So much to be thankful for

Time is flying by-

2009-10-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

I keep telling myself I am going to catch up on my journal, my blog, the babybook, picture albums.. and I keep getting further and further behind. We just got back from a trip out East. We survived the car ride, barely. First stop was Folsom, PA where Aunt Linda lives, the next day we back tracked a bit and went to Myerstown, PA to see Gary's cousin Billy and his family. Back to Aunt Linda's for a day trip then on to Milford, DE to see Grandma and Grandpa Bruce. We had a great time and all too soon it was time to load up in the car and head home again. That was the longest car ride ever- 17 hours. Traveling with two kids isn't much fun in a Taurus.

Gearing up for Halloween now, Gunner wants to be a hunter, but can't take a weapon of any kind to school. I thought about finding a deer carcus for him to drag in with him, no really. I understand the zero tolerance policy, but come on, a toy bow and arrow on Halloween can't be allowed? Oh well. Guess I should have thought about that one sooner.

Gary is performing major surgery on the old plow truck. Agent Orange as she was so loving named is getting a new to her engine. Not something that impresses me, but I'm sure the snow will be deep and plentiful this winter so it has to be done. The new plow truck to be is not going to be used for that reason this year since it has a tweaked frame and the plow wouldn't even sit level. Good times all around.

We heard recently that Gary's oldest niece Sydney is headed for a "correctional" facility to be determined by the judge. That is a story in itself, but we won't go there. It is sad for the rest of the family but hopefully her mom gets the wake up call.

Emmerson is starting to go, she rolls over very well and scootches backwards. Yes backwards, she only has reverse. She plays well with her things and her hand eye coordination is great. She is starting to like vegetables and has had a few fruits. Today when her Nana gave her peaches after a few bites of green beans she burst into tears when Nana tried the green beans again. She then smacked her hands on the tray and hollered till she got more peaches. That is my girl, can't deny her attitude one bit.

Gunner had a double ear infection before we left for vacation. His allergies are giving him fits. We are doing breathing treatments pretty regularly to try and keep him on the upside of the season. No flu so far, knock on wood. He has an appointment on the 28th of this month to see the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist to talk about tubes again since his from last year have fallen out.

And on a final note, we are down to one dog. Poor Kegger went to be with Jesus last Saturday. Gary and I knew we had to make the call and get it done, but it was hard. We didn't tell Gunner until right before Gary was ready to leave for the vet. We all said our goodbye's and Kegger had one last car ride with Gary to the vet. Gunner is sad, but on the flip side is happy for Kegger because he and Bear are together again and he just knows Kegger is running fast!

Professional Photos

2009-09-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

We got so lucky and found a wonderful photographer! Dave from Davyn Photography- he is the absolute best. He and his wife Robyn run the business out of their home and do the most amazing work. I will be a customer forever- especially considering how affordable the prices are! Here are some pics from the session we had done when Emmerson was about 1 month old.

Some photos

2009-09-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

First photo-

First visit by Gunner

Pretty on the pink blanket

Just Chillin in the incubator

First night home-

Those looks explain a lot

Sleeping prince and princess

Be careful Gunner- hauling a precious load

Mommy's girl

Making progress in school- or so we thought

2009-09-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

Well the rest of last week went better for Gunner. The time out break down was as follows: Tues-3, Wed-1, Thurs-1, Friday-0! Started week number 2 off with a sick boy on Monday who couldn't go to school, and then on Tuesday no time outs and a report from Mrs. Doyle about "the best boy ever" then Wedenesday he got a time out for hitting someone! What to do? We think we are making progress and wham- he hits someone?

Princess- is still a princess. She didn't care for green beans and HATES peas. I gave her a few spoonfuls last night and she literally made a gagging, hissing noise and spit them out. I tried a few more spoonfuls with the same result and then later tried slipping them in between bites of cereal. She ended up crying. I gave up on the peas.

We are taking a mini vacation this weekend- off to Binder Park Zoo, a hotel with a pool per Gunner's request and then the Air Zoo. We wanted to do a weekend to the UP, but with little time and trying to save up for a trip out east next month, we figured smaller scale was good.

Gunner helped me stain the deck. It is a small one we put on off the addition, that isn't finished. Since there is still housewrap and not siding yet, I let Gunner have a paint brush and go to town. He loved it! And as long as I followed behind to smooth his work out, it turned out great.

Where to begin-

2009-09-10T12:53:00.001-07:00

It's been so long since I updated anything on here... Let's see hmm.... highlights

I went back to work June 10th- spent most of the summer doing nothing at work
Emmerson almost killed me, I was so exhausted for awhile I was dizzy and lightheaded.
I pump so much milk we currently have 4 freezers full- and I am giving at least 4- 8oz bags a day to a family who's baby was born March 18th and the mom has Leukemia and is unable to nurse.
Gunner turned 5 on July 27th! We had a very busy weekend- Grandma and Grandpa Bruce came out on the 24th, we had a great cowboy birthday party on the 25th, Emmerson was baptized on the 26th and we had some more wonderful pictures taken on the 27th.

August brought several nights of Emmerson sleeping from 11pm till 6 am- and then as suddenly as they came - those nights disappeared. She turned 4 months old and had a checkup- which went well. She weighed in at 15.4 lbs and got more vaccinations. On the 19th of August Nana sat her in the highchair for the the first time and on the 23rd of August I let her try sucking on a fresh pear which she LOVED! At the end of the month I attempted to get Emmerson to sleep in her own bed in her own room... bad idea! She will nap there but flips out when she wakes up alone. Gunner also played Flag football. It was only a 3 week season with 2 games, but he loved it and is excited for next year.

Sept. 8th Gunner became my Kindergardner. And received 3 time outs his first day. Was Mommy proud. Day 2 - only one time out, so at least we are heading in the right direction.
Emmerson is still extremely high maintenance, but is at least consoleable most times. She has Nana right where she wants her.

I swear I am going to be better at updates...

2 Months in to this Adventure

2009-06-30T05:01:00.001-07:00

So our baby girl is 2 months old. She has managed to completely turn our lives inside out and upside down. Even though our lives are total chaos- we love her to pieces and wouldn't trade her for the world.

Emmerson rules the roost. She is so high maintenance that we are unable to do anything these days unless she is sleeping, which is rare. Gunner still loves her unconditionally which is amazing. It is my fault when she cries, since obviously I am doing something wrong.

7 weeks out

2009-06-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

So I finally published the post I wrote a few weeks ago... sorry! It has been so long already that I figured I would give you a run down

Fri May 1, 2009 - Emmerson came home from the hospital

Sat May 2, 2009- We took Emmerson to visit my grandmother Louise

Mon May 4, 2009- Emmerson went to see Dr. Rao and also had labs drawn to check

bilirueben levels... they were fine and we didn't need to use her

biliblanket any longer.

Stopped in to work to see everyone

Thur May 7, 2009- Gary went back to work and Gunner went back to Nana's (just us girls!)

Mon May 11, 2009- Emmerson went back to see Dr. Rao, her weight was up again and she

doesn't need to come back until she is 2 months for shots!

A month later...

2009-05-28T14:10:00.000-07:00

So I have become one of those bloggers who used to drive me nuts! There I was following a blog and suddenly they would quit posting! It used to drive me crazy, how was I supposed to know how things were going if they couldn't update their blog? I wanted to know all about their new babies or whatever else was going on in their lives.

NO SLEEP, that is what is going on in our lives, or at least mine anyways. Maybe I should go back a bit and fill in a few details. Anyways I apologize for not keeping everyone updated. I swear I will try better. And once I get back to work I will have lots of time.

Where to start? On Saturday April 25, 2009 I got up and got ready for the day. We (Gary, Gunner and I) went to Bob Evans for breakfast and got haircuts for the boys. We also made a stop at Meijers before heading home. By the time we were almost home I was pretty uncomfortable. Thinking I just overdid it a bit (that and the combination of being constipated) I headed for bed and what I figured would be a long weekend of laying down. I got more uncomfortable as the afternoon went on. I finally managed to cure the constipation issue and felt better for a bit. I couldn't tell if I was having contractions or not I was just very uncomfortable and crampy. I finally gave in and called the on call doctor and they advised me to go to the hospital to be checked since I had a cerclage. I called Gary in the garage and told him to come get cleaned up. (He had asked hours ago if we should go to the hospital) We dropped Gunner off at my mom's house with a backpack for overnight just in case. All we told Gunner was that we were going to see the doctor to check the baby.

When we got to the hospital around 5:00 pm, they took me to triage and got me in a gown and waited for Dr. Anderson to get there to check me. The nurse didn't want to check me considering I had a cerclage. That was one painful check. I almost went through the roof. Dr. Anderson decided to remove the cerclage since I was having contractions and we didn't want to damage my cervix further. Once the cerclage was removed (which was a completely horrid feeling procedure) I went from 1 to 5. They made me lay around a bit more and once I moved from 5 to 6 they decided that was it I was staying. By this time my best friend Stefani had arrived. She works at St. Mary's and got to come in to help deliver the baby. I got moved from triage to a room and we waited for the anestethiologist.

Stefani had arranged for me to have Kristen as a nurse, which was awesome. Kristen was hilarious and took excellent care of me. Stefani and Kristen also pulled a few strings to get me a good anesthiologist. My epidural went great and once it was in I was ready for the evening, so I thought. While I was hanging out the group decided to order chineese. Once it arrived they all ditched me to go eat, Gary included. But I was fine with that. I even suggested it so I could sleep a bit. I'm not sure at which point I started to vomit, but once I did I was done. I know the first time wasn't my fault. I hadn't eaten since breakfast and now it was after 9 pm or even later, I can't be sure of the time exactly. After throwing up I was so thirsty! So dumb me guzzled the ice water Stefani brought me. I apologized to her immediately. And right after that the water all came back up. That set the pace for the night. I threw up countless times. After I was completely dialated Stefani and Kristen had me do some pushing to see how I would progress. I guess I did ok since they went ahead and called Dr. Anderson to the room. Mind you I was throwing up in between pushes all this time. Gary even had to help hold the barf bucket. There was nothing left to throw up so I just retched and heaved for awhile too. It was pretty awful. Once Dr. Anderson got to the room we got down to business and pushed for real. Myself I think I pushed for like 3 hours but they all tell me it was probably less than an hour of real pushing. I still don't believe them. The epidural was great and helped me survive it all. Dr. Anderson threatened to do an episiotomy at one point because they just didn't think the head was going to fit and the next push the head was out. I did the same thing with Gunner, once they threaten to cut I got serious. That last final push and then the gush of everything and here was baby. I believe Stefani made the "girl" call. Although when the head was out and they were suctioning the babies nose they all got in a last minute what do you think it is. Which is comical now but not funny at the time. I didn't even get too grossed out when they laid the slimy, goo covered little girl on my stomach. She looked kind of weird at the time since her face was so swollen and red. I was kind of in shock I think. They got her cleaned up and worked on her for a bit. She had a bit of fluid in her lungs she was having a hard time clearing out. They weighed her and let us hold her for a few minutes then took her to the nursery to get checked over. I was whipped. Gary made a phone call or two and I called my mom to tell her Emmerson Lucht Bruce was born at 2:22am weighing in at 7 lbs even and was 21 inches long. My mom was pretty bummed that we asked that everyone stay home and not come to the hospital till the next day, she did it though and kept Gunner for us so he was comfortable and happy.

The next day after we went to see Emmerson we got the word that even though she was doing ok, they wanted to move her down to the NICU. They wanted to start her on antibiotics since her blood counts were off and they thought she may have an infection. We were ok with her going to the NICU since we had been there and had a wonderful experience when Gunner was born. And on top of that the rules had changed and Gunner could visit her once a week and more people would be allowed in to see her than before. Gary went home that night to take care of things at home and to reassure Gunner. I slept great by myself and barely woke up when they came to check on me during the night. The next morning the doc released me and Gary picked me up on his way to work. Leaving the hospital without a baby this time was a bit sad, but not nearly the devastating blow it was with Gunner. I knew she was fine and it would only be a few days before she was ours to keep. It is amazing how different things are the second time around.

It's been 35 long weeks....

2009-04-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday all. Today was a bit different than I thought it would be. Yesterday I had every intention of calling the doc today to see if they could get me in. Weekends are rough. This past weekend was horrible. I had quite a bit of cramping and my bp was through the roof for the majority of the weekend. I could blame it on Gary and Gunner- they are enough to raise anyones blood pressure. I think it is mainly because of all the activity and the lack of peace and quiet. I also am up quite a bit more when everyone is home. This morning I felt better and even after taking Gunner to preschool my blood pressure was ok. After a nice long morning snooze my blood pressure was 123/78. So I decided to just hang out since I do have an appointment on Wednesday anyways.

This week isn't so good for a baby anyways- my nephew Trevor's Birthday is Wednesday and we are having dinner at mom's house for him on Thursday. I do think Friday would be an ok day. 4/24 sounds like a good date, goes with 7/27. Plus my personal nurse is working on Friday anyways. Part of me wants to throw in the towel and have this baby right away. The other part of me thinks- damn, I've made it this long, I might as well go all the way. It's hard to admit how lousy I feel. Especially since I have been one who was rubbed the wrong way quite easily by complaining pregnant women in the past. I guess if you took the context of the situations into consideration- I still have a right to be pissy about several of the conversations and comments made in the past.

Last week nothing major happened either. I spent the whole week laying very low since the bp issues started good friday. Of course Easter weekend was rough- Saturday we did Easter with Nana and Papa which included dinner and an Easter egg hunt. Not a lot of rest for me. Then on Sunday we had dinner with Gary's parents. I tried to rest till dinner time but between getting up early with Gunner so we could find eggs and his basket then him running in and out of the house, not much rest was gotten that day either.

Once Monday the 13th rolled around, I was in bed and out of commission for the whole week trying my best to keep the bp down and avoid a hospital stay. All week long my bp numbers were good until late evening when the Gman gets delivered back to me. Early Wednesday morning (april 15th) I had a couple hours of intensive cramping. I was planning on calling the doc that morning also but the cramping subsided and I felt ok afterwards. I am thinking part of it may have been a bit psychological since Julie (Billy's wife) predicted April 15th as a due date. Luckily she was wrong. Then again a weekend hit and I was miserable. I'm not sure how many more weekends I can get through at this rate.

