Graduation Day

Today's my last MFM appointment - Woohoo! Last week they told us that the staff all stands and claps for the couples on their last appointment like a graduation. Cheesy, huh? But it's been a long road and I will gladly be done.

Due all the "issues" surrounding possible pre-eclampsia having calmed down over the past couple of days, I think my perinatologist is going to want to stick with the original plan of inducing on the 22nd.

ONE MORE WEEK!

Paul and I were watching a movie last night and I had visions of cuddling with Caleb in the not so distant evenings and I was filled with so much excitement and hope! Please, please God, let everything turn out okay.

Today is the last time I have to pack my hospital bag with the potential of needing it (if Caleb were sick). Next week it'll be for real.

Update

My apologies for not posting sooner. I forget that many of you who read this, aren't on Facebook and are probably wondering what's going on with Caleb.

Friday we had our 34 week appointment. Caleb continues to look good, no anemia and no hydrops. They're saying Caleb is already close to 6 lbs. (They admit to 10-15% error either way.) So our perinatologist said that after two more good appointments, he'll let us schedule our induction. We (me especially) are hoping that means anytime after 36 weeks, but I know the hospital has rules about how early they'll induce.

I admit I've been worried a lot lately about a repeat cord accident. I feel confident that the perinatologists at Maternal Fetal Medicine are capable of catching the anemia issue, but I worry about the cord. They check blood flow through the cord every week, which is reassuring, but in between appointments I worry. I know hiccups are common towards the end, but they are also a cause for concern as the doctor who studies UCA (umbilical cord accidents) in Louisiana believes that "too many hiccups and/or hyperactivity of baby" is a cause for concern that baby might be in distress due to a cord issue. So whenever Caleb has hiccups, I worry. I am so thankful when I wake in the middle of the night to use the restroom and feel Caleb move. (This doctor also believes that the majority of stillbirths occur at night when mom's heartrate lowers while she is sleeping.)

Please pray for me (for peace) and for Caleb to not have a cord issue. I think when he comes out, the first question out of my mouth will be, "Do you see any cord issues?" I'm trying to maintain a positive attitude as we wait, but I'll admit it's getting harder every day. I just want my baby safe in my arms. Please pray extra hard for us in the days and weeks ahead. I didn't fully realize how difficult this part would be until I got here.

Here's a photo I've been meaning to post (as much as I didn't want to). Remember that I've been pregnant 19 of the last 23 months and as such, my body is pretty much a mess!

Blessings,

Remembering

I'm doing quite a bit this weekend to get ready for Caleb's arrival. We had his 33 week MCA scan yesterday and he's still doing well! It was a longer appointment than usual though, as his head was in a difficult position for the tech to get a good reading.

So now that we've passed week 33, I feel the need to really get things ready. We have been told that if Caleb gets sick after 34 weeks, they would induce labor (or do a c-section, depending on how sick they think he is) and then do a blood transfusion with him out. This is apparently safer than attempting an intrauterine transfusion in late pregnancy.

We're praying this won't happen, but we need to at least be somewhat prepared for that scenario. Considering our distance from the hospital, we all need to have bags packed and ready as of this next week. As well as the car seat installed and diaper bag packed.

I finally got the tub of baby stuff up out of the basement (Thanks, Paul!). I opened it this morning. It's hard to explain the feelings I had as I was both excited and nervous about looking at the contents of the container.

You see, this tub holds the clothes and such that were hastily packed away after Felicity died. In it are the only girl clothes I have that were all intended for Felicity if she turned out to be a girl (remember we didn't know what we were having). Despite not seeing them for over a year, I remembered these pink and purple articles of clothing in detail. I had painstakingly purchased them before her birth, knowing I'd want her in pink immediately if she was a girl. The only piece missing is the pink cotton gown she was buried in.

As I unpacked them today and laid them out on the bed, I was caught up in sadness for a little while. Regardless of where I am or what I'm doing, Felicity's never far from my thoughts, especially during the holidays. I'm always wishing she was here and picturing what she'd look like and what she'd be doing. I imagine how excited she'd get over the Christmas lights and how we'd all be delighting in her excitement.

