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.

I got the results of my 24 hr. protein test this morning. 238 mg. mild pre-e. No intervention at this point; I'll be carefully monitored and continue to do 24 hr. protein tests (how often I don't know yet). My blood pressure has been around 135/75-80 at my appointments. At home it comes out 125/70, I don't know if my monitor is off or if I am all wound up at the doctor's office? Blood pressure of 140/90 and protein over 300 mg in 24 hrs. is cause for concern, from what I understand.

Pre-e only happens in 5-7% of all pregnancies. They think maybe it has to do with the woman's body rejecting the foreign genetic material, but no one really knows the cause.

I am grateful for no complications so far, and I trust God to take care of the baby and me until it is time for him to be born. The baby is big for his gestational age, about 2 weeks ahead. So obviously, he is doing great! :-D And actually, I feel fine too - pregnant, but fine. I would have no idea anything was not within normal values except for my prenatal appointments.

PS - We are flying to Philadelphia tomorrow morning to pick up our new (new to us) van! I am very excited and happy about this mini-vacation. We'll be driving back to Kansas after seeing some of Amish country and a little of DC. Please pray for our safe travel. Our kids will be staying with Great-Grandma and Aunt-Gail in GC, so they basically get a vacation too.

bunk beds part 2

I was looking through some old pictures and found this - a picture of the night my brother Jeff got his bunkbeds. We were about 3 and 5, too, I believe. Sorry Jeff doesn't have his PJs on - he was too eager to play on the beds after his bath.

bunk beds!

We arrived home with the new bunk beds around 7:30 pm. Heath had just enough time to put together the bottom bunk before leaving for a meeting. I don't know what I was thinking, really... but I finished putting it all together myself. The kids went to bed late, and my body is sore, but I am still glad it is finished. :-)

Vote in our baby name poll!

Here is an anonymous way to let us know what you think about a few names we are considering for our baby.

Our Baby Name Poll

It had to be his idea

We have tried to potty train Ethan a couple of times over the last few months. We would put him in underwear, and despite taking him to the potty every 30 minutes or so, we ended up with pair after pair of wet underwear. Well, Monday morning, Ethan came upstairs and said (talking to himself on the way up, not to me), "My diaper wet. I need underwear." He took off his diaper and put on underwear, and there has been no turning back. The first day we had lots of puddles, and we went through a little power struggle when I tried to remind him and force him to "try" to go a few times. But once I stopped reminding him and let him take himself when he felt the urge, he has stayed dry! I am so proud of him. He still has trouble with a certain aspect of pottying, and prefers to take off his underwear and go out on the deck to take care of that part. I've had a couple of unpleasant surprises when I opened the door to the deck. (Don't worry, we'll make sure the deck is extra clean before we have any of you over for a bbq.)

if you read Nattyman's blog...

I thought it might be appropriate, for the sake of all of you who read both Nattyman's and my blogs, to clarify something. Although he posts some articles debunking global warming alarmism, it isn't to justify our energy-hungry lifestyle. We already do most of the things recommended to conserve energy and water. We use compact florescent blubs in every light fixture that will take them; our house is well insulated and has double pane windows; we turn the thermostat up or down (depending on season) when we are sleeping or not home; we turn off lights in unused rooms. We have low-flow plumbing fixtures; we only wash full loads of dishes and laundry and wash on cold when we can; we try to water the lawn efficiently in the summer. We even cloth-diapered Ethan for quite a while, until the British government nappy study came out showing that the environmental impact is about the same with cloth or disposables (and we simultaneously moved and had a less energy-efficient laundry situation). The only way we don't comply, really, is by driving our SUV, which is, at least, only a mid-size SUV. Not like we own a Hummer or anything. :-) I figure the SUV uses 150-200 gallons of gas per year more than a compact car would. We take Heath's compact car whenever we don't have the kids with us, but we purchased the Explorer for its extra weight/safety so we always use it with the kids.

I don't want to mislead you - we are not spectacular conservationists, who reuse all our gray water for watering plants, grow our own organic produce (although we did try with dismal results), and recycle or compost everything.

However, we don't mind doing some basic things to conserve energy and water, because it saves us money and doesn't cause us much trouble. So, just so you know, Nattyman isn't looking up those articles to try to justify our lifestyle or anything.