I'm getting to the point of pondering everything. I keep thinking about the upcoming changes. I worry about the delivery (pain! since 2lb 10 oz was a breeze) I worry about how Gunner will react, I worry about the names we have picked, and how we are going to cope with another child in our family. I have a hard time imagining how I will be able to love someone the way I do Gunner. I had the same issues with Gunner. I didn't really bond with him while he was inside- it was this abstract idea of a child, then he was here and BAM! I was in love. It is kind of the same with this one. I have a life growing inside me, a child Gary and I created, and I feel weird even talking to it. My mom talks to my stomach all the time. I hate people touching my belly, yet I can't quite get over touching my belly myself. It's weird. I get terribly upset at the thought of something happening to this baby, but one of the first thoughts on my mind is how would Gunner react? Then I think about how would I react. Is this normal? I know I would survive, because I have Gunner. And then I feel guilty, shouldn't I be more attached to this baby? Maybe I distance myself to avoid the possibility of heartache? Maybe I need to up the dose of my happy pills now...

I think I have way too much time on my hands. I just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling and think. It sucks. I think way too much. I have this vision of the delivery planned out. Gary and I only- then we will let Gunner in next to meet the baby. He would be out in the waiting room with my parents. That is unless we are welcoming this kid in the middle of the night. I can invision the look on his face and the smiles. I can play it all out in my head and then I think about what if it doesn't go that way- and it pisses me off. Something that unpredictable shouldn't be able to upset me so, but it does. There are certain people I would rather not even see that day, yet I will have to. The thought of having to be nice also makes me mad. I used to think about how I would look at work to all the students waddling around the halls. That didn't pan out either. Maybe it is because I can plan nothing when it comes to pregnancy that I get so frustrated. Maybe it is because of all the curves we have been thrown in our personal lives lately. Maybe it's just because you can't plan or predict life- only God knows what is going to happen. Maybe if I just gave up trying to plan and just went on faith. So many maybes.

That is enough rambling for now I guess... Hope everyone has a good week.
I will update everyone after my doctor appointment later this week.

Latest news...

2009-04-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

Well here we are at 33 weeks and 3 days. This morning I got up and got Guns around for his dentist appointment. My mom played chauffer for the day. Guns just had a check- up which went really well. No cavities for our little man. He also spent the day as a cowboy. Wranglers, belt, wrangler shirt and boots, not to mention the cowboy hat. Since he was a superstar in the dentist office behavior wise I let him wear the darn hat. A dentist appointment may not seem like a big deal (since it was just a cleaning) but for Guns it is. He hates the dentist! The first time I took him for a check up or cleaning he refused to have xrays and it took 4 of us (the dentist, 2 hygenists and myself ) to hold him down so the dentist could look in his mouth. Mind you his dentist is a pediatric one and is a saint. He should be given a special award for his mild manner, calm voice and patience.

After a visit to Great Grandma Louise (my grandmother- mom's mom ) we headed back to the beltline for my doctor appointment. The whole troup ended up in the room with me. I lost a pound, my blood pressure was a bit high but ok (124 over 84) the babies heart rate was 150 and I measure 35 weeks. The doctor is so excited to see me still pregnant at 33 weeks. My complaining didn't get me much sympathy- since all I really can complain about is what most women deal with- it just happens to be new to me. Next appointment is in 2 weeks. Hopefully after that it will be weekly- especially since the doc who did my cerclage said he wanted to check my cervix at 36 weeks to see how it was holding up and then determine a date to cut the suture.

What blows my mind the most is that I am even having to consider things like "removing the cerclage". I still can't believe how fortunate we have been with this pregnancy. While bedrest blows and I was really hoping to make workwise- we are at an awesome point. And I have the feeling this kid is going to hang on until the very end. God has been very good to us, first our miracle baby boy Gunner and now a pregnancy that is slowly creeping up on full term. Even with all the other things in our lives have gone haywire we have been truly blessed.

8 months and counting

2009-04-02T11:55:00.000-07:00

Not much going on here lately. Last week Thursday I had another ultrasound. The good news is that my cervix hasn't changed since my last ultrasound over a month ago. That is wonderful. We couldn't get any kind of picture of the baby. The baby is head down facing my back. We did get to see lots of hair. It was quite cool to see all the little hairs floating on peanuts head. The appoinment with the doctor afterwards was pretty routine. Everything looks good from that aspect also.

Hitting the 32 week mark on Monday was cool also. This means I am 8 months pregnant. Another milestone I didn't know if I would ever see. In 4 weeks I will be getting the cerclage removed. The doctor who placed the cerclage prefers to remove them at the hospital. This is my preference also. Sometimes women go into labor immediately, sometimes within days and sometimes it can be weeks. I am hoping I have at least a few days since I will be finally be able to get out and do some things.

Last Friday we took Gunner to Kindergarden round up. Basically it is just a chance for us to introduce the kids to the building and the teachers. We get to meet them and see everyone. He seemed to enjoy it. I got through it without too much emmotion but when the day of kindergarden comes for real I will be a mess.

Nothing on the agenda this week, but next week I have another doctor appt and Gunner has a dentist appointment. Next week is spring break so he doesn't have any school. I guess it is supposed to be a fabulous week weather wise- not!

31 weeks

2009-03-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

Wow- it's been a bit since I updated this blog. 31 week today. Pretty cool stuff. So far everything with the baby is great. I have an ultrasound followed by a doctor appointment on Thursday. I am hoping we get another picture of the peanut. The peanut is still quite active but is running out of room, I don't really feel kicks so much as stretches these days. Depending on what side I lay on the baby pushes and prods that side like I was squashing it. I have hit the 10 pound mark. That is what I've gained and boy do I feel it. I guess all pregnant women feel really uncomfortable but this is my first go round for that kind of stuff.

What is really weird to contemplate is when we brought Gunner home from the NICU I should have been about 33 weeks pregnant. Weird thing to sit and think about, it is amazing how different everything has been this time around. Thankfully!

The weather gave us a teaser last week. I was really starting to get cabin fever on those 57 degree days and now that the wind is blowing and it feels like 20 degrees outside, staying in isn't quite as bad.

My mom keeps asking when I am going to get ready for the baby. I'm not really sure what I need to do. We have diapers, wipes, and a bassinet. Granted the bassinet bedding needs to be washed. I can't buy much until I know what the baby is. I have tons of soft, cuddly blue blankets and even several new neutral ones. The only thing we really need to get is a new car seat. I haven't decided whether to pick a neutral one or pick one for a boy and one for a girl and then once the baby is born have Gary go get it. I guess that is why so many find out ahead of time. I just think being surprised is awesome. Especially since so many people are itching to know. We haven't made any definate decisions on names. We are closer to a final name for a girl and are slowly coming up with some options for a boy. And we only have to pick first names since this babies middle name will be "Lucht" also regardless of gender.

And no matter what Gunner says- I am still pregnant, we don't know what it is and we haven't decided on a name. For the second time Gunner has told his preschool teacher that he has a brother. I think that is what he is hoping for. This time he told her his name was Conner Lucht Bruce and she believed Gunner since she knew Lucht was a family name and that made sense to her. What tripped up Gunners story is when she asked if he remembered how much his brother weighed. Gunner's response was "he was really big" - " he is so big he put his cowboy boots on and went outside to play with me." She knew the kid was full of it then. That is my boy. Gotta love him.

Another week down

2009-03-05T13:07:00.000-08:00

So here I am in the third trimester! Another first for this second time mom. I am pretty excited about making it this far. Gary is having a great time laughing at my belly. While I have only gained about 3 lbs, everything has been redistributed and the budda is starting to be quite noticeable. It is fun times all around. Especially trying to do things like shave my legs...

Had to be up at the crack of dawn on Tuesday to do my 3 hour glucose tolerance test. That is just not nice to do to a pregnant lady. I had to fast for 12 hours and then the test is 3 hours long (hence the name). It wasn't too bad except for that first hour after I drank the glucola- I really thought I was going to be sick for awhile. After the first hour I headed upstairs to Labor and Delivery since Stefani was working and crashed in a triage bed while she did the remaining blood draws. It is sometimes who you know. Laying down for the last two hours was great. And amazingly enough when your best bud is a nurse and wants the results of a lab back- you get to find out right away what the results are. I passed! Thank god for that one! Most likely the doctors office will call with the results next week too- I just smile and don't let on I already know.

All in all not much else is new. The weather is breaking a bit today. We are slowly getting settled in at the new house. My disability forms went through amazingly quick so now I just am waiting for the mail to bring me my money! That is one relief- I figured for sure I would have to fight that one. AFLAC has been quite good to me I must say. Gary is still working basically a second shift. Which he hates, but at least he is working. I stay up till he gets home and we watch a bit of TV together before we crash- so usually I am not in bed till 1 or 2 am, which is ok since I usually nap in the late afternoon. I hope this warm up is the start of spring and not just a teaser- Gunner is ready to be outside running around without all the snow clothes instead of cooped up inside or all bundled up.

More pregnant than ever!

2009-02-26T11:14:00.000-08:00

So, we hit a major milestone! Tuesday was 27wks 1day (when Gunner was born) and here I am still pregnant! I had a doctor appointment that day and everything was fine. Blood pressure was good, lost a pound, baby heart beat 146, and I measure 28 weeks (beefcake!) I don't have to go back to the doctor until March 11th. They will probably do another FFN test again (and we will hope for another negative like last time!) I do have to go next week and do a 3 hour glucose test. YUCK! This involves fasting for 12 hours and the test itself is 3 hours... that is a long time without food for a pregnant lady! Even though most of the hours will be nightime, I imagine I will still be quite grouchy by the time it is over. The baby is still active and getting more forceful in its movements. Gunner told the people at church that his mom is having a boy and his name is Kevin. Where he came up with that? No clue. He likes to make up stories. Gunner has been a champ. While he has a hard time listening and following directions and is going overboard with the backtalk- he is such a help to me. Last night after his papa dropped him off around 8- he did a load of laundry. He pushed the chair up to the washer, picked up all his things out of the laundry pile, climbed in the chair and threw them in. We did the laundry soap together and when they were done, he pulled them out of the washer, threw them in the laundry basket on the floor and then got down and shoved them all in the dryer. What kind of 4 year old is that awesome? This morning I had to yell for him when I was in the shower, and he came and got my razor which I forgot before I got in. He grabs me towels and will try to help put socks on me (which is not necessarily a help- but he feels useful!) He has been amazing.

The move last weekend went well. I stayed with Gunner at my mom's house while everyone moved our stuff. So when I showed up it was all over and we just have to put things away. Gunner seems pretty happy with the move, although when he is mad he tells us he is going to the old house by himself. We did have a hard time catching 2 of our outside cats. I actually had to get in on that one. Gunner and I caught Nittany and put her in the truck which was running when we were looking for Punt. When we came back to the truck after giving up on Punt for the night, the doors were locked. I almost freaked! I knew Gary was going to explode, then I realized not only did Nittany lock the doors, she turned on the blinkers and rolled the window down, then jumped out!! We did end up catching both cats, but it involved me sitting in the snow waiting for 10 minutes under the deck for them to both come to me so I could get my hands on them. Once I had grabbed them both Gary jumped out of the truck to save me from the savage clawing they were trying to give me. It was a lot of excitement for someone on bedrest. Currently all the cats are happy in the barn and both dogs are outside at the new house and last night decided to play with a skunk. They so tick me off.

All in all things are good. Hopefully things pick up at work for Gary, that is about the only thing we are annoyed with right now. I also can finally submit my disability papers tommorow, don't even get me started on HR at Ferris! So hopefully they go through first time without a fight. We will see. Still laying low, and praying for a big healthy baby. Each day that passes makes it just a little easier to breathe.

26 week update

2009-02-18T11:13:00.000-08:00

Ha- I snuck out to the library again. Yesterday was a long one! My best bud Stefani took me down to the doctor for my ultrasound and my doc appt. The ultrasound was better! My cervix length is 2.2 (which is up from last week!) Shows that the bedrest is paying off. The doctor decided to go ahead and give me the steroid shots for babies lungs- even though things are ok right now. I was totally happy with that call. So yesterday I got a shot and I have to go back to the doctor today to get the second one. I also failed my glucose test- BUT that may have been affected by the steroids they gave me 30 minutes before they poked my finger. So next week at my doct0r appointment we will figure out whether I get to redo the hour long test or if they are going to make me do the 3 hour test.

This weekend is the big move. Gary has a lot of things moved out of the house already. The phone company is all set, the dishnet work is all set- so in my case- the necessities are covered. I am pretty bummed about it. I have known the move was coming- but that doesn't make it any easier to go. Gunner is excited one minute and overwhelmed the next. Hopefully he handles it well. The kid has had a lot thrown at him lately and it has shown in his behavior. We are trying to deal as best we can and get through this before we really crack down on how he has been acting.

Keep praying for baby bruce-

25 weeks

2009-02-11T10:46:00.000-08:00

The inevitable arrived on Monday afternoon. Bedrest! After a not so good ultrasound that showed a CL of 1.7 and funnelling- I am down for the count. Hopefully down for at least another month or so. The baby looks great and is still very active.

I am off work till after baby is born, I can venture out for lunch or dinner occassionally- which I am trading for time at the public library to use the internet. I am still allowed to move around the house pretty freely but I am unable to do laundry, dishes, or grocery shopping. After approximately one day- I am aching all over my back and hips from laying so long.

Gary is busy, trying to do everything at home and also get us ready to move very shortly. It is hectic but we also new this was a possibility. Keep praying for the baby and lots of time for me to be bored silly. My next check up is next week- hopefully a week of bedrest makes a positive difference!

24

2009-02-02T12:44:00.001-08:00

Week 24- yup if you read this, it is almost solely outlining my pregnancy. Sorry, but for us right now that it the most important thing going on. No appointments this week- so it will be a long and boring one for me. Today baby Bruce is quite active and kicking the crap out of me. I can tell baby is getting larger since the kicks feel totally different. A few weeks ago all I felt was this butterfly like movement or flip flop in my stomach. Now- I know the kid is there. No one else can really feel it yet, but I can tell a big difference. The weeks are dragging by for me, I can't wait to get to the end of February so I can feel a little more confident about this baby's chances.

