It's going to be a rough road...

An update on my big sister...

She had to be at UNC on Wednesday to meet with all of her Dr.s. They were at the hospital from 8 in the morning until almost 6:30 that night. They were informed that she would be having a tentative surgery date of January 6th (my birthday). However, she had to go back on Thursday to have minor surgery. They removed 6 lymph nodes underneath her left arm to test and see if the cancer has spread to her lymph nodes. We pray that it has not. This will determine what approach the Dr.s will have on her surgery date. They won't know these results until the 21st of Dec. So we wait again.

Really hoping they may decide to come home since her surgery isn't until January. It would be great to see them. And I am pretty sure it would probably be good for her too. Well, the whole family actually. I guess we will see.

On another note...I have almost made it through my first week back to work. It's been a little nervewrecking. Have called the sitter a couple times to check on my little guy. Had to inform them yesterday that he is only 7 weeks old, therefore still too little to be on a set schedule. They asked if I wanted them to keep him awake when the older kids woke up from nap. It's really hard to keep a newborn up when they are supposed to sleep quite a bit. I know...we had to do it to get him to remember that day time is for being awake (as much as a newborn is) and night time is for sleeping (somehow he got this mixed up last week...). So, the fact that I had to remind them of this, makes me a little nervous.

On the plus, Fridays are the day they spend most of the time with daddy and then grandma comes to watch them. Yay :) Really wish I could have a family member watch them all the time and not have to worry about a sitter watching them.

So, things are busy around here trying to get my Christmas shopping done...haven't even started wrapping anything. I am still waiting for a few things to come in that I ordered online. Still waiting on our family pictures that I ordered to get here. Everything seems to be on hold. We start family Christmas's this Sunday...yikes.

Back to Life...Back to Reality

Anyone remember that song? Don't ask me who sings it or the rest of the words, because I'm not sure I know the correct words :) But anyway...


I'm back to work. Today. Yes, I have been off for 6 weeks due to having a baybay! Yay! Landon Alan graced us with his presence October 27th at 7:06pm. It was opening pitch of the World Series game. Something that my husband will never forget :) especially since it was his beloved Cardinals. Landon weighed 8lb 40z. and was 20 inches long at just over 2 weeks early.

I had had a Dr appt that morning and my blood pressure was high. I had to wait around for a bit and get it rechecked. It was still a little elevated, so he sent me down to triage to have some labs done. When the labs came back, there was protein in my urine and my bp was still a little high. My Dr. decided our little boy would be here that day. Good thing I had brought my bag!

Everything went great with delivery. Landon latched on like a pro shortly after being cleaned off a little bit and we haven't had any issues with nursing at all! It is like night and day comparing this nursing experience with Aiden's.

I apologize for not updating sooner, but we no longer have a computer at home since we literally do not have any room for one. We plan to get a laptop at some point, but that won't be happening anytime in the near future. So, all of my updating will be from work when I can get the time!

I was so incredibly sad to leave my little man this morning, but the good thing is he gets to stay with daddy until a little after 11 and then goes to the sitter. I guess I am just nervous because of all the issues we had with Aiden's first sitter when he was a baby. I'm sure he will be fine. Which, reminds me, I need to make a phone call :)

On a not so happy note...my sister found out two weeks ago that she has breast cancer. She is 35. Her husband is in the Marines, so therefore, they are down in North Carolina without any family near...not sure all the details, just know that she will have to have a double mastectomy done and will be going through Chemotherapy. She also has 3 young children. Starting next week, I will be getting yearly mammograms per my Dr. Sometimes, life just really sucks. Especially since they won't be able to come home to family for Christmas. If I had more time that I could take off, I would be going to them.

35 weeks...and counting!

This time, I have made it past the day Aiden was born. Things seem to be looking pretty well so far, other than measuring about 2 weeks ahead of schedule. I go in for another ultrasound (yay!) on Friday and also see my Dr. afterward. Anxious to see what he will say and how I will be measuring at that time.

I have been going to physical therapy because I have had a lot of trouble with my hips this time. So much so, that sometimes it's hard to walk. It seems to be helping quite a bit. I have been having less pain, which is fantastic. Apparently my pelvis was cockeyed, so we are working to get it realigned. I also have some inflammation around my hip joints and she is working that out too. Again, I seem to be getting better already and I have only seen her twice.

Aiden is at such a fun age right now. He is repeating everything! It is amazing how much this little guy is saying and comprehending. He has started to tell us when he has pooped and peed, which I know could be the start of the "p" training, but I don't want to push anything because he is going to have so many changes in the near future that he just isn't going to understand. So we will see...

Hubby and I are getting really anxious about the pending arrival of #2. I think we are as ready as we are going to be :) The few things we still need are not necessary right off the bat, so I think we are as prepared as we can be. So excited! Until next time!