Needless to say, I didn't get much else unpacked. Those outfits are still lying on the bed. Once I get everything unpacked, I'll probably put them in my cedar chest rather than packing them away again in a tub. I think I'd like to have easier access to them if I want to look at them.

We took our family Christmas picture on Sunday. Paul and I debated about how to include Felicity. Last year we took a picture of all of us with me holding a framed of her. This year we decided to do something else. Here's the photo:

It turned out okay, I think. I'm sure everyone can relate to how difficult it is to get a good family photo. Usually somebody's eyes are shut, somone has a goofy smile, or someone else is out of focus. Despite the frigid temps here these days, I am usually boiling hot, which means I let my perfectionist tendencies go this year and settled on having it done versus pursuing the perfect photo. FYI - some of you will be the lucky recipients of this exact photo is just a day or two!

It's hard to believe that Christmas is only two weeks away! So much to do! We are blessed that Paul is able to take two full weeks off at Christmas every year. We so enjoy this time together as a family and this year won't be any different. The time always goes so fast!

Blessings,

Kleenex Snob

I have this thing about kleenexes, well more specifically a thing about kleenex boxes.


I don't have an unique decorating sense, but I do like things to be color-coordinated in rooms in my home. And I've become a little OCD about my kleenex boxes matching the color scheme for the room they're in.


I'm weird, I know.


For example, our living room is in tans, reds, and white so hence the kleenex boxes have to be tan or red, but I will waiver a little and use pink on occasion. We don't have large living room, but I sneeze often so there are three in that room alone. My kitchen is green so the kleenex box in there is green also. Do you get the picture?


Does this say something about my personality? If so, don't tell me what it is. I prefer to live in my matching kleenex box oblivion.


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CALEB UPDATE:


Yesterday was Caleb's 32 week MCA scan. He continues to look good, but they do want to start seeing us again on a weekly basis. I wasn't surprised at this, though Paul was. I figured this would happen eventually in the third trimester and I'm only surprised they didn't start doing it sooner.


Here's a glimpse of Caleb from yesterday. It's just a picture of a picture, I'm too lazy this a.m. to go downstairs and scan it. He's sure getting chubby!

Blessings,

Caleb Update and Life on the Range

I'm a bad blogger.

I'm getting so caught up in all that needs to be done this time of year, that writing blog posts has been put on the back burner.

Last weekend my parents took the boys so that Paul and I could have a little alone time and time to get some projects done around the house. On Saturday we drove into WI to pick up the 1/2 beef, 1/2 pig, and chickens we ordered from a small farm that does 100% grass-fed beef and pastured hogs and chickens. That took up the majority of the day, but it was fun to talk with Paul and not be interrupted by little ones. Sometimes it feels like all we ever talk about when we're alone is the boys, but it certainly didn't feel that way last weekend. Plus, we now have two (yes, two) standing freezers full of meat for the coming year. If you've never purchased meat this way, we highly recommend it. Especially if you can get it grass-fed. It's a hit on the bank account, but then we don't have to buy much other meat so your monthly grocery budget decreases greatly.

I'd also like to say that my cooking skills have improved as I have tons of different cuts of meat that I wouldn't normally buy at the grocery store. This is our second year doing it, and last year, I had to learn how to cook certain cuts that I had never done before.

We also got the top bunk put together for Ethan. Both boys were sleeping together on the bottom, which is a double, but that stopped working this past fall and we had to have Ethan sleep in the spare room. Ethan is thrilled to be sleeping on the top and it has become his favorite place to read as well. And I'm thrilled to have them back in the same room and have our spare room back. I'm all for keeping them together as long as possible.

I did a bunch of cleaning in preparation for Caleb while the boys were gone too. Got out the changing table to some of the clothes. I ordered wipes. Next month I'll buy some disposables. I do cloth diapers at home mainly, but in the beginning, it's nice to have disposables on hand too. I buy wipes and disposables on Amazon.com, because it's much cheaper. Especially if you do the 'subscribe and save' option. Not to mention the free shipping and delivery to your door.