And now you have the rest of the story. :-)

Edit/PS - When we lived in our quaint older home in GC, we didn't realize how energy inefficient it was... it cost $50/mo. MORE to heat or cool than our house here, despite the fact that our house here is 60% larger. Don't tell the insurance company but the heater in that house is probably at least 30 years old... Maybe the new owners will replace it right away, put up some storm windows, and save a bundle on their energy bills.

home video reflections

I watched a VCR tape of home videos last night at my Mom's house. When I started watching the video, I had totally forgotten what it recorded (a Dafforn family gathering), or that my dad would be on the tape. It was very strange to see him on video. He has been gone for almost 15 years now. We kept rewinding parts that showed my dad, so that Heath could see him and maybe we could hear his voice. Finally, we came to a part where he looked at the camera as I was holding it, and we could hear his voice. He said, "Don't use up all their film, Jenny." (It was my uncle's video camera.) Not quite what I'd been hoping for, but oh well. Heath said that if my Dad could see it now he would wish he had said something else at the one moment we would have his voice preserved.

Of course, watching the videos sent me into a reflective state of mind. I was 12, almost 13 years old on the tape. I looked 16, but I was just entering 8th grade. Heath says I had an attitude on the video. The previous two years, 6th and 7th grade, had been years of hell. I was teased mercilessly by my classmates. They called me "pistol-packing mama," and sang a song with those words. The song "Janie's Got a Gun" had come out that year, so I was serenaded with that as well. This was all because there was a girl in my class in 6th grade who told me to meet her after school to fight. I told her no. She said, "Okay, I'll just bring a gun to school and shoot you then." Thinking she was ridiculous, I said, "Oh yeah, me too." She said, "You don't have a gun." I said, "Yes, I do..." and proceeded to tell her how many and what kinds. (My dad was a big hunter and had taught me how to shoot and provided me with "my own" guns since I was little.) I was not popular and she was, so the popular kids started in with the taunts. Anyway, I digress. Suffice it to say, this was the summer following those years of hell.

There were two things that sort of stunned me about hearing my Dad talk on the tape to me. First of all, I was still a little girl that he could order what to do. He didn't say it to me like you would to another adult - because of course, I wasn't. Hearing it again, I felt again what I probably felt at that moment when he said it - chastised, embarrassed and shamed because my other relatives were there. My second observation was that he seemed not to like me very much. And I probably wasn't very likable at the time. It took me back to that time in my life, to the fights I would have with him. Junior high age kids are not always the funnest to live with, you know.

Heath says the reason it bothers me is that I never got to fix it. My dad died when I was 14, and we still didn't have a good relationship at that point. I hadn't really learned to be kind to those closest to me at that point. I was disrespectful and probably a very frustrating kid. Once I hit puberty, I don't think he knew what to do with me, with my emotions and girliness. I remember being told I was "Daddy's girl" when I was little, so I think he liked me well enough then. But when I turned into a punk teenager, our relationship short-circuited.

It took me back to those years of adolescence, when we all just want people to approve of us so much. We are so aware and concerned about what people think of the things we say and do, and we are so critical of the things other people say and do. It has been a relief to be a part of true Christian community in recent years, where people accept each other and love each other and help each other. But I still get hung up on whether or not people like me, and I still have a hard time being likable sometimes. I'm not an obnoxious teenager anymore, but I am an awkward adult sometimes, who doesn't do well at showing people she cares about them because of being self-conscious or unsure of herself.

At the time the video was taken and the years that immediately followed, I didn't think it mattered to me what Dad thought of me. I thought it only mattered what my peers thought of me. But it does matter to me now what he thought of me then. I wish I hadn't been such a jerk, or that he had known how to push through my adolescent angst to keep our relationship intact. I wish I could remember both being liked by him and being likable. I wonder what impact it has had on my life not to have experienced those two things.

just two more...

Sorry for the flood of pictures. This last post is a picture of the flowers Heath got me for our engagement-anniversary, and a copy of our engagement picture from 9 years ago (yes, we were young!). It was about 10 years ago this month that we started our relationship, 9 years ago on February 13 that we got engaged, and 9 years of marriage on August 8.

mini-me's

Unfortunately, Jacob was asleep so he couldn't be in the picture.

more party pictures

Here are some more party pictures of Ethan, at 3, 2, 1, and 0 years old.

Birthday Party

I am finally getting some pictures of Ethan's birthday party online. If you click on the picture below, it will take you to the online album.

Ethan's Third Birthday Party