Mondays are so ..blah!

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-

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"

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

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

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

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

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.