This weekend Gary painted, big surprise. He is making a lot of progress at the farm. I like to avoid thinking about moving, but the big day is coming up way too soon. I can only do a limited amount to help and we are trying to finish the upstairs rooms before we move anything. The biggest obstacle will be finding (and paying for) carpet for Gunner's room. And having it installed- that is not something we can do ourselves.

We also took Gunner sledding again on Saturday afternoon. Well, Gary took him sledding and I watched from the top of the hill. We didn't stay as long this time since the wind was so awful. Gary gave me his coat to put over my coat and my teeth were still chattering. Gunner was sweating after climbing up and down the hills. At one point Gary laid on the intertube and Gunner and Paige sat on his back like they were riding a horse. It was funny to watch till the very bottom when Gunner fell off and was dragging behind tangled up in Gary's legs. From the top of the hill it looked like Gary ran him over with the tube, but Gunner came up laughing and smiling. Regardless they didn't ride that way again.

Ending week 23

2009-01-30T10:35:00.000-08:00

So here we are, almost at the end of week 23. Nothing too major happened. Doctor appt on Wednesday was totally routine, my BP and weight were great (didn't gain again!) and baby's heart rate was 146. I have an CL ultrasound on Feb 9th then another appt on Feb. 17th when they will do the glucose screening.

We are supposed to take Gunner sledding again tommorow. Should I say Gary is sledding I am watching? The temp is supposed to be ok, but chance of freezing drizzle- hopefully it isn't too bad out. Gunner is pretty excited about it, he and Gary both had fun last time.

Gunner seems to be feeling ok- which is a relief, the last cold he had took forever for him to get over. Saying a prayer for my brother in law today, he had to see the specialist to get more input on making a choice between fusion and amputation of his ankle. Its going to be rough no matter what choice he makes. Hopefully God leads him down the right path.

We are busy all the time and don't seem to get much done, not sure what it is we used to do before Gunner or how we will manage after the new baby is here. It is always crazy. The only good thing is that each day the flies by gets us one day closer to a healthy baby.

Week 22-

2009-01-20T09:11:00.000-08:00

Last week Friday we had a bit of excitement- and not the good kind. I took a late lunch at work only to discover (warning TMI for most men) bleeding and a small clot in the bathroom of Walmart. Of course I freaked- called my doctor. They had me come in to be checked. Gary met me there since he knew I was pretty upset about it all. The doctor thinks that what happened is that the bottom stitch pulled through on one side. At least that is what it felt like to her- although she didn't put the stitch in. Luckily I have two stitches. There didn't appear to be any new bleeding and the cervix still felt quite long to her. Regardless she sent us to the hospital for an ultrasound to check cervix length. We killed some time since the appt was at 5:30- Gary was only too happy to not be at work since it was subzero temperatures and he was supposed to be out on the dock. This was the first ultrasound Gary has been able to see. Since it was to check cervical length it was internal and of course you don't really get to see the baby well. We did see hands and feet flying around like it was practicing karate. It amazed Gary at how much the baby was moving. Myself I have been feeling these movements quite well for a few weeks and it even amazed me. The good news was the tech told us the cervical length was 3.3 still and 3.0 under pressure (which is down from 3.2 under pressure on Monday) She wasn't able to tell us anymore and we had to wait in the waiting room for the doctor to be called and call us back. Eventually we were given the go ahead to go home. We stopped for a bite to eat and I went home to get Gunner who was at Nana's house and Gary went back to work (poor guy!)

I had taken Monday off anyways since there were no kids at Ferris so I called the doctor's office and got more in depth info. No funnelling and yes my cervix is closed. And "go back to work" I was kind of thinking maybe they would tell me to only work part time or something, but 3.3cm is a pretty normal cervical measurement even if I am only at that because of a nice sewing job by one awesome OB doctor. I hit the 22 week mark yesterday and can't believe how active this baby is. One more week till "viability" which will make me breathe a tiny bit easier, but not much. We don't want "viable", we want healthy. I told Gary as we waited in the waiting room Friday night all I want is "one of those". I said this as I motioned to the extremely pregnant lady across the room. He said" a tumor" and I said " no jerk- a great big pregnant belly that looks ready to burst" It isn't asking for too much is it?

Next scheduled Dr. Appt is Jan 28th. Hopefully we don't have to make any special trips between now and then.

21 weeks

2009-01-13T04:55:00.000-08:00

21 weeks down .... hopefully around 15 more to go if not more. I worked in the morning and then headed to Grand Rapids for another ultrasound and cervical length (CL) measurement. The baby looks adorable- we watched it yawn twice. Not little petite yawns, huge I'm exhausted yawns. It was really cute. Average sized head still and the peanut has gained 6 ounces since the last ultrasound. It nows weighs roughly 15 ounces. One more and it will be a whole pound!
The CL was a little disheartening. It was only 3.3. Which itself isn't terrible but three weeks ago it was 4.1. One thing I thought about later was the first ultrasound where I measured 4.1 the tech made me prop my butt on a wedge shaped pillow so my bottom was up in the air much higher than my head. This time I laid flat on on the table. So I am wondering how much of the change can be contributed to the positioning. Hopefully at least some of it. One positive was that my cervix was still closed and there was no funneling! Yeah! I checked with the doctor's office and asked whether I should be making any changes in my routine because of the CL change. Luckily that was a no. I just have to continue to follow the restrictions and take it easy but I can still go to work. They also mentioned that they won't worry till the CL measures under 2! That seems scary, but then again I do have 2 stiches holding things together.
The semester started yesterday- so all the wonderful students are back! Yes that was sarcasm. I did miss the activity, but as tired as I am- the thought of 16 weeks of these monsters makes me exhausted. (Notice the planning- they leave for the summer and I go on maternity leave! Now if my cervix cooperates with the plan...) I have lots of student workers scheduled this semester (what budget?) and hopefully it won't come down to needing them deperately since I am on bedrest and the replacement is clueless.
I am dreading later today and the rest of the week- the subzero temperatures and -19 windchills make me want to curl up in bed and stay there. Hopefully we don't get a crap load of snow on top of it all. I heard temps will be very cold for about 10 days. I can hear the propane meter smoking as I type. Fun times! I love winter! Stay warm-

Dr appt. update

2009-01-08T05:58:00.000-08:00

Absolutely nothing new at the doctor appt. I have an ultrasound set up for Monday to check my cervical length and get better pictures of two things they couldn't see clearly on baby the last time. Blood pressure was a tad high but ok, Baby's heartrate was 153, and I am measuring 22wks (I'm only 20!) so if all goes well we could have a beefcake on our hands in May. I am still working and have another OB appt in 3 weeks. That appt will be right about the time that baby will actually be viable. Or for those of you out there that have had normal pregnancies- the baby would actually have a snowball's chance in hell if born then. (As opposed to anytime from now until then) The cut off is 23 weeks, if a baby is born before that there is nothing the doctors can do for it (legally) so that is our next "milestone" if you will. At 23 weeks with Gunner I was in the hospital having an emergency cerclage. I'm hoping this time the 23 week mark passes more uneventfully. I don't have big dreams these days, just seeing the third trimester isn't so much to ask now is it?

20 Weeks

2009-01-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

So yesterday was the official halfway mark of the pregnancy. It was pretty uneventful. Getting up and getting ready for the first time in over 2 weeks was rough on all of us. I had to take Gunner to Grand Rapids for an eye doctor appt- just a routine check up. He is farsighted which the doc believes will become nearsighted in the future and possibly may need glasses later on in school. But considering his eyes only got to develop 2/3 rds of the way before he was born- it was a great check up. And while he is farsighted, it is nothing abnormal for his age and attention span since he wouldn't finish the tests each time before giving silly answers. I headed into work for half the day and got caught up on all my internet surfing.

Gary is right in the slow season at his work so his schedule is screwy. Yesterday he went in at 1, today at 3, and of course he isn't happy about it. But considering all the unemployed people out there- at least he is working. So he is miserable right now.

We did a lot of nothing over the New Years holiday. Well I should say Gunner and I did nothing, Gary worked pretty hard getting the "farm" house closer to completion. He finished the drywall in what will be Gunner's room and got the insulation blown in the attic spaces.

Tommorow is my next doctor appt. Keep baby and I in your prayers. We are praying that the cervix measurement is still good and hasn't changed much if at all. I will update you more then.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T10:25:00.000-08:00

Since I am not at work, I am unable to check my facebook or myspace, which drives me nuts. The only internet access I have is at the public library which blocks all those fun sites. SO- if anyone wants to know what I am up to- gotta check out this blog.

The most wonderful outstanding news I have to share is that I had an ultrasound yesterday- and my Cervical Length is more than 4! For those of you who have never had any pregnancy complications- this is freaking outstanding for someone with an incompetent cervix! I am so geeked about that I can hardly believe it- mind you cervical length can change daily but at least right now I am doing great!

Gary has been sick since thursday! Not just under the weather but flat out sick as hell. He has some sort of virus that has taken over his mouth (that hand, foot, mouth thing I believe!) and he has been unable to eat since Thursday last week. He has lost over 20 lbs in less than a week. He has been to the doctor three times and has been unable to work. He can barely get out of bed. He was at the doctor again today and if he is any worse he needs to been seen again on Friday. They have mentioned putting him in the hospital because of dehydration. Hopefully he will start feeling better soon. This is supposed to be a 7-10 day thing and we are on day 7 today.

The snow is driving me nuts. Gary has to drag himself out to plow every couple of days and I am in no shape to shovel or brave the weather getting stuck.. While my cervix looks great now I still have to be resting as much as possible since last week Thursday at my regular OB visit my blood pressure was quite high.

I think we are ready for Christmas- and if not- it's too late now. Just have to wrap the things we have for Gunner and I'm done. By the way the snow is falling today I am doubting we will make the candlelight christmas eve service at church since Gary will be in bed and venturing out with my 4 year old at 11:00 pm tonight probably isn't a great idea.

So all that is left to say is Merry Christmas- hope you all have a wonderful holiday- be safe in the snow!

Not much to tell

2008-12-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

Doctor appt was routine- except for the blood pressure. Mine was like 138 over 91 and that earned me the privledge of laying on my left side for 10 minutes till the doc came in and checked it again. By then it was 134 over 68, and all I could think was "one way or another I will be on bedrest". This doc is setting up my ultrasound for next week- they are doing the growth thing and checking cervical length. She wants me to lay low and rest till I have to go back to work Jan 5th- then after 2 days of working she wants to see me again to see how I am handling work and being up and around. Doesnt sound very promissing as far as continuing to work- but whatever it takes to get this kid here safe and sound.

Doc appt today!

2008-12-18T06:21:00.000-08:00

I have to go to Grand Rapids today to pick up Gunner's Christmas pictures and since I am making the trip anyways- I changed my doctor appt from Monday until today! Hopefully I can talk them into an ultrasound to check cervical length and maybe pics of the peanut. Tommorow we are supposed to get a crap load of snow and more snow on Sunday night into Monday. So I am hoping to finish up all my shopping and galavanting today in Grand Rapids and not have to make that trip again! I'll let you know what the doctor says later!

17 weeks (yes I am still counting!)

2008-12-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a safe drive into work this morning. Myself, I was quite annoyed that I had to go in at all. I have to try and remember that this is the last week for me until after the holidays. Gunner is pretty excited about Mommy and he having so much "bacation" time.

Last week was just average except for all the snow we got in the middle of it. Gary spent a lot of time plowing, and go figure "agent orange" sounds like she is ready to blow. Wednesday we got pictures taken of my sibblings and our children which is a surprise for my parents for Christmas. Gunner about knocked his bottom teeth out at Menards (trying to go through the turn stile on the way out!) (Man was that funny!) and he also cut his own hair the day before the pictures. Luckily he just got a couple spots on the side and it was easily disguised. Gary worked his tail off, I don't think he got home before 11 pm any day last week. Friday night Gunner and I stopped in at Nana's for pizza which included all of my sibblings again and our kids. Mom was pretty stoked that all her kids were all together.

Saturday Gary spent the day hauling the Christmas decorations out of the basement. He wasn't really impressed with the amount of it all. The tree ticked him off and Gunner drove us both nuts. But it is up and the train set is even under it. Saturday night we dropped Gunner of at Nana's and my sister, her husband and Gary and I went out to see 4 Christmases- which was hilarious. Afterwards we went to Ruby Tuesdays. They have been together since Rachel was a junior in high school and this is the very first time we went out together. We had a great time. I felt bad for Tim who is still on crutches- that weather was horrid. BTW- Tim is doing ok, still not real sure on the outcome of his foot but it is pretty minor considering he fell over 7 stories. The scar on his forearm from where they took the skin graft is pretty nasty but again in the scope of things- it's no biggie.

Sunday we were up early and off to church for the preschool Christmas program. Gunner did well. Somehow between when we left him in his classroom and the time they walked into the sanctuary he completely untucked his shirt which mortified me, but he was still adorable. He is just Gunner- that says it all. My parents, Gary's parents, and my brother all made an appearance. My sister was there since her son goes to preschool also. So again my mom was all emotional since all of her kids were in church (and no one died or got married!) After church it was grocery shopping and laundry. We headed over to Gary's parents for dinner and ended the night watching Survivor.

Gunner didn't have school today because of the weather and Gary didn't go in until 1:00pm which ruined the whole day for him. We did a potluck at work and tommorow is the pizza party on the service floor where I work. I have felt ok. Tired all the time and if I am up and around all day by say 5pm I am exhausted and my sides ache like no tommorow. I have the occasional cramp here and there but nothing frequent or intense. It feels like a bowling ball is sitting on my pelvis at times. A heaviness is all I can say to explain it. When I feel that way I try to stay laying down for as long as possible. I'm still very anxious to get back to the doctor and be more insistent on an ultrasound to see what my cervix is doing. The next few weeks of laying around will be helpful, but going back to school in January is a little frightening. Hopefully it is just me being paranoid and pesimistic. I would love to carry this kid till May. My 20 week ultrasound will be before I go back to school so hopefully that will take care of any left over worries.

I also hate snow, ice and winter in general. Just in case you were wondering!

Mondays are so ..blah!