Once the boys' came home it was craziness again as usual, with school and AWANA and getting Ethan ready to spend a week with his dad for Thanksgiving. They left very early this morning to fly to Alabama where the majority of Ethan's paternal family lives. (His dad and new stepmom live in OH.) I miss him like crazy already. We've had some issues with him lately, but things have been improving greatly and I really felt the changes we had made are drawing us closer to him. It's hard not to have him with us and he wasn't too keen on going, knowing what he'd be missing out on at home. He's still adjusting to being with his dad once or twice a year and reconciling that wiht the rest of his life here. Definitely hits home to me that God hates divorce. I can see now how much better our lives are, but there's still many ramifications, the majority of them being for Ethan who is the innocent one in it all.

It will be weird parenting Elijah as a single child this week. But it will give us an opportunity to focus on him, especially before Caleb arrives. Plus Paul is on vacation the entire week - WOOHOO!

Yesterday was Caleb's 30 week MCA scan. He did well again. I read into everything the doctor says, of course, while Paul's able to remain completely objective. I got the feeling that Caleb's numbers were "okay" as opposed to "great" like in past scans. We don't have to go back for two weeks and by then, we'll be nearing the home stretch. We still have a birth plan to write and decisions to make about delivery. Our closest hospital does not have a NICU, so we're debating about delivering in the cities, so if something does happen after birth, he won't be separated from us. Please pray for wisdom in making these decisions.

Have a great weekend and a blessed Thanksgiving!

28 Week MCA Scan

Thanks for your prayers! Caleb looked great again on Friday's MCA scan. They also did the Bio Physical Profile which he passed with flying colors and a growth scan (that wasn't scheduled). We found out he's gaining well, at just over two pounds. It'll be interesting to see how accurate they are with actual weight when he's born.

We are so thankful to be going another two weeks without having to go down for another appointment. I'm also finally off my progesterone injections as of a couple of weeks ago.

I finally mailed out the dishrags to those of you who won them. All except one and she'll understand why when she actually gets hers.

We've finally had some beautiful fall weather here and yesterday we went down to Taylors Falls for a little hike (and pizza and ice cream!). It's always fun to get out with the whole family.

And finally, I'll be the first to admit I'm the most boring blogger in the world and push 'publish post' now and put you out of your misery.

Blessings,

Caleb's Photos

Caleb had his 26 week MCA and growth scan yesterday. (They check his growth every 4 weeks.) He continues to do great! We are thrilled! He did measure smaller than 26 weeks, which ordinarily wouldn't be a concern for me considering how big my babies have been at birth (Ethan was 8.4, Elijah was 9.3, and Felicity was 9.15), but I am going to be praying that he gains weight. If he is born early, he will do better if he's not too small.

Here are some photos from yesterday's ultrasound.

Yes, that's his big toe practically in his nose!

We don't have to go back for two more weeks, but I have the feeling that as we get closer to the end, we will end up going every week again. That's just my impression of the perinatologist's m.o. Next time they will do a Bio Physical Profile and another test that I can't remember along with the MCA scan.

Thanks for all your prayers! I know I say that every time, but I am exceedingly thankful as there have been many times I know the only thing keeping me from despair was the prayers of so many saints. STAY TUNED FOR A GIVEAWAY NEXT WEEK in appreciation for your kindness!

Blessings,

UGH!

Yesterday was one of those days.

You know, the kind that leaves you questioning your actions, your role in life, your purpose.

Lately we've been dealing with a lot of defiant behavior from one of our children. It hasn't been easy to deal with and in fact, I'm left physically and emotionally exhausted, not to mention guilt-ridden, wondering what I'm doing or not doing to cause these behaviors.

This behavior is not typical.

Paul and I have talked about it extensively and last night I asked a couple of my wise friends who have children older than mine what they think.

I used to be the type of person who couldn't handle any criticism and I admit it's still difficult to hear. But I'm really thankful I sought out their counsel.

Here's what I'm learning:

• A good tree cannot bear bad fruit (Matthew 7) - this is a self-directed thought as there are many things I personally need to work on. I've known about these things, but always find myself making excuses. Pregnancy has been my biggest excuse lately especially considering I've been pregnant the last 17 of 21 months.