33 Weeks

I am 33 weeks pregnant as of yesterday. I am slowly starting to get a little bit nervous/anxious. When I was pregnant with A, right about now was when my blood pressure started to get high and I started to spill protein. I also looked like a big balloon with huge swollen cankles, swollen face and fingers, etc. It was not a pretty sight.

Things seem to be looking much more positive this time around :) I had a bit of a scare about 2 weeks ago with lots of cramping and contracting, but I am pretty sure that I was just a bit dehydrated. They went ahead and gave me some Pro.car.dia to take as needed. I have only had to take it twice at this point, which is a fantastic thing. Not much swelling hardly at all. Just enough to where I can't really wear my wedding ring now and my shoes are starting to feel a little snug, but other than that, all is looking great in that department! I go back to see my Dr. tomorrow.

I had an interesting/scary dream last night. It was about my Dr. visit. I dreamed that I had went to see him, but right before I did, I had started to notice some bleeding after I had went to the bathroom. So, when he started to check me, he immediately got a worried look on his face. I was in labor and needed to be admitted...yes, I'm a little nervous lol. But it was just a dream, thankfully.

I feel like I probably should start to take it a little easier, but I have been teaching colorguard again and we are getting ready to go in to District contest this weekend and I had to write a whole lot of work to make sure we get a big chunk on the field to end the show with. Even though I am not supposed to be the one writing the work. Had I known sooner that I would end up having to, it would have been written a couple weeks ago! So, that is pretty strenuous on me and makes me extremely worn out and anxious. We will see how it goes because I still have to write about 2 more minutes of work for the girls, plus fix some minor issues. Ah! I am sure my Dr. wouldn't be too fond of the idea that I am exerting so much energy toward this, but someone has to get it done...and I am not the type to just leave someone hanging. But dangit, I better get paid well for doing all of it! :) We shall see...lol

On that note, keep your fingers crossed that things continue to go well over here. A is growing like a weed and really starting to get words out correctly and repeat most everything you say! I am loving it. What I am not loving is when he gets mad at me and decides he is going to hit me upside the head. We did our first time-out the other night, only for about 30 seconds, but I think it was long enough to have an effect on him. I didn't know what else to do after he threw a fit and then threw a large toy across the room at me. He didn't like having to sit in a chair and not move for a bit. I think I made my point with that.

So, we trudge on :) Life is hectic and flying by like crazy over here. We are excited for this little one's arrival, but again a little anxious/nervous. I am a little nervous about how big brother is going to react, but I know it will all work out in the end.

This crazy, crazy life

Life has been crazy here. I am now in week 31 of my pregnancy...and things seem to be going well. However, I am a little anxious right now since my son A was born at 34 weeks 5days. It would be really nice if my body could hold out at least until 37 weeks! :)

I definitely don't have the swelling that I did with A at this time. Which I assume to be a pretty positive sign for me! Maybe due to the fact that A keeps me on my toes and we are constantly go, go, go!

We still have a lot that needs to be accomplished before this little guy gets here! We don't have a dresser for him yet, we still need to increase our cloth diaper stash, need to get some other minor things. We have lots of clothes from A that I need to rewash just to make sure they are nice and fresh, but I don't want to do that until we have a dresser to put them in after they are washed. Hoping that we can order our dresser this weekend or find one for a decent price somewhere. We shall see. Still so much to do it feels like!!

I haven't blogged in forever. We no longer have a computer in our house since our office is now another nursery. We are hoping that we can eventually sell our desktop and get a decent laptop that doesn't require much space! This would explain why I haven't been able to blog in a few months.

And again, the nerves are really starting to set in with the anticipation of this little guy. Not sure how A is going to react to a little one in the house. He is attached to mommy and daddy's hip right now. Which could make things really hard when his little brother actually gets here. I know there will be an adjustment phase and I am hoping that it goes smoothly lol. I guess we will see!

I am sure my next update probably won't be until after the little guy gets here, so until then!

Blog Slacker

Yea....that's me. I am slacking, majorly. It's been two months since I last posted. And in that last post I informed you that we were expecting baby #2. I am extremely happy to say that all is going well so far! I am now at 22 weeks and found out a couple weeks ago that A will be getting a little brother :) They will be around 22 months apart which should be a nice age for them to bond pretty well. At least I am hoping! Chaos will soon begin around our household! :)

Aiden has been super clingy lately, which is fine, but makes me a little worried about what will happen when baby #2 gets here. Momma's hands are going to be full! But he just gets more and more fun every day. We are learning new words and pointing things out and getting excited when we get to go to grandma and grandpas or nana and papas! It is so great to see his little mind working so hard to figure things out :)

We are still thinking about names for this next one. Hubby has picked one out that he really likes and I think I really like it too, but I need to take some time and look at more names, just in case. We are also still debating about whether to put the baby in with A, or give them each their own seperate rooms. I know that A does better when he is in a room by himself, so we are leaning more toward the seperate rooms, but that is going to mean that we have to give up the office space where all of my sewing, scrapbooking, computer, files, etc are and I have no idea where they will go. Because we literally have no other rooms in our house for any of it to go. It will all work out in the end though, I'm sure.