2008-12-08T12:02:00.000-08:00

I did survive the end of last week. Going back to work was hard. I don't want to be on bedrest by any means, but it was nice being able to lay around and relax for a bit. It makes me way less nervous and stressed about what is going on with my cervix. Wednesday was rough being the first day and getting used to sitting up instead of laying down. Thursday I was in pain, going shopping on my lunch hour was a very bad idea. Friday I laid as low as possible at work trying to avoid feeling like I did on Thursday. Gunner and I were both in bed by 9:30 on Friday night since Gary told me he would be extremely late. (Which he was all week)

Saturday morning I headed out with Gunner( and Jennie along to help). We went to GR to get Gunner's christmas pictures taken. Even if I was feeling fabulous and was not pregnant I would still need Jennie's help on picture day. The roads were crap (Gary was right) and we had to go pretty slow. Pictures went well, afterwards we went to Olive Garden for lunch and headed home in the snow. It took about an hour and 40 minutes to get back. I hung out for the rest of the afternoon with Gunner while Gary worked on the Agent Orange (the plow truck) We opted not to go to Gary's work Christmas Party since it was in Grand Rapids and the roads probably were worse not better. Instead we did grocery shopping and took Gunner to Pizza Hut. Gunner was fine with that, he doesn't like Gary and I to do anything without him anyways.

Sunday was a day of rest for me. I laid around all day getting up only to get a snack or do a little laundry. And I have a laundry helper- Gunner picks the stuff up off the floor that I point at and throws them in the washing machine. Repetative bending is on my don't do list. Gary went to my parents to plow their driveway and Gunner decided to spend the day with Nana and Papa. Gary picked him up around 5:00 pm. I had to get ready for the women's christmas dinner at my mom's church so the boys were on their own for the evening. The dinner always is nice, except for the company at the table. The pastors daughter who is 12/13 (somewhere in there) sat across from me and was a complete heathen. Food on the floor, talking during the program, making rude noises, playing with the candles. You name it, my four year old could have done it better. So what should have been a nice evening was ruined by the little monster at my table, and the fact that her mother let her get away with it. What I also find totally ignorant is when someone there who knows all about Gunner his prematurity, and my cervix issues asks me dumb questions. "How far are you hoping to make it this time?" What kind of F-ing question is that? Seriously- Umm how many ways can I answer that and tell her to piss off at the same time? So I looked her straight in the face and said "well if I don't make it till the end of January the baby doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell" Yes I said hell at church. She almost choked on her coffee. I then followed up with we would take however many weeks we can get especially since everything after 27 weeks (which is the end of February) will be a new experience for us. It is like having people you know and know your story complain about being tired of being pregnant in front of me. That kind of thing actually cost me a friendship back when Gunner was born. I just can't forgive that person for being so selfish and inconsiderate in her comments to me. It was a stressful evening, good thing I had rested up all day.

Today getting out of bed was awful. I set the alarm for 6:30 pm instead of am but luckily woke in time. I hated leaving the house and am dead tired. Gunner and I are counting down the days till Christmas Break! Mommy gets 2 full weeks and have the option of taking a 3rd if I want to use my vacation. So we will see how things go and what the doctors say between now and then. I completed my day by fighting with the bitches at the dentist office. We have had a large insurance credit on our account for over 2 months which is supposed to be refuned to us and they keep fighting us about it. This is just one more reason I hate the place- I could go on forever with examples of reasons why they suck and are totally unprofessional but that would be overkill so I will just say this was the last straw. So I was finally pissed enough to cancel any appointments I had and tell them I wanted a copy of my file. And was told no. Can't have it, if I want a copy of x-rays have to pay for them. Mind you both of my dental insurance companies have already paid for those freakin x-rays twice. That was it, I told her to piss off. (not in those exact words!) And go figure the "insurance" lady in the office who is supposed to call me back, hasn't. Imagine that. Gary is super busy at work, which makes for nice paychecks, but he is dog tired when he drags home at 11:30 at night. And it is hard on Gunner not getting to see him at night. Usually means Gunner goes to sleep in my bed so his dad can wake him up and at least cuddle him before he puts him in his own bed. Looks like today is going to be another miserable one for him.

I don't go back to the doctor till Dec 22nd, and then hopefully we can schedule my 20 week ultrasound. I want that done before the kids come back to Ferris so if there are any changes in my cervix that are bad, I can make the decision about going back to work or not, and give work time to find more help. It drives me nuts all the waiting. I want to see more pictures of this baby. I want to see a nice long, closed cervix too!

The picture is of Gunner and his "pilot jacket" which showed up in a package from Grandma and Grandpa Bruce on Saturday. Gunner is in LOVE! He won't take the darn jacket off. He is also informed us that he is going to fly big jets really fast when he gets older. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa- Gunner loved his surprise!

Getting you up to speed-

2008-12-03T10:26:00.000-08:00

So- I'm finally back at work. Yeah ( I think!) Last week was brutal. Tuesday we got to the hospital around 9:00 am when we were supposed to. I got checked in, gowned, IV'd and the waiting began. Seems my doc was running behind from his prior surgery so instead of 10:30 surgery time we didn't get rolling until 11:45. The only bad part was the spinal. The doc doing that did my epidural when I had Gunner and was fabulous so we requested him again. This time he had a hard time getting it exactly right. So while I am on the operating table leaning forward curled into a ball with my OB doc hanging on to me the old "I'm going to be sick" sensation hit me hard. I had to sit up a bit and my doc grabbed the trash cart since the nurse couldn't locate a basin right away. Once I sat up and got a little air the feeling subsided and then he could finish the spinal. Once it was in place I had two lead anchors for legs and got situated on the table and the "fun" began. It is weird being awake through something like that. There you are laying on the operating table with your naked bottom half hanging out there for the world to see. While my OB doc was scrubbing up the nurse covered everything, but still those few minutes are the most embarrassing ones you can imagine. Then while they are stitching my cervix up you can feel them pulling the sutures tight, it like almost shakes your whole bottom end, if I hadn't felt so awkward I would have laughed every time he pulled a suture snug. He got two stitches in, which made me pretty happy and I was off to the recovery room.
Recovery rooms suck. The nurses there drive me crazy, while this time they were more caring, I really don't want to hear them complaining about how busy they are or when they are going to get to take their lunches. I am here, I am awake, if you want to have that conversation don't do it over top of me. The biggest concern was where to send me. They can't get rid of patients fast enough. I was a tough one. Couldn't go to Outpatient because I had a spinal, couldn't go to short term since I had a cerclage, the 9th floor (L &D) was full, so I had to hang out until a bed opened up there. Once I got upstairs they got me some juice and checked the bleeding and told me once I could pee I could go home. So I got up and attempted to walk to the bathroom. That is the wackiest feeling, your feet are there but then again they aren't. Once I did my business I was dressed and out the door. Which was still around 3:30 or 4:00 p.m.
By the time Gary got me home I was in excruciating pain, which I found out was from an extremely full bladder which I couldn't quite feel yet. Once I got rid of the pee I was just uncomfortable. I climbed into my bed and stayed there the rest of the night. This would have been about the end of the tale if I hadn't had to get up about 3 am to barf my guts out. Kind of made me wonder what was coming up since I hadn't eaten anything all day. And as luck would have it the puking session was followed by hours on the pot with diarrhea. I would have worried about it if the same fate hadn't hit my hubby and Gunner the next day also. Thank you to whomever I caught that bug from. The cerclage wouldn't have been nearly as fun without the extra sickness.
The rest of the past week was pretty tame. We went to my moms house for Thanksgiving, Gary took care of Gunner and I and we did pretty much nothing. Yesterday I drove myself to my doctor appointment and got cleared to come back to work. My OB is not one for taking tons of ultrasounds or measurements. He feels that a cervical length on me is pretty irrelevant. My cervix was almost nonexistant to begin with. What I have now may be what I have till the end or it may change. But who is to say what will be enough for me. If I start having any complications then we will be more aggressive, but if I am feeling fine he would rather leave things alone for now. I guess compared to all the people I have heard that go every two weeks for TVA's it is really lenient, but I do have a healthy, happy 4 year old son because of this man- so I guess I will just go with it and trust his opinion. I am bummed that I won't get to see my peanut more frequently- but hey in 5 weeks I will get my big scan so hey what the heck.

The big "C"

2008-11-24T10:32:00.000-08:00

So our last normal weekend together- shot. Gary has an abcessed tooth and was miserable most of the weekend. We did manage dinner at Olive Garden after he sold some rims and tires to a guy by way of craigslist. On the way home we ended up driving past our exit and heading right up to the emergency room. Gary got an antibiotic and some pain pills and home we went. When he woke up Sunday morning he looked so darn cute. Gary didn't think so, but that one big chipmunk cheek just cracked me up. At least his pain had died down some.
I had to babysit so Gary just helped keep the house clean since my mom had been over most of the day saturday helping us get organized for the upcoming week of me being out of commission. Gary had to help my dad do another shitty job. One of his big horses colicked- and there was nothing to do but the humane thing. So Gary spent several hours helping my dad put the horse down, get it buried and the barn cleaned out. Not a fun day for anyone. That is two horses in about a month for dad. It was pretty sad, even though the horse he lost yesterday we believe was behind the broken leg the young one suffered earlier. Having pets sucks.
Today I am wrapping up a bunch of loose ends at work. Trying to get everything set up for my absence. Hopefully it will only be a couple days. But better to be safe than sorry. One thing that bites is I do all our bill paying online. We have no internet connection at home. So if this is the beginning of a long term bedrest I may have to do something about that. Hopefully I would at least be allowed to make the trip to the public library once a week if I am on bedrest. It is only about 5 minutes from our house and besides the books to keep me sane- they have internet access. I will honestly go nuts without being able to putz around on facebook, myspace, this blog and blogs of friends I keep up with.
I am getting nervous. While I have been counting down the days till my cerclage I can't believe it is actually almost here. Don't get me wrong- no second thoughts about it. I want the cerclage (like yesterday) and I know it is really the only option for me, but once it is done my complications become so much more real. Instead of saying I will have to take it easy, I will have to take it easy. I may even end up on bedrest right from the get go. It's kind of a crap shoot. I may end up sitting here at work unable to reach the keyboard around my gigantic baby belly. (which I am hoping for!) So- tommorow is the big day. Gary and I will be out the door at the crack of dawn. Gunner will be at Nana's house and hopefully around 10 am the new peanut will be sewed in nice and securly. Not to be seen other than via ultrasound until 37 weeks or so. Since we have no internet connection- updates will be few and far between for a week or so. Wish us luck- keep us in your prayers.

Happy Birthday Gary

2008-11-20T06:07:00.000-08:00

Tuesday was interesting. While battling a horribly painful back since Sunday there were some "new developments" after a bathroom break on Tuesday morning which freaked me out. (I will spare everyone the details) While for some people what I saw was completely normal during pregnancy for someone with an incompetent cervix it can mean the beginning of a changing cervix which is bad news. I called the doc and they wanted to see me just to be sure. Gary took the day off and went along.

Blood pressure good, weight down 1lb, cervix (are you ready for this) looks much better than it did 2 weeks ago according to the doctor! He was kind of puzzled about it actually. One of his thoughts was that there was more pressure from my bladder. So he had made a note that during my surgery if my cervix doesn't look "good" then he will fill my bladder up ( I will have a catheter for this) and then hopefully it will give him more cervix to work with. So not only did I not have anything wrong except for a sore back (they checked for all kinds of infections also) my cervix looked better which makes me feel a little relief. Now only 5 days till my cerclage!

On the way home I called mom to tell her what was going on and she mentioned that she and dad had a rough night also. Dad is diabetic and had another low blood sugar attack during the night. This one was so bad that mom had to call the ambulance because he was beginning to slip into a diabetic coma. The normal routine wasn't helping. Luckily by the time the ambulance showed up he was coming out of it, they just checked him over and said he seemed ok. So dad spent the day feeling really shitty which is what usually happens after one of his attacks. Mom is getting him set up to see the doctor since he has been having a bunch of low blood sugar attacks at night recently. Something in his medications needs to be adjusted.

Today is Gary's 32nd birthday. No big plans today. Our anniversary was Monday so this weekend we are going out to dinner and a movie. It may very well be the last time we go out until after the baby is born depending on how the cerclage surgery goes and my cervix behaves. My dear mom is coming over this weekend to help me get my house cleaned from top to bottom before my surgery.

Gunner is also excited because Mommy and Daddy only have to work one day next week. Little does he realize Mommy will be out of commission after that. We are not going to talk about the surgery with Gunner since when my mom mentioned surgery he flipped out. Gunner got all panicky and started to cry about not wanting mommy to have surgery. I figure telling him Mommy had to see the doctor should be enough for him. If we tell him Mommy might need some "pokeys" (shots) he gets terribly upset. Why force the issue. He is already overly protective and super careful around me because of "the baby".

Ironically since my back is feeling somewhat better, the pregnancy fairy decided that I should now be blessed with a sinus headache and bloody nose. If I think about it logically though I will most likely be pregnant at least 40 weeks, as horrible as I feel, I am sure with my luck I will feel this way for as long as possible. Which is ok.

13 weeks and counting

2008-11-17T05:31:00.000-08:00

Well that I survived yesterday is nothing short of a miracle. As I was getting dressed after my shower I got a sudden intense pain in my lower back and from that point on the day went to pot. I could hardly stand up let alone breathe. Gary has put his back out numerous times, at least once a winter to be exact. Myself, I have had back aches and pains but nothing a hot shower or a long nap doesn't cure. Nothing helped this. Gary wanted to play chiropractor and adjust me, but I refused with tears and sobs of pain. I spent most of the day laying in bed. I know that lower back pain is often a sign of preterm labor but I am going with the fact that this was sudden and instant and am assuming I put it out. I also didn't have any other signs to be scared of, no contractions or bleeding so I am waiting to call the doctor's office this morning to see what they suggest. I do feel a great deal better this morning, but better than yesterday isn't saying much. I am secretly hoping the doctor's office wants to see me anyways just to check things out. I can't help be a worry wart. I have 8 days till my cerclage and then I hope I have a bit of confidence. Maybe then every ache and pain won't cause stress and anxiety on my part.