• My children, because they are homeschooled, are around me 24/7 for the most part and are very aware of my behaviors and relationships. Anything amiss is open fodder for their little minds and hearts. I need to make sure my relationship with Paul is on the right track, meaning I need to be fulfilling my role as wife, first and foremost.


• I need to be careful with my words and deeds. Am I walking the talk?


• I need to be considerate of the differences between myself and my children, especially since they are boys, and teach and train them accordingly.


• I need to be reading my Bible and spending more time praying for my children.

Parenting is hard, the hardest job in the world!

On a different note, tomorrow is Caleb's 26 week MCA and growth scan. Please pray for him to still be doing well and for peace of mind for me. The farther along we get, the more I find myself worrying about the uncertainty of the next few few months (or less). Not even knowing when or where he'll arrive is not easy on my type A personality.

Blessings,

Caleb's 24 Week MCA Scan

Just a quick post to let you know that Caleb's scan yesterday went great! He had no sign of fluid building up in his body (hydrops), which can be a concern with HDFN (Hemolytic Disease of the Fetus or Newborn and the blood flow in his Middle Cerebral Artery was normal, far below the point where anemia would suspected.

We will continue on a two week schedule seeing as how he is doing so well. He was also head down yesterday, which is a first for these scans. They give us tons of pictures every scan, but I've been bad about posting them. I'll try to get some up soon.

We're all stuffed up here in MN. Elijah's been struggling with a cold all week. Anyone have any good ideas for teaching a three year old how to effectively blow his nose? I'm seriously considering one of those bulb syringes they use on babies, if I thought we could hold him down to do it without hurting him.

And to top it all off, we just had our first snow last night (yep, snow in Oct. in MN!) and poor kid thinks he's going to be going outside today to play in it. But it's only 26 degrees right now and he was outside all afternoon yesterday with my dad.

I'm off to spend the day winterizing our beds and stuff, while Paul is hopefully able to winterize the lawn mower, four-wheeler, tractor and chickens. I'm also hoping to do a bunch of cooking to get a head start on the week. Should be a busy day.

Thanks to you all who took the time to watch the video of Felicity's first birthday. I am very glad with how it turned out and that it brought many of you joy versus sadness. While earthly life without her is sad, eternal life with her will be beyond anything I can imagine.

Blessings,

Almost Here

Only 10 days until Felicity's one year Heaven Day.

Just like the fog outside this morning, I've been feeling the sadness building. There were many times during our trip that I missed her and realized we probably wouldn't be vacationing had she lived.

In fact so many things about our lives would be different.

It's hard not to think about those things.

Biggest thing on my mind lately is imaging what she'd be like as a one year old. Would she be walking yet? Would she be sweet and gentle or rough and tumble in order to survive two older brothers? What color would her eyes be? Would her hair be curly like Elijah's?

Oh, how I miss her!

I've been thinking for months now how we would celebrate her birthday and as it gets closer, I find it hard to plan. I want to honor her memory, but honestly, sometimes it hurts too much to think about trying to have a party for someone who's not here. Add to that the fact that Jeremiah's due date is only three days after Felicity's birthday and I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the next two weeks or so.

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UPDATE ON CALEB:

We had our 22 week MCA scan and growth scan yesterday. We're happy to report that Caleb's scans have been going so well and his numbers are so good, that we don't have to go back for two weeks!

Blessings,

A Project in the Works

We just got back from vacationing in Copper Harbor, MI and while I'm planning a post on our trip, I don't have the time today. But I wanted to share something I've been working on.

I'm a very novice knitter, but I love doing it. Unfortunately up until this recent project, I've stuck mostly to scarves and dishcloths. But I was inspired when I visited a specialty yarn store a few weeks ago.

This is the result:

It's a hat and blanket for Caleb. I had to adapt the pattern for the hat as it was for a very small preemie. Even so, this one turned out smaller than I thought. I plan on trying another before he's born and making it even bigger.

My thoughts behind doing these for Caleb were that I wanted him to have something made by me that smells like me (haven't decided how to accomplish this yet) to have with him, if for some reason we have to be separated for any period of time after his birth.

