook, tired of feeling like I am disappointing and stressing out my husband all the time (don't worry, he never says this, those are just my projections). I look around the house at all I want to get done before the baby gets here, and I hate not having the energy to do those things. I have attempted several of these projects and ended up totally wiped out and back in bed.

I am not a good pregnant person. :-( I try to keep a positive attitude most of the time, but I let frustration with my physical limitations get to me too often.

recent events and thoughts

Today at the playground, Ethan pulled down his pants and underwear to his ankles and peed on the sand in front of the playground equipment. Two moms sitting closer than me saw it first, and of course he was done before I could reach him anyway. You just get used to the embarrassment as a parent, don't you? You hardly even notice it anymore. Maybe my gratitude that he didn't pee in his pants overshadowed my embarrassment.

I am starting to feel like the baby will be here really soon. I am trying to ready the house and myself. Isn't it strange how baby items disappear between pregnancies? Of course, we have moved twice, so that would explain a lot. But I can't locate our bassinet sheets, my Avent pump, several maternity shirts, and probably quite a few other things I haven't noticed are missing yet. I know it could be much worse. It is more puzzling than worrisome. The baby's room is still far from ready, the worst of it being the flowered wall paper. I tell myself I have until 3 months after he is born to have it ready, since he will sleep in a bassinet by our bed at first. But I know that really I want it done before he arrives.

We are visiting GC this weekend. It is the last weekend I can travel, according to my OB's recommendations, and there are a lot of people in GC we haven't seen for too long. My dear friend is moving from GC all the way to California, and now I wish we had visited more often over the last 20 months. As long as someone is within the state they don't seem too far away. Even though our move meant reducing our contact with friends and family in GC from several times a week to half a dozen times a year, anyone else moving away seems like a bigger change. I guess it depends on your perspective, whether you are the one moving or being moved away from, doesn't it?

Our grass is coming up in the backyard, and it is so lovely. We had virtually no grass last year. Our spring planting was flooded by weeks of rain, so there are patches with no growth where the seed was washed away. But the rest of the yard, where it is coming up thick and lush, makes up for it as far as I am concerned. Maybe I'll get a picture of it on here in the next few days.

false alarm?!?

I went in for an OB appointment today, the first one since I received the results from my 24 hour protein test. The doctor says I DO NOT have a diagnosis of preeclampsia, since none of my numbers have been over the threshold for making that diagnosis. In fact, she seemed to think I am pretty healthy, still! She said that I have had only the one blood pressure reading that was borderline and higher than normal for me (the one that prompted the 24 hour protein test), and that reading could have been caused by me being stressed out or having been rushing around or other similar reasons. My blood pressure today was 122/70, which is perfect for me. I was so delightedly bewildered by the prognosis that I asked them to take it again before I left. They had me sit quietly for a while (after I had already been sitting for over an hour waiting and talking to the doctor), and the reading dropped even farther, to 102/70. Also, there was no protein in the dipstick test, which is more good news; although the dipstick tests are not as accurate as the 24 hour test I did last week.

I asked the doctor how there could be any protein in my 24 hour test if I don't have preeclampsia. The nurse had told me on the phone last Thursday that any protein in your urine is not normal, and that it meant mild preeclampsia. The doctor explained that there are other reasonable scenerios that could cause protein to show up in the test, other than my kidneys spilling protein into my urine from being damaged by preeclampsia. This was very reassuring, because hearing that I had protein in my urine was kind of the clincher for me believing the nurse who told me I did have preeclampsia again. I didn't know any reason other than preeclampsia to have that, and if I was spilling even a little bit of protein from my kidneys now, then it was only a matter of how quickly the disease would progress and how severe it would get. It doesn't go away once it starts, not in the natural course of things anyway (Although I totally leave room for God's supernatural intervention!).

My high blood pressure reading Monday night was probably due to being worried about what was going to happen to me and to the baby. I guess I shouldn't have taken what the nurse said so seriously until I was able to talk to the doctor. I'm sure she wasn't trying to freak me out as much as she did, but for someone who has already had preeclampsia twice and has read and heard lots of information about how quickly it can progress, hearing that I had even the beginnings of the disease again was very frightening. The high reading Monday night convinced Heath and I both that I must indeed have it and that it must be progressing further, but oh what relief and puzzlement we felt today after my doctor appointment! Perhaps I will go to term after all, without bedrest or induced labor.

Thank you for all of your prayers. I can't tell you how much better I have felt since you have been praying for me. Perhaps God did actually stop what was beginning to occur, so that my blood pressure was actually lower today because of supernatural intervention - not because of a false reading last time. Either way, I am just happy to know that for now, I am still alright and the baby is still doing great. I so appreciate knowing I have people who love me and are praying for me and there to help if we need it.