Today is also our Anniversary! We have been married for seven years. Although it's been over 15 years since we went on that first date. February 13, 1993! I was 14 years old- way too young to get involved in the realationship we started, but it worked out in the end. It's kind of weird to think that Gary has now been a part of my life longer than he wasn't. I was 14 when I met him and we have been together (off and on) for over 15. Weird stuff huh.

The blah's

2008-11-14T10:04:00.000-08:00

Do you ever just wish you could take a nap that would last for say.. 6 months? Today is one of those days that I think I would have been better off staying in bed. I am exhausted, getting up to pee every hour and a half has that effect on you. I'm pissed off because my SIL is coming up to my inlaws this weekend, and my MIL has already told her I am pregnant even though we specifically asked her not to. In case you didn't know I despise my SIL. I can't seem to get along with my husband (which most of it goes back to the SIL issue today) and he has officially hung up on me twice today. If it wasn't for Gunner that six month nap would be the route I opted for.

It's Friday but I can't even get excited about that. I am at least not suffering from the "all day" sickness that has been my constant companion this pregnancy. My digestive system doesn't work right which makes me bloated, gassy and uncomfortable, which in turns makes me even more pissy. I can hardly wait for this afternoon. I think I am going to get Gunner and hole up in the house all weekend. Deer season is not a special occasion for pregnant women and small children. Most likely we won't have any company, they will all be in the woods. We have a ton of stuff to get done before winter really sets in, but once again, most of it will be left undone come Sunday night.

Wishing all you hunters a great weekend, don't shoot yourselves. On the bright side only 11 days till the cerclage, 3 days till our 7 year anniversary and 6 days until Gary is 32!

A sad morning

2008-11-10T05:34:00.001-08:00

Well today is the anniversary of Jake's death. Jake was the world's most wonderful dog. Mom and Dad had to put him down two years ago today. For some reason my mother and I remember all these morbid dates! I still sometimes expect to see him rounding the corner as I step in Mom and Dad's house. Especially at night, if I walk in when it is dark, Jake always used to come into the kitchen "ruffing" and we had to say "Jake- it's me" to get him to quiet down.

To make a sad day worse, dad found one of his young horses down with a broken leg. Fire didn't come into the barn last night and dad just figured he was off being stubborn and left the door open for him. Dad didn't look for him until this morning. He found him down and struggling to get up. My dad while being a totaly hard butt on the outside is a complete softy for animals. He went out to take care of Fire himself instead of calling the vet, mostly for time reasons. It is by no means something that can be fixed and he is in pain. Dad feels completely guilty for him laying outside all night suffering because he didn't go find him so wants to get it over with as soon as he can. While some may not agree with shooting an animal it was the quickest way to end poor Fire's suffering. The worst part is not knowing how long he had been down and having no idea what happened. My first conclusion would be to blame Belle- the oldest, meanest horse dad has. Belle has a nasty habbit of kicking the shit out of all the other horses. I hope this will be the end of her reign as queen bitch on dad's farm. Although deep down in my heart I am hoping she wasn't the reason Fire broke his leg. Now Papa will have the heartache of explaining to Gunner that Fire is in heaven with Jesus. Gunner will be devastated, he loves all the horses!

While furry friend wise we are pretty sad, the human kids are doing well. Gunner spent some time yesterday with his friend Paige and her family, which gave him a break from being stuck inside since the weather was so yucky. It also gave me a break and a chance to hang out all day and catch up on the humungous pile of laundry we had going. It's amazing how much dirty laundry three people can create in a week. The gremlin I'm carrying is easing up a bit and I don't feel quite so sick all the time. I am actually having spurts of pigging out here and there. So far I have only lost weight but I do try to keep a close eye on it. I know I will have to gain some, but I want to keep it under control considering all the extra I already have.

First Appt with the Doctor

2008-11-05T04:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my first real doctor appt. I had to be there at 4:00. I got there a few minutes early and got to wait, which was agonizing. Most people enjoy going to the doctor. I dread it. I wanted to see this peanut, I wanted to hear some good news. Well one out of two isn't bad. There is only one very active little gremlin in there. It is measuring 11 wks 6 days according to the ultrasound. (about 5 days ahead of schedule) Then there is the issue of my cervix. Once the doctor found it that is. It is always reassuring to hear the doctor say "you do have a cervix right?" While I realize that is just his sense of humor, it totally deflated any dreams of the realtively normal pregnancy I was hoping for.

My cervix is about 1/4 of the length of the average woman. He didn't give me a measurement, which I am thinking is good, just more to worry about. My cerclage date is November 25th. The doctor I saw yesterday placed the last cerclage and I am opting to have him do this one also. He doesn't seem too concerned, and also told me that it is way too soon to be worried. He won't do a cerclage till 14 weeks but is happy that I want mine as soon as I am 14 weeks. He also told me that the baby doesn't put pressure on the cervix till somewhere between 16 and 18 weeks so there is no reason to do it sooner. As he put it, "incompetent cervix" is not an issue before the 2nd trimester. He also mentioned that the biggest issue with a short cervix is infection. Which was a problem for me last time, but again, the membranes had been exposed before they did the emergency cerclage so it was a totally different ball game back then. All in all he was very positive and upbeat, I guess I just have to be the same. I have to beat my inner demon who is a real pessimistic SOB.

Gary has already put in for the time off work, and even though no one is supposed to have time off before the holiday at his work, this qualifies as FMLA and he will not get any hassel about it. So he is geeked that he will get to be off from the 25th till Dec. 1st. I am worried I will want to kill him in that amount of time. It will be a good crash course for him with Gunner. Hopefully we won't have to ever get used to me on a long term bedrest.

I also have come to the conclusion that I am not worried about making it through my whole pregnancy without bedrest any longer. I was really hoping I could do that to make things easier for everyone at work. I hate being the reason for inconvience. I didn't want Kelly( who I really like!) to be overloaded with tons of stuff or them to have to hire a temp. Right now, if I make it through this semester without bedrest (which would be the month after my cerclage) I will be pretty happy. My focus has to be on this baby, not about making things easier for everyone at work. Guess that is the one fabulous thing about belonging to the union here at Ferris. And today is officially my one year anniversary here at Ferris. That means it's official- I'd have to do something outlandishly stupid to get fired or let go. The FMLA covers me completely for this pregnancy now too!

Another good thing about my cerclage date is my best friend who is a labor and delivery nurse at the hospital we go to will be working that day. She can check in on me and be the one to keep an eye on the baby before and after! So not only will I be worried, she gets to worry too! I actually feel bad for her, knowing everything she does, seeing all the things she sees and having to deal with me going through it must stress her out. Gunner about killed her last time. She didn't let on how upset and worried she was last time until after we were out of the woods. Must be I was too messed up on the drugs to realize how bad she looked each time she came into my room. I was totally oblivious to her being upset.

Gunner was super excited about seeing the pictures of his baby! He looks them all over and tells us what is in each shot. He also pulled a couple more names out of his butt yesterday. Calvin for a boy and Pissant for a girl. He gets the Pissant from his Papa. (yup sounds just like it is spelled: Piss- ant) My dad has always had these messed up nicknames for us kids. I was his Pissant when I was little. I guess you have to know my dad to understand his terms of endearment.

I aslo spent some time at the funeral home yesterday. My Aunt Kathy died last weekend and her funeral was yesterday. While I didn't attend the funeral since it was at the same time as my doctor appointment, I did stop at the funeral home on my way to the doctor. My cousins all seem to be doing ok. What is sucky is that my Aunt just buried my oldest cousin a couple months ago. So the family has lost a sister and a mother all in a short time. Personally I was not overly emmotional since I am not close with that side of the family. But I feel bad for everyone and my heart hurts for my dad. Mom said he had a real hard time with it yesterday. She wished I could have been there, but seeing my dad cry is not something I want to do.

So that is the update. If I can figure out the scanner maybe I can scan the ultrasound pictures for everyone to see. Don't hold your breath though, I'm not very computer savy. Keep praying for this peanut! We have a long road to ahead of us.

10 weeks and counting

2008-10-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

So, today I am officially 1/4 of the way through my pregnancy. It's been a rough quarter. I feel like hell most of the time. There will be little glimmers of normalcy here and there, just enough to remind me that I will survive this thing. The worst part is I am just getting going. Maybe it was because I felt so wonderful when I pregnant for Gunner that I am having a hard time dealing with being sick. And maybe I just forgot how bad I felt the last time because everything that happened after 20 weeks was way worse than a little nausea. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am almost 5 years older? Whatever it is, I am a wimp!

Since it was cold and rainy all weekend, nothing got accomplished. Gary did get the second dresser moved out of Gunner's room and into the garage. Gary and I are moving our room which is currently upstairs, into what used to be Gunner's toyroom. So I had to rearrange his furniture and put quite a few toys in his room. The toyroom closet which we could barely open the door to, is clean and awaiting our clothing from upstairs. (Ok most of it is on the couch since I never take care of it.) Why are we moving? The stairs. Once I get a cerclage I will more than likely be told to avoid the stairs. Depends on how things go, stairs may be completely off limits. And if you know me, and how graceful I can be, there is no reason to tempt fate by climbing my big pregnant self up and down the stairs several times a day.

I am also hoping since I will be right next to Gunner's room now that I can break his habbit of wetting his pull-up at night. I'm thinking that on one or more of my many trips to the bathroom at night, I will drag the little guy with me and make him use the bathroom to get him into the habbit of not sleeping through the urge to pee. And then maybe I will be able to get him to go back to sleep in his own bed instead of coming into mine after he wakes up once he is already wet.

That's about it. Nothing overly exciting to report. Gunner is getting geared up for Halloween on Friday. Gary has the day off so he can go to his class party and go with us trick-or treating that night. On Thursday I go to see the nurse for my first OB visit. That will be extremely disappointing. Most likely it will be lets talk about how you are feeling, take your vitamins, watch your weight, how did you last pregnancy go, here are some handouts, see you next time.

Little bit better!

2008-10-22T12:42:00.001-07:00

Ok- so I am actually feeling human today! Then again it almost scares me when I feel good- it gives me this false sense that there is nothing wrong with me... and then wait a minute- I'm pregnant and pregnant for me isn't exactly normal, routine or easy. At least I am feeling like I can survive the next 7 or 8 months.

Tonight I get to go watch Jennie Kizer play basketball! I saw a few minutes of her game on Monday and she has so much potential! I can't believe that the beautiful young woman running up and down the court with the long blonde hair is the same little baby I used to snatch up after college classes and nap with. The adorable toddler we loved to mimic as she pronounced words. Jennie is by far the best player on her team, and even though she is only in 7th grade, I can imagine how good she will be in a few years. Gunner is at Grandmy's house and being the mean mom that I am, I am going to leave him there till after the game! Grandmy was planning on him staying late anyways.

Lots of family drama. Mom told me Sunday that my brother and his wife are getting a divorce. Am I surprised? No. I do feel horrible for my nephew Trevor, the poor little guy is going to go through some really rough times in the future. Hopefully his parents can at least be mature about the split. Who knows, maybe my brother will make appearances on the holidays now that he won't constantly be at his in-laws for the whole holiday. But will that be a good thing? Who knows. Honestly I don't care. It may make mom and dad happy, so I guess I will have to be a good sport and put on that smile for longer.

My Aunt Kathy has terminal cancer. She is my dad's sister. Again I feel bad for her and her children, but I am not devestated by it. I have never been close with any of my dad's side of the family. There has never been anything but drama, drama and more drama from any of them. That is when they are not in prison. With the exception of my cousin Julie who I have recently gotten in contact with through myspace and I think my cousin Marilyn may be another one who finally has it together also. There are a lot of decisions to be made now. The family has to decide what to do since she is currently on a respirator and in a coma like state. This also leaves the subject of my crazy grandmother. I am not being cold hearted (like Grandma always has been) Grandma has alzheimers and is in really bad shape. Up until now Aunt Kathy has been taking care of Grandma, now the only one left to step up to the plate is Uncle Paul. My parents took their turn of over 3 years and it almost killed my mother. Litterally. My dad is all for a nursing home since in reality, it is where she needs to be. Everyone else has fought that call from day one. My guess would be they don't want all of her money spent. That is what it usually boils down to with them. We will see what the next few weeks brings. I am just praying all the stress doesn't kill my dad with a stroke or heart attack. I will be superbly pissed if that happens, and believe me each and every family member will know it.

2008-10-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

Well I made it through another weekend, barely. I honestly feel like crap. My stomach is a mess! I am not sick enough to throw up, just to feel rotten pretty much the whole day. My bowels, either work too much or not enough, no where in betweeen and I am very uncomfortable. I feel so bloated I think if you picked my with a pin I would fly around the room making a whizzing noise like a balloon. I am exhausted. I can't get enough sleep these days. And I am only 9 weeks pregnant. I have at least (thinking positively) 28 weeks to go.

A lot of my discomfort is self inflicted. I let worry and stress get the better of me and I shouldn't. I guess it is time to stop caring about anything but a healthy baby. I am a ball of confusion. As horrible as I feel I wonder how I could possibly make it another 28 weeks. The worst part is waiting to see the doc. I want to know now what my cervix looks like. I want to see an ultrasound now. I want to prove there is only one baby, NOW! I have never been a patient person. Guess Gunner got that one from me.

If your reading this, keep the gremlin in your prayers. I pray daily for the the health of this child and the strength to keep on smiling when I feel so blasted miserable.

Attack of the Gremlin

2008-10-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

So for everyone out there, "gremlin" is our term for this creature growing inside of me. Last week the gremlin made life pretty miserable for me. Well, maybe it was the gremlin and a touch of the flu. I got a flu shot early last week and felt like someone ran me over with a bus for the remainder of the week. I was sicker than all get out and was really worried about facing several more weeks or months of feeling that bad. I also had a lot of belly aches and pains. Which may seem normal, but for someone who is worried about carrying a pregnancy to term, aches and pains set off all kinds of mental alarms.

Nothing really exciting in gremlin land- still to early for anything really cool. Today the gremlin decided that Chineese food is not on the list of acceptable things to eat. It would have been nice if I had been given the memo before lunch, but believe me, I got the memo after lunch. The gremlin is attacking my insides and making me pay dearly for that exceptionally tasty (and small) portion of General TSO chicken and rice.