It's not something I like to think about but I want to be prepared if it happens. Tomorrow is our 22 week MCA scan and also a growth scan which they do every 3-4 weeks. The perinatologist gave us the thumbs us to go on vacation after an early scan last Wednesday so it's been 8 days since he was last looked at.

Thanks for lifting Caleb up in prayer these past weeks!

Week 20 MCA Scan and a Field Trip

Caleb had a great scan again today, praise God! We are so thankful as we learned today that the longer he goes without developing anemia, the less likely it will be that he develops it at all. We also learned that the earlier a baby develops Hemolytic Disease, the more severe it tends to be. This really is a week to week learning experience.

Before the boys and I headed down to the cities for my appointment, we were able to take a field trip to a town about 15 miles away to see the traveling Vietnam memorial. It is a half scale version of the real monument in Washington, D.C. While I have seen the real one myself, I don't know if the boys will ever get to, so this was a neat experience. It is a very solemn one, especially considering that 8 years ago America faced its worst terrorist attack ever.

I found myself in tears as I read a letter a woman had left at the memorial. It was wrapped in plastic with a flower and two pictures, a wedding one and a photo of a man in uniform. The letter began:

Dear Mike,
Today would've been our 40th wedding anniversary. We didn't even get to celebrate our first anniversary.

So sad! The rest was folded so I couldn't read it, but it was never meant for my eyes anyway.

The boys were able to explore some old army vehicles, even climbing inside a convoy truck. It was neat to talk with some of the veterans there who were volunteering.

I am so thankful for all those who were willing to make such sacrifices for our country.


Blessings,

Boring Blogger

I know I've been a boring blogger lately -sorry! Life is busy and I just haven't had any inspiring blog post ideas nor the time and energy to write one if I did. But I wanted to write something before tomorrow so that my posts don't all become Caleb's MCA scan updates.

We had a fairly successful garage sale on Saturday. Ethan had fun camping with his dad, though he was bummed not to be here for the sale. He opened his own "business" this past spring called "Ethan's Eats" with the intention to sell water and various snacks whenever we hosted paintball events on our property. (If you didn't know, my husband loves paintball!) Ethan used some of his birthday money to purchase bottles of water and snack foods. Unfortunately all of the paintball events have been cancelled due to not enough people signing up, so Ethan's business has been surviving solely on purchases made by family members. He was hoping to sell stuff to people at the sale. Since we didn't get rid of as much as we wanted, we're going to have the sale again this Saturday, so hopefully he'll sell some stuff this weekend.

Elijah had a blast at the garage sale. He spent pretty much all day cutting, glueing, and drawing on construction paper and handing them out to customers, who weren't quite sure what to do with them. Sometimes he'd hold the paper out and just say, "Here" in a deep voice and then walk away. (He frequently likes to talk in a deeper voice than normal.) Other times he'd launch into a detailed exchange in his deep voice, which unless you know him, can be difficult to understand. I found myself often interpreting for him, but it was cute nonetheless.

My homemade dishcloths did not sell liked I'd hope they would, so I'm hoping this Saturday will be different. Otherwise, I'll have to come up with some sort of contest to give some of them away.

Tomorrow we have another MCA scan since it's Friday. Keep praying for Caleb to stay healthy! It would be great not to have him have any blood transfusions, but I'd at least like to wait until he's a little bigger. I'll be sure to post a report tomorrow evening on how things went.


Blessings,

Week 19 MCA Scan

Thanks for your prayers this week! I don't think I was too unbearable, so you all must have been praying hard.

We're ready for our garage sale tomorrow, our homeschool co-op "opener" went well, and Ethan is camping with his dad and stepmom. (I hate the words stepmom/stepdad. We don't try to use those terms. I prefer "chosen mom/dad" because that person entered into a relationship knowing the role they would have to fill and choosing to do so. End tangent.)

Caleb's MCA scan today went well. The blood flow is well below the limit. They want it to be <34 cm/second and he was in the 27-28 cm/s range. Praise God!

I'm tired and lacking in much else in terms of "fun blogging material." Have a great Labor Day weekend!

Blessings,