It is going to kill me waiting for my doctors appointments. I see the nurse on Oct 30th and then the doctor on Nov. 4th. And yes they still want to wait that long to see me even with my history. Hopefully on the 4th we can talk about a date for my cerclage. The sooner the better in my opinion! I want to hear a heartbeat and see ultrasounds! Hey- that is one small bright side to being a high risk pregnancy- I should get lots and lots of ultrasound pictures of this gremlin.

Thought for today...

2008-10-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

You can be too informed. I have spent a lot of time surfing the web and reading up on cerclages, incompetent cervix, and the like. What conclusion have I come to? My freakin head hurts and now my stomach is upset thinking about everything I have read. I like living with my head in the sand. I will continue to act as if nothing is wrong until my doctor tells me something is wrong. When I go for my cerclage- I will get whatever type he thinks is best and do whatever he tells me to do. There is absolutely no reason for me to read all of these other sad stories about the bad things that have happened to other people. I feel horrible when I read these stories! I am in no way shape or form trying to lessen the importance of these people's loss- but for my own sanity- I can't read that stuff anymore! Here I thought I would be doing something good, by informing myself. Nope! I can't deal with it all.

I am officially 7 weeks pregnant today. That means at least 30 more to go. I will be positive and fully expect to carry this peanut to term. I will hopefully be so uncomfortable and miserable that I am unable to sleep or sit for long periods of time. I hope my stretch marks beat all others and this kid gets so large it kicks the snot out of my ribs. I missed all that the first time, I am welcoming it with open arms this time.

On the bright side- we called Grandma and Grandpa Bruce this weekend and Gunner got to share his news! Grandpa made him repeat himself about 4 times- luckily Gunner cooperated and didn't refuse to keep saying "my mommy has a baby in her belly" Grandpa Bruce is going in for some tests today so we will have to call and find out how he is!

A little more info

2008-10-02T10:17:00.001-07:00

For those who actually read what I put up here. Yes we are expecting our next child. I am not very far along, only 6 weeks. My due date is May 25th, Memorial Day! Around 14 weeks my doctor will do a cerclage (sew my cervix shut) and other than not being able to lift anything over 20 lbs I should hopefully be able to continue with a fairly normal lifestyle. There will be no sex- but that is a small price to pay for a healthy baby. Gary is ok with it, or he is ok with the idea of it. It may present more of a challenge later!

We will not be finding out the sex of this child. We didn't with Gunner even though we had numerous chances to. We also will not be sharing our ideas for names. Sorry, don't mean to offend anyone but the last pregnancy I was put off by a pregnant friend who had chosen a girls name VERY similar to one I was in love with. So, if no one knows, no one can steal my ideas and I have no reason to be pissy about it. Solves that problem doesn't it? I will tell you while the name will not be completely ordinary, it won't be bizare either. Don't expect a Jacob or Emily, or Apple or Phinneus for that matter. It will have to be a little different since Gunner isn't exactly ordinary.

Gunner is extremely happy! He has been asking for a brother or sister for over a year. He also has told me without no hesitation that I am going to have two babies. I am hoping that is just his little immagination as opposed to a sign of the future. He asks me everyday how my belly is and how his baby is. He also realizes that pretty soon Mommy won't be able to carry him anymore. We also are using a guilt trip to try and get him to stay dry all night. We have told him he needs to be a big boy and go potty at night so we don't have to buy pullups anymore. We told him when we stop buying pullups we can start buying diapers for his brother or sister.

His rationale is instead he will just get another job to pay for his pull ups. In case you didn't know he works several jobs already. He hauls milk (what daddy used to do part time), he hauls for the amish (papa), he drives Conways (where daddy works) and he also works construction (uncle tim). How does he have time for all this? I am not sure. I also am not sure why he insists that he has jobs. I guess it goes back to explaining to him why daddy and mommy have to work. We told him that we have to work so we can pay for food and toys. Now he works to pay for food and toys also. He also has some wonderful hunting stories. Did you know that when Gunner was his dads age he hunted bear in alaska? That is what he tells us anyways. In those words.

Lots of change is on the horizon for all of us. Hopefully it will all be good or at least we will be able to sail through most of it unscathed.

A picture is worth a thousand words

2008-09-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

Just a new picture of Gunner!

Hope you can fill in the blanks.

Tubes are in!

2008-09-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

Well, we were up at the crack of dawn this morning, and made it to the hospital for check in by 6:30. Gunner wasn't feeling particularly social, but at least he wasn't being nasty. They did all the vitals and showed him too his room, where they had us strip him down to the skivies and put a (too short) hospital gown on him. He got a kick out of it. And of course Mommy got pictures out of it. Yes, horsey girl went with us to the hospital.
Since Gunner was the youngest he got to go first! At 8:00 am on the dot a nurse came to get him and we walked with him down the hallway. We had to stay in the waiting room as he continued on. He was a little troubled when we stopped at the waiting room and he realized we weren't going all the way with him. I do believe it was much harder for me than for him though. I held the tears in until he was out of sight. I also got the "It's only tubes" from his dad. And in all honesty by the time I got my self under control the doctor was coming in to tell us he was all done. He talked with us for about 5 minutes then left. After he left I pulled out my cell phone and it said 8:16. Pretty fast stuff.
They wheeled him back by us about 5 mintues later and we followed him back to his room where the drama began. The anestiologist told us when they go under in a bad mood or upset they usually come out that way also. He must have been pissed when they put him under. He was crying and yelling at Gary and I to get away from him and to get out of his room. The nurse was the only one allowed to stay with him. He said his throat and his ears hurt. He allowed me to stand by his bed when the nurse went to get him juice and tylenol and then I was promtly told to "get out you mean mommy". After about 10 minutes he decided all he wanted was for me to hold him. We got his pj's back on and then about 10 minutes after that we were able to leave. We literally we out of there before 9:00 am. Gunner cried most of the way to Grandmy's house. He had me pull over twice since he thought he was going to throw up. Nothing more than a few dry heaves and a couple of spits on his part for good measure. When we got to Grandmy's I sat in the recliner with him and started to rock him. Within 2 minutes he was out.
I called around 1:15 and he is pretty much back to himself and is outside wandering around with Grandmy watching Grandpy work on their addition.

Here is a bonus picture of our ER visit. I didn't get any good bloody shots of it before we went to the hospital.

Just a random update

2008-09-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

Last week went by pretty fast, almost as fast as the weekend! Gunner saw the ENT on Wednesday and he is getting tubes in his ears on this Wednesday (Sept. 24th) FINALLY!! Now I was never one to want tubes in his ears, but when we average 6 ear infections in an 8 month time frame, something has to give.

Uncle Tim was discharged from the hospital on Friday. He is staying with his parents in Kent City since his brother still lives at home and can be there to keep him company and help take care of him. Sounds like the home health nurses will be there pretty frequently and then this week he sees a plastic surgeon, since he will need a skin graft. They have all kinds of things in the works, but all the details, I'm not sure of.

"Uncle" Dale was in town to visit on Friday and brought Gunner a kick butt cowboy hat he picked up in Kansas. I must say my little man makes that hat look good! I think we are back to being a cowboy (again) for Halloween now that we have the new hat. We were thinking soldier, but Gunner is obsessed with the guns, and shooting people so we have vetoed that one especially since he will wear his outfit to preschool.

Saturday night we made a trip to the ER. Nothing major. Gunner was walking towards the little beater s10 pick up Gary drives around on the weekends carrying his booster seat so he could go with Gary. It was just about dark and Gunner tripped on a rut in the yard from the cement truck and fell. He cut just below his elbow pretty badly. We were in route to Nana's house and Gunner wanted to keep going. When we got to Nana's we cleaned it up as best we could and Gunner told us he hit it on "Little Red" (the truck) Well what he hit was a rust hole that cut his arm. Gary even went so far as to take a toothbrush and scrub the cut under the faucet (my poor baby was so tough!) but we were unable to get all the pieces out. I thought the cut was bad enough to warrant a stitch or two possibly. Long story short, at the ER they were able to remove the rest of the debris and just butterflied it up well with some material we are not supposed to get wet for a week. Keep a 4 year olds arm dry for a week? What are they nuts? We are trying anyways.

This week is tubes and possibly a birthday party for my grandmother on saturday! I also think Gary is taking Friday off again- lucky guy. Too bad he has to spend his days off working so hard.

Uncle Tim

2008-09-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

So Tuesday night started out ok, and got really bad, really fast. My sister Rachel got a phone call around 6pm telling her that her husband Tim had fallen at work and broken his ankle. Tim works construction and has been working in the Flint area lately. Rachel had just spoken with him around 5 and he was fine then. I headed home thinking, that sucks, but not much else. When we finally got all the details, they were terrifying. Tim fell alright, from the 8th floor of the building they were working on. He was throwing some large pieces of pipe out of the window into a scrap pile below. The piece he threw had an elbow on it and caught his shirt and threw him off balance and he went out the window with the pipe and landed on the pile of scrap metal. Amazingly enough and by God's grace he is alive and has relatively minor injuries considering how far he fell. The rescue crew took him to Hurley Medical Center and they are doing the best they can for him right now. Tim as of right now has a broken femur a demolished ankle (on the same side) broken ribs, possible broken arm and cuts and bruises on his face. As I writing this he is headed in for his second surgery on his ankle.

We have been doing our best to help Rachel get him transferred to Spectrum. Hurley is in a bad area and is a filthy hospital. Everyone that has been there to visit has been appalled at the condition of the floors, bathrooms and Tim's room. Hurley is not a major trauma center they are way out of thier league. We have talked to surgeons who work for Spectrum and they have urged us to do what we can to get Tim transferred as soon as possible. We have also been told the first mistake made by Hurley is not to have airlifted him immediately to Spectrum. The guy fell 8 stories, admit it, you are way out of your league and not equipped to handle this Hurley! If not Spectrum he should have been sent to Uof M. Somewhere where he could have gotten better trauma care immediately. Now part of the problem is that Tim was conscious through it all, talking, yelling, screaming in pain. No one could believe he wasn't hurt worse. They might have chalked it up to a miracle and thought they could handle it. Or maybe they were misinformed like the inital report in the paper stating he only fell 4 stories and landed on a platform of some sort. Either way we want him out of that damn place now.
The biggest obstacle in moving him is that we are told he isn't stable. Why isn't he stable you ask? Wednesday morning (yup over 12 hours later) they did a cat scan of his head and neck. And as of last night they still did not have the results, so they can't tell if he has neck injuries so therefor he is not "stable" and can't be moved. And my sister was told that it is normal for it to take that long to get results back. Guess we better hope he isn't bleeding internally anywhere huh? The fact that it took all freaking day and still no results of a cat scan is prime example of why we want him moved! The guy fell over 8 stories and they didn't think to do a cat scan of his head and neck till the next morning? What the hell- I am no medical student but even I can make the connection as to why he should have been scanned from one end to the other immediately!
So here I am waiting for more word on what is happening and what is going to happen. Tuesday night was really hard for me. Call me emmotional, but I just couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that he was alive. I keep seeing this image of him falling over and over in my head and all I can think about is what must have gone through his mind, the pain, the fear. And then we come back to God, thank you Lord for sparing his life. Thank you for granting my sister and nephew the miracle of not having to say goodbye. By all means, we should be attending a funeral not making trips to the hospital to visit him. It is utterly amazing the things God can do. Thanks for this one Lord.

Preschool

2008-09-05T11:28:00.000-07:00

Well first off, we had a very uneventful Labor Day weekend. I got to go shopping at the outlet mall on Saturday for school clothes for Gunner and had a great time. Gary and Gunner spent the day together and somehow made it ok without me. The only thing that stands out about the whole weekend was that I spent most of it making peach jam and freezing peaches. Gunner was exceptionally "great" help, but we got through it alright. We had an extra day in our weekend was about all that the holiday weekend amounted to for us. Unless you count worrying about what the hell happened to Gunners face as important. On Thursday the 28th of August, Gunner got all of his innoculations at the doctors office. One of them swelled up and got really red and on Saturday his face broke out with what we thought were cold sores. I was absolutely furious. I had no idea where he got a cold sore from and it really pissed me off. We spent the weekend applying abbreva and carmex and hounding him to keep his hands off his face. One of the sores got better and one got worse.
On Wednesday morning we got up and got ready for preschool! Gunner was pretty excited since his friend Paige would be going this year. We both went along to drop him off and I must admit, I handled it much better this year. The only time I cried was after Paige started to cry alligator tears and then I couldn't help it. I felt a little apprehensive about the sores on his face but after all they were looking better so it should be fine, Right?- Wrong!

Daddy gave him big hugs and kisses goodbye (I did too, but no one but myself knows how to operate a camera) and we were off to work and Gunner and Paige were on their own. Last year Gunner ran down the hall screaming after us, this year he did fine.

Nana picked Gunner up and then proceeded to call me around 1:30 and wanted me to know that the sores on his face were much worse and seemed to be spreading up his cheeks! Fabulous- now I know for positive they aren't cold sores and we just exposed the whole preschool to... IMPETIGO! Yup, I'm the mom responsible! So after our visit to the doctor and an oral antibiotic and a cream- Gunner is on his way to being healed up. I must say I am greatly relieved that it wasn't cold sores- since those would end up terrorizing us forever. Gunner stayed home with his Daddy on Thursday since the doctor didn't want the kids at daycare exposed any more than they already had been. Today his face look much better and he was off to school again!

I can't believe how grown up he has gotten in the last year. Every day he amazes me more, now if I could just get him to listen and follow directions. Before I know it another year will have passed and he will be getting on a school bus heading off to kindergarden. I am so not ready for that one! Hopefully this year drags on...and on... and on...

Birthday Pictures and Audiologist Appt.

2008-08-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

So last Thursday was a fun one for us. Jennie Kizer spent the night which made Gunner extremely happy! On Thursday morning I got up and fixed Gunner and Jennie chocolate chip pancakes (?) and then headed out for my dentist appt. When I got back we got Gunner ready to go and went to the audiologist appt we had set up. Why the audiologist you ask? I honestly think that his pediatrician was just trying to make me feel better by proving his ears are fine. I have been pushing for tubes since we have had so many ear infections and the pediatrician doesn't think he needs them. SO anyways, the audiologist appt was only about 5 minutes long because his left ear was so full of fluid she couldn't get any kind of reading since his ear drum would not move at all. And we got our appt with the ENT for Sept 17th.

After that fun we did Burger King for lunch and Gunner got to run around playland for a bit. We loaded up and began our quest to Grand Rapids. My sister had us on the lookout for Little Einstein birthday invitations for my nephew. Since my sweet son fell asleep in the car and we had some time to kill- I checked out a couple of the party decor stores with Jennie sitting in the car with Gunner while he slept. When he woke up in a good mood Jennie and I were dumbfounded. He is always grouchy when he wakes up! We headed to Sears for his 4 year pictures and he was an angel. Another miracle! We did a little bit of shopping at Sears and then Old Navy and also every place someone suggested for Little Einstein invites. We completely struck out on the invites by the way.

Around 5:30 we headed to Chucky Cheese, which was Gunners reward for good behavior. Daddy met us just as we started in on the pizza and we had a nice time chasing the spoiled child around on the rides and games. Gunner opted to ride home with Jennie and I as opposed to riding with Dad. We made one last detour by the dairy bear in Howard City for icecream on the way home. We had a great day with Jennie which just reinforces how much we love her and how we would keep her forever if we could.

I don't pick the pictures up until the like 28th of August so early Sept will be the first anyone sees them in person.

Our Sad Weekend

2008-08-11T06:14:00.000-07:00

Well we survived, which I knew we would, but it really stunk!

Friday night Mr. Bear had several hours of loving, back rubs and "good dog" hugs. He had a wonderful meal of meat scraps, gravy and italian sausages. We spent a good deal of time on the deck just hanging out with all the mutts and tried breaking the news to Gunner that tommorow Bear would be leaving us. I had left them loose all day on Friday so Bear wouldn't spend his last full day with us chained up. (who knows what those dogs did all day) I do know that the huge hole he dug in the mulch along side the house will be forgiven and probably left alone for quite awhile. I hope he visited the neighbor dogs and ripped up at least one bag of garbage for the neighbors to remember him by. I would have especially been proud if he had killed one more loose chicken from down the road just for old times sake. I honestly don't think he felt well enough to do too much damage.

I also left the goofy dogs unchained all night long. Usually this would result in huge holes in my flower beds but for some reason I think they all spent the night on the porch. Maybe they were waiting for more scraps and handouts which for some reason kept showing up every couple hours till I went to bed. They cleaned up all the lunch meat and the chicken fajita strips that were unopened until then. It was hard to go to bed knowing what was coming in the morning. At least it was for me, the boys seemed to sleep well.

When Gunner woke up and decided on pancakes for breakfast, I knew Bear would be happy. Eggs weren't his favorite. Bear had pancakes with syrup, bacon and sausage for breakfast (Kegger and Lucy just had pancakes) We spent a long tearful hour waiting for the time when Dada had to leave for the appointment. Just before it was time to go I told Gunner to give Bear one more big hug. Dada loaded Bear up in the "little red express" which is his name for his little beater s-10. By this time Dada who is the tough guy was crying too. We opened the window for Bear and leaned in and gave him last hugs and kisses and told him what a good boy he was and how much we loved him. He gave Gunner one last good bye lick which resulted in laughter and down the driveway Dada and Bear went.

The only details I really know from there is that Bear enjoyed a whoopie pie (oatmeal cream pie- the name goes back to Jake) and beefsticks on his last ride. After the vet visit where Dada cried too, Bear was buried in the "pet cemetary" at mom and dad's house where he is in good company. (Jake & Carri to name a few) Gunner is doing alright with it. He calls him by mistake when he calls the other dogs and has asked to cuddle Bear one more time. He also has told me he misses Bear almost hourly but doesn't seem to be too heartbroken. We have told Gunner from the beginning that Bear is going to see Jesus and will get to play with Jake, Bubba & Carri. We told Gunner that Bear was very sick, and old and was hurting. That the vet tried but couldn't make him feel better. For Gunner going to see Jesus is this awesome event which he wants to do himself. We have tried very hard to teach him that heaven is a wonderful place that we all want to go someday. Just not now, or anytime soon. His four year old logic is why wait? It is also hard to explain that if Bear is going to heaven where he will be happy, and free from pain, then why are you so sad mommy? He also hasn't really comprehended that heaven is forever, we will never see Bear again until we go to heaven. We have talked about what we think Bear had for dinner in heaven and what kind of dog house Jesus has for him. Which gets kind of silly and makes Gunner laugh with some of our ideas.

And then I am sure for some of you this brings up an argumentative topic. Just to state my opinion and what we are teaching our child... animals do go to heaven! While that may not be what you believe, we do. I would not argue with anyone about it, you are free to believe what you want, but I also would never tell your child something different from what you teach them so whatever your opinion is keep it to yourself. I can't begin to believe that God would create these faithful companions to love, serve and protect us and then not make room for them in forever. I don't care about bible verses or what certain religions think, what I think, feel and believe is what we are going with. And if for some reason I have it wrong, God will forgive me, and by that point I won't care any longer since in heaven there will be no sadness or pain. It makes us all feel better and in a 4 year olds eyes it makes sense.

Kegger and Lucy are moping around the yard, missing Bear and wondering where the snacks went. Kegger still has eye issues, which are no worse and no better. We are just going to keep and eye on him and see how he does, since the vet said a brain tumor was likely if the antibiotics didn't work. Gary and I have guessed that Kegger won't last the winter regardless. He is a basset mix for one. For two Bear and Kegger have been together since Bear was a 8 weeks old and Kegger was about 8 months old. Bear was in charge of all of Keggers grooming, he kept his eyes and ears clean. Yup it was quite gross, but they loved each other and were inseperable, until now. I am figuring Kegger will give up the fight without his best bud and the pet cemetary population will increase by one. Hopefully by then Dad has his skidsteer back because digging in the winter would be awful.

For all of you who have bothered to read this much, thanks! I know I have gone on quite a bit about a dog, but looking back over the last 10 years there is quite a bit to talk about. Until we moved into our current house right before Gunner was born, these dogs were like our children. They slept in the house and rode in the car whenever we went to my parents house or to a ball game. They were converted into outside dogs which was probably rough on them when Gunner was born. Luckily they weren't resentful of their little replacement. They all loved Gunner dearly, especially Bear. They watched his every move and loved to play with him, even when he didn't play nicely. It is amazing the unconditional love of a dog. Even though I have had little to no extra time to give these creatures for several years they still are faithful. Still loving and kind, and looking for our affection. At least I got to give Bear some of that long overdo loving before he left us.

Tough Choices Update

2008-08-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

So unfortunately I am afraid Bears fate was sealed today when I called the vets office. $279 for a bottle of pills that will last him 16 days. And then if it was working we would need at least another bottle. I guess the part that upsets me the most is that they didn't think to warm me about how costly these pills could be. I know they didn't know the exact price but couldn't they have asked when they ordered them? Not everyone has $279 (x 2 or 3) to spend on an 11 year old outside dog. I also could have bought the pills online if the vet had given me the prescription for $169. But still how many bottles would we have needed if they even worked at all. We also know he is making a killing on the pills, because shipping was not $100. I'm feeling pretty shitty about the whole thing and hope I can keep it together and not end up crying like a baby all evening. Gunner has flag football practice and I sure don't want every parent there to wonder what is wrong with me. I tried to take a few more pics of Bear and Gunner last night and maybe I will get some more tonight. I am assuming Saturday will be "the day" since Gary will be home to take care of everything. I'm thinking I will make Gunner a scrap book of Bear which will hopefully help with the millions of questions I will have to face from him. I have lots of pre Gunner pictures of all of the dogs and I am sure there quite a few in the thousands of pictures I have of Gunner that Bear is in. I am trying hard to keep in perspective this is a pet, who is pretty old, and wouldn't live forever anyways. I guess the hardest thing for me to deal with is the guilt. All those times I have yelled at the dog, told him to get away and leave me alone- when all he wanted was loving! Yes- I am a soft hearted blubbering fool, just don't tell anyone. Guess tonight it is leftovers and lots of treats for Bear especially.

Tough choices

2008-08-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

So we are back to the sick dog thing. Monday I had to take 2 out of 3 of our dogs to the vet. Bear, who was there 3 weeks ago, still has a bladder infection. Kegger has some kind of neurological issue with his right eye. $180 later, meds for one dog, meds for another one ordered but not paid for, and a 50/50 shot with each of them.

The vet prescribed ear drops for Kegger who is 11, th vet is hoping he has a middle ear infection. If it isn't an ear infection putting pressure on everything causing the muscle to spasm then he most likely has a brain tumor. So if the ear drops don't work then our option is to wait it out to see how fast he declines and pick the right time to put him to sleep.

Bear who is almost 11, can't shake the bladder infection. The vet is prescribing another antibiotic which he had to order. If this antiobiotic doesn't work then really the only sensible thing to do is put him to sleep. We could do a biopsy and such, but the vet said that was a lot to put an old dog through and he wouldn't recommend it. I called the vets office today and got more info on the drug- they can't tell me the price since the person in charge of that is out of the office today. Nice huh. So I get online and look up the drug and the doseage- the very cheapest I found it online was $140 per bottle and he will need at least two. The retail price is like $200. Who knows what the vets price will be. So what to do? If it appears to be working after the first bottle I have to order a second. Which will be at least $300 up to $400. If it doesn't seem to be working after the first bottle then we would have to put him down. Where do you draw the line? He is almost 11, I love him, but I will either have spent $500- 600 total to fix him up or $340 and then have him put to sleep. I guess what bugs me the most is that money is an issue. Yeah we can pay for it, but there are so many things we are trying to save for (propane this winter for instance) And how do you look at an old pet like that and say, "sorry buddy" "you're not worth $500 bucks." or even "sorry we need to spend our money on more important things". How do you even look at him and not feel like hell? I guess in all those times I have said I hate those damn dogs, I really didn't mean it because this is breaking my heart. What bugs me the most is not having a better hope, the vet doesn't know if the meds will even work. He says at his age he may not be able to shake this thing since it is so bad. Either way I may have to look at that goofy old dog and say goodbye, which makes me mad, because I hate being sad. My rational husband tells me that if the meds are more than $100 per bottle (which I can almost gaurentee they will be) then we should just have him put down. So that is what I get to think about until tommorow afternoon. Happy Freaking Wednesday.

Camping

2008-08-04T09:42:00.001-07:00

Well, the past weekend flew by with us accomplishing a whole lot of nada. I had put a bunch of things in a yard sale that my mom, sister & family friend had. So on Saturday I spent my day manning the yard sale and relaxing with adults! My dear hubby kept Gunner with him all day! I couldn't tell Gary enough how much that free time meant to me. And since Gunner behaved so well we had to give in and camp in the tent in the backyard. Gunner has been begging to do this for several weeks, and without fail every saturday he gets in so much trouble for his behavior that he ends up losing the priviledge of camping (darn the luck!)
Daddy and Gunner dug a hole in the back yard, made the fire pit, put up the tent and we had smores. I kept hoping Gunner would change his mind and we could go inside but he was brave and the three of us spent the night in the tent in the back yard. I don't know if my back will ever be the same. Gunner had a blast and I guess that is all that counts. I felt a bit under the weather on Sunday so I spent the day hanging around the house (bathroom) and watching TV. Papa brought a huge load of straw over to park in our polebarn since he couldn't get it unloaded before the rain came. At last the barn has come in handy. Daddy had to go to bed extremely early since he had to get up at 2am for work today.
The bright side of that is he will be home tonight for Gunners first flag football practice.! I am hoping it goes well and Gunner likes it!

2008-07-29T06:55:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th Birthday

Gunner Lucht Bruce

Well, we survived the Birthday Weekend! It started on Thursday night actually when the first birthday cards arrived and as you can obviously see, there were stickers in a card from Grandma and Grandpa Bruce which were quickly applied to a bare chest by my goofball and he even posed for a picture. Sorry about the skivies, some evenings that is all he will wear. Friday I took the day off to get the shopping done for Sunday, and I picked up a birthday cake to take to Nana's house to share with all of the daycare kids. I drove all the way over to Leppink's in Lakeview to pick up the cake, just because the lady that decorates the cakes does such a spectacular job. So I hung out at Nana's house with Gunner on Friday while we had lunch and later cake and icecream with about 15 other kids.

Saturday Daddy was still working on the electrical side job he got roped into so it was Gunner and I for the day. I spent the day cleaning up and trying to convince Gunner to stay out of his toyroom and not make any big messes. We took Daddy lunch and then Gunner came home for a nap. We picked up the toys in the yard and attempted to weed my seriously overgrown flowerbeds. We stopped after two because there was really no point. The dogs have dug holes in them and the weeds are out of control- some strategic parking of cars will hide most of them anyways. When Daddy got home Saturday night he and Gunner mowed the grass and weedwhipped. We made cupcakes and cooked the burger for the tacos we were going to have the next day also.

Gunner scammed his way into sleeping upstairs with Gary and I, so we woke up Sunday morning with our 4 year old laid out sideways on the king sized bed. After a round of pillow fights and cheers since today was "my party day" according to Gunner- we headed downstairs for breakfast. Gunner picked (as usual) eggs, bacon and toast (after I vetoed icecream and doritos) Daddy and Gunner trimmed up the sad looking trees in the front yard then they took off to pick up the cake and balloons in Big Rapids while I chopped up all the toppings for the tacos. For the first time in 4 years I was actually ahead of schedule and not running around like a chicken with my head cut off. My dear mom showed up early with the fruit bowl and we got the taco shells frying and the chili con queso heated up.

Once everyone showed up we dug into the tacos, fruit and chili con queso. Lots of pop, juice boxes and beer to go around. It was pretty windy outside and luckily I had sat the little kids table out of the wind so only the older kids and the adults had to hang onto plates. Christian, Bry, Gunner and Paige sat at the little table together. Sam and Logan sat at the bigger table and Miss Lilly ate inside in the highchair.

I had gotten a Pablo Pinata and filled it full of candy. Mind you this is a new pinata that you pull the strings on instead of beating with a bat or stick. The whole pull the string thing didn't go quite perfectly, but after we shook the remaining candy out of Pablo the kids were happy. I hung him up inside since it was just to hot to be picking candy out of the dirt as it was getting sticky and starting to melt. The kids also had fun playing with the Backyardigans masks that Nana picked up for us. Uniqua is Gunner's absolute favorite.

We did a Dairy Queen Icecream cake and cupcakes for the party. While this cake is no where near as adorable as the one from Leppink's the icecream cake tasted fabulous! Even daddy who was not real big on getting an icecream cake was pleasantly surprised. Of course the flash on my camera only works when it wants to so the dark picture below is Gunner blowing out his candles.

Gunner's behavior wasn't too awful, but we did spend a lot of time waiting for him to get out of timeout. First we had to wait to have cake, then we had wait for him to finish up the second timeout before we could do presents.

After presents (and he got way too many nice things) the kids headed outside to play with the ball gloves (he ended up with 2!) and the ball tee and bat. That only lasted for a little bit before we had to open up the neat sprinkler he got and the kids got suits on and had fun running through the new sprinkler. How they managed to run around on the rough, nasty, dried out grass without hurting their feet was beyond me.

We relaxed and visited for quite a bit, and then everyone made their way home later in the afternoon, early evening. It was a long, but great day. Gunner didn't get cleaned up and ready for bed until after 10:00. He wanted to cuddle with Dada instead of going to bed and he literally fell asleep mid sentence on his dads lap.

It's My Friday!

2008-07-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

So I have become the perpetual clock watcher again.. even though it is Thursday.. today is my Friday. I have a million things to get done before Gunner's party on Sunday too! I've got like and hour and 15 minutes before I can leave and I swear the clock has stopped moving!

This week has been pretty average, fighting with Gunner, trying to clean up the house, giving in and putting Gunner to bed and watching something on TV. Work has been pretty slow. I spent a couple days this week helping Mike at work move stuff off the service floor so the "painters" can come repaint the floor. Not fun, but at least I felt useful.

One big accomplishment is I currently have Gunner going to bed by himself. For those of you who don't know our routine, he usually won't go to bed unless I am laying on the floor next to him. This week with so many things that need to be done I have told him that he has to be a big boy and go to sleep himself so I can work on cleaning for his party. It has worked all week. I am pretty proud of the little guy. Although last night he did tell me he didn't want to be a big boy. He did go to sleep by himself though. I also have been putting him to bed at a decent time instead of letting him stay up to see Gary. The extra sleep seems to have improved his mood somewhat.

Gary's "biotch" sister screwed everyone over again. My inlaws were supposed to take her youngest two kids back to her Saturday and none of them would be around on Sunday for Gunner's party. Now suddenly Saturday won't work because she and her husband (who is just as worthless as she is) have something to do Saturday night and since Sydney is at camp they have no babysitter therefore she can't meet her mom to get her kids. So since my mother in law doesn't want to miss Gunner's party she said Sunday won't work and isn't taking them back until Monday. Which means they will be at the party. And now I know I shouldn't care, it isn't their fault that their mom is a psychoitc whore, but I don't want any of them to have anything to do with my child. The further they all stay away from Gunner the better. I mean she has sent one Christmas present and gave one birthday present (since they were staying up here for the weekend) in Gunner's whole life. Mind you that would be 3 Christmas and 2 birthdays she has missed. And yours truly always makes sure ALL of her kids had Christmas and birthday gifts. I even bought for her step kids for awhile. Anyways I am just letting everyone know how much I despise my husbands sister.

Closing in on 4

2008-07-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

It's that emmotional time of the year for me again. 4 years ago today I was laying in the hospital hooked up to a magnesium drip. Man I had no idea what life had in store for us. It has been a wild ride, which I pray never ends. I sit and look at Gunner while he is sleeping- which is the only time he is quiet- and wonder where all the time went. I can remember the boredom and uncertainty of the hospital like it was yesterday. I can remember the pain and the fear as if it never left. I still to this day get the jitters if I go back to visit the NICU, which is something I haven't done in ages and need to do. All the memories and feelings are so vivid- but I have noticed that some of the facts are slowly slipping away. There are a few things I have to look up in my journal to know. I feel weird about that. Shouldn't I remember exactly when each milestone happened?

My little ball of sunshine has been trying our patience to no end. Yesterday I had to take him to have his ears rechecked. No infection- no fluid- no excuse as to why he is behaving so badly. Dr. Rao is going to refer us to an audiologist to check his hearing. I think that was more for my benefit than anything. Dr. Rao knows I am looking for something- something to explain some of the behavior. So we will see what happens with that. Maybe he isn't completely ignoring us- maybe he can't hear us? Wishful thinking- I will bet he is just plain old ignoring us. Although I will give him credit, after I ended up crying about how frustrated I was about his behavior to Dr. Rao and Nana, he decided to behave extraordinarily well last night. I gave him back horsey girl as a bribe to get him to go home without a fight and we ended up having a great evening. If only we could have more nights like that.

Last Saturday night after a long day of working on electric at Ben's and around the house, we took the monster to the Mecosta County Fair. He had a blast and didn't mind that the ride attendants were all missing teeth, that when Gary walked over to get a drink some old drunk was hitting on me, or that tube tops don't belong on just anyone. Luckily he was too busy having fun to blurt out anything too embarrassing. We had the annual Elephant Ear- or should I say Gary and I got a bite and Gunner had the annual Elephant Ear.

Working on last minute birthday stuff for the monster. Backyardigans this year- just ordered the cake (from Dairy Queen) gotta find the pinata the kid has been buggin me for, and shop for the food which I will probably wait until last minute to do.

Our Holiday Weekend..

2008-07-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

This one shot of pure happiness on Gunner's face is about the only pleasure we had in what 4 days? I hate to be a pessimist but our weekend was rough. I personally had Thursday thru Sunday off and accomplished nothing besides sending Gunner to his room another 2 dozen times.

Thursday was our average lay around and be lazy day while daddy worked. We visited with Nana and the kids at her house, picked strawberries (UUGGHH!) had lunch and went to the Library. In between each of those things Gunner and I fought like cats and dogs. Nothing makes either of us happy, he is mad, he doesn't listen, I get mad, he ignores me further, I yell, he yells, it is a never ending battle. I was hoping Friday would go smoother with Daddy home to mediate. NOPE- Friday we had breakfast, then Daddy worked on getting all the junk cleaned up to take to the scrap yard. That consumed most of their day, which wasn'e exactly how I envisioned the day. We went to see the Fireworks in Big Rapids later in the evening. Gunner napped in the car so he was at least tolerable by the time they started. But as for listening- not a chance. We spent the whole evening telling him to come back and sit down, not to go so far away, etc..

Here is a shot of the boys waiting for the fireworks to begin. This is pre neon necklace which Gunner decided to use as a lasso, or a whip and whirl in the air as fast as he possibly could. The little plastic piece that would hold it in the shape of a necklace- that was a point of contention. I finally won that point and he was mad. Big surprise. Gunner fell asleep on the way home and luckily slept all night.

Saturday was the big fishing outing. I was excited about Gunner getting to go fishing. I went along to take pictures and video- I hate being trapped in a little fishing boat with a four year old. It was torture for me. I was freaking out the whole time. Yes of course he had a life jacket on, but still, if he ended up in the water, one of us would end up in there too. Then I imagined my camera going along in with all the gear and having to explain to Grandpy what happened to his fishing boat. We spent about 3 hours on the water, caught nothing, broke the trolling motor and as we were getting in the truck (also Grandpy's) to go home, broke the seat handle which reclines the seat or gives you room to get in the back. All in all a very expensive boat ride around the lake. I also got to pick more strawberries Saturday night. So this was definatley an all around blah day. If you have ever had to pick strawberries right out of the patch you will know why I detest it so much. Here are some shots of the fishing expedition!

And we ended the weekend at Lilly's Birthday party on Sunday. Unfortunately I was so busy chasing Gunner and keeping him away from the young German Shepard who was beginning her training as a police dog that I did not have time to take pictures. Corey made it back from Ohio in time, after having to rebuild the rear end of his buddies truck on the spot. Gunner was overwhelmed with all the new people, the dogs, and the beautiful home on the lake. He loved playing in the water, and good old Andy caught a couple of fish of the dock so Gunner was happy to see that and help throw them in. Thanks Andy! Too bad we wasted so much time yesterday trying to catch a fish- ten minutes at Avis's house and Gunner was in heaven!

2008-07-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

Typical of a Ford, huh? This is how I spend my evenings.. picking up the front of Gunner's truck so he can stuff something under it to "jack it up" then get under it and fix it. Notice my watering can is what we are using this time. He blocks the rear wheels himself and then expects me to help when he can't lift the truck and get something under it. Mind you I usually am sitting there holding the truck to make sure he doesn't knock it off whatever he has it sitting on. This time I just paused to take a picture. You can't see that he actually has his dad's wrenches under there and if it had sound he would probably be saying some pretty choice words- just like the big boys (meaning daddy and corey!) Right now if you ask him what is wrong he will tell you heis waiting for a damn part. Last week it was the transfer case, and before that an oil leak. Whatever happens to be wrong with his papa's truck is also what is wrong with his. I'm glad he thinks this stuff is fun now, but hopefully down the road I can convince him to make a career out of something that isn't so hands on and labor intensive- don't get me wrong, Corey who is one of our best friends, makes a good living turning wrenches. But even Corey would want something more for Gunner. I spent so many days of my career at Bollinger's watching him sweat or freeze his butt off, smash his fingers or knuckles when something gave way, or hardly be able to move after a day of trying to beat ball joints out of the new trucks. And they don't get paid nearly what they are worth.

Gunner also tells us he is going to drive a semi and do construction when he grows up. Of course the driving comes from Daddy and the construction comes from Uncle Tim. While all these are perfectly respectable careers- I want so much more for him. I plan on getting him the best education possible and helping him reach any goal. I will admit I am hoping he reaches for something with bankers hours in an office making tons of money. I don't want to see my baby boy crab fishing in Alaska, fighting fires, flying fighter jets, or arresting the bad guys which are all careers that his dad would think are fabulously heroic things to be doing. I am being totally selfish and am hoping my son never spends 14 months in a desert fighting for our freedom, although if he told me that was what he wanted to do, how would I say no?

When I sit an look at Gunner and let myself wonder about the future the one career that does come to mind as totally fitting would be say... a demolitions expert. That is usually what the house looks like when he is through. Or maybe an excavator- he is always covered in dirt. Somehow I just don't see my wild child going off to work in a suit and tie- although that is a great look for him! I guess I can only try to keep an open mind and hope I live long enough to truly worry about his career choices. I swear this kid will be the death of me somedays- but I wouldn't trade one second of it for all the riches in the world.

Happy Freaking Wednesday...

2008-06-25T04:38:00.001-07:00

I hate being the one in the middle. My father is upset, not at me directly, but at Ferris. I brought his truck in to our service shop the end of May to have the kids up here work on it. Not only did it take 2 tries for them to fix the rear main seal, they didn't tighten the bolts on the transfer case correctly and as a result the driveshaft has come off and busted a hole in the transfer case. We (as in Ferris) are fixing the problem for him, but are having a hard time getting a transfer case here as fast as my father would like. Mind you this repair will cost him nothing but his time, which I do understand is valuable. It is totally the fault of the students and the half assed adjunct professor who didn't check over there work, so we should have to fix it. What kills me is I know how upset he is because each day he is without his truck he is losing money, and he doesn't have to tell me these facts, I understand them well enough on my own. What I wish he would comprehend is there is no way he would clear enough money in 2 weeks to pay for the repair himself so why sweat it? Why not just go with it and enjoy doing nothing with his grandkids? So here is to hoping that the damn transfer case is ready soon and we can get his truck out of here on Friday. This has been another life lesson- my parents vehicles will not be coming up here to be worked on ever again.

And on top of that, Gunner is sick again. He says his ears hurt and he is getting his ass kicked by his allergies. Guess we are calling the doctor today! I just wish we could go longer than 3 weeks without his asthma/allergies flaring up. I do realize it is a small price to pay considering what we potentially could have been dealing with at 27 weeks.. but it is still hard to hear him cough and gag for hours on end when he should be sleeping peacefully.

2008-06-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

So, I have been waiting for something interesting to happen to write my first blog. I guess it is about time to give up on that one. Interesting to me may not be interesting to you and negatively interesting is what seems to be happening lately. The negative isn't much fun to write about so- we will skip it!

I am even going to go out on a limb, must be because I am 30 now and so much more mature, and posting a picture of Gunner and myself instead of just one of Gunner. You can look back through all of my thousands of photos and find only a small handful that have me in them. For one I hate how awful I have let myself look, and for two, dad's just don't think to take a picture of mommy and the child.

Nothing major happening lately, except July is slowly creeping up on us. In just 37 days my baby will be 4! I can't believe how time flies. I have to get crackin on some sort of a party plan. I would really like to have it somewhere besides our house but am not sure where. I think we are doing Backyardigans this year.. Gunner also wants a pinata. That should be interesting. We are hoping Grandma and Grandpa Bruce can come out to visit. "Papa's" truck is broke again, and back at Ferris. (Don't let the kids at Ferris work on anything important!) I hate being caught in the middle. While it won't cost him money to have this repaired, he is out time,which is valuable to him. The kids aren't here to fix there screw up but the technician is supposed to do it next week.

Today is Lilly's birthday. She is one. Who is Lilly you ask? She is the daughter of one of my best friends. I worked with her dad Corey at Bollinger's and he has become pretty important in my life. It seems like just yesterday I was waiting to hear the delivery stories from him. Lilly is also the first baby since Gunner was born that I have actually wanted to hold, hug and kiss often. I think she is what made me realize that I might just possibly have room in my heart to love someone besides Gunner. Here is a picture of miss Lilly from last fall. The eyes and cheeks are pretty much the same!

The only other change really is I finally broke down and sent my horse Euchere out to be broke. Since dad's truck is down, Tiffany who is breaking Euchere had to come and pick him up. It was a big disaster. Euchere is 5 and has never been loaded in a trailer. Well, I take that back, before his mom died he took the trailer ride to MSU when his mom colicked and we had her there for surgery, but he was only 6 weeks old. So Gunner and I stop every night and feed Euchere carrots and hopefully seeing us reassures him that he hasn't been forgotten or sold, and he will be coming home someday. I also am hoping one day he and Gunner will be superstars at the fairgrounds. I know it is a long shot, but I would love to see it.