And to make things a little bit more stressful...we are refinancing our house. It will help with our money situation a lot, which isn't bad, but also makes me stress out every time the bills come piling back in to our mailbox. It's never ending...

On that note...have a great rest of the week!! Hopefully it won't be another two months before I post again ;)

I have news :)

It was a fantastic Mother's Day yesterday! I was able to enjoy most of it with the two loves of my life! And...Blaze has had a few really good days! He seems to be perking up a bit and getting back to his old self. He has even decided that it's time to rejoin us in the bed (which means, it's really his bed and we just have to take up whatever space there is left after he settles in, which isn't very much...at all!). We had lunch with hubby's family and then spent the rest of the day outside doing odds and ends in the yard (planting flowers, killing wasps, washing my car, mowing...) Now, if my Grandma could just stay out of the hospital, all would be really good!

I have also been keeping a bit of something from the lovely internet world, well mainly blogland. A will be getting a little sister or brother in November! Yay!! Complete surprise, but we are so incredibly happy! :) Now, to just figure out our space issue...our house is really small. Oh well, it will come!

Cloth Diapering is going well so far! I have yet to venture into putting them on him at night, because he is definitely a heavy wetter, but we will soon. I am still working on building up our stash so that I won't have to wash diapers every single day. And I am slowly figuring out which ones tend to work better than others (at least for us). We are incredibly happy with the Bumgenius 4.0's. I like the velcro best, but the snaps work well too (velcro is just a lot easier for my extremely active little boy). We also have a few Happy Heiny's...I am not too crazy about these. The velcro works really well, but the snaps, not so much. And of course, I have more snaps than velcro. They also seem to fit a lot more bulkier than any others. Not a big fan of that. But things are working well for us so far and hubby seems to even enjoy A's cute little colored bum :) So far so good!

When It Rains, It Definitely Pours

Things are really hectic around our household lately. Well, for at least the past week and half they have been. Our furbaby, Blaze, is really sick. He started acting strange the weekend before last not wanting to eat, not wanting to leave the couch, and not sleeping in bed with us (this is just craziness). After day 3 of not eating and barely getting off the couch, we took him in to the vet. He ran some in house bloodwork and gave us some medication to start with him and said we should see an improvement within 3-5 days. He perked up a bit the following day and was eating a little bit (but not his dog food). On Thursday of last week, things took a turn for the worse. My hubby had to literally pick him up off the couch to get him to go outside to the bathroom and couldn't get him to eat anything at all. The medicine he was supposed to take we had to put down his throat because he refused to eat what we had put it in. Another trip to the vet that afternoon. This time, bloodwork was sent off, a urine screen was done, and an ultrasound done of his lower half around his kidneys. We were given another type of medication to add to what he was already taking.

Blaze ended up having blood in his urine. The first day we took him to the vet we found out that he had severe anemia, really low red blood cells, and high white blood cells, which made the vet think he had an infection of some sort. We had to wait for the results from Thursday's blood tests.

Fast Forward to Monday morning when the vet finally called me to let me know part of what they found. By the way, Blaze is still very lethargic and isn't really eating all that much and only gets off the couch to go to the bathroom once or twice a day. So, the vet informs me that he is leaning toward Cushings Disease, which is a rest of his life disease that he would have to have medicine for. Which we can not afford, since the amount of meds he would require as big as he is would be twice the amount for a normal size dog. Which breaks my heart.

And I got another phone call today stating that they got the rest of the pathology results back and they are no longer worried about it being Cushings Disease, but that all signs are pointing toward cancer of the spleen or liver cancer...this is the news I have been fearing for a week now. I wish there was more that we could do for him, but our finances just can't do it. I hate that we have to choose like this, but we can't even afford to do a biopsy to verify which type of cancer it is. It actually doesn't really make a difference because we wouldn't be able to do anything further because Chemotherapy for a Great Dane would be astronomical. I can't even believe we are facing this right now. We have been through so much with this dog. He has been such a great addition to our family since before we were even married. He isn't even 6 years old yet. This is so incredibly hard to face right now...

Over this past weekend, we were supposed to celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday with the entire family in from out of town (state) and her closest friends and I get a phone call that she has been admitted into the hospital. They didn't know what was going on, but her bp was 90/50. And my grandma usually has high bp. Her blood count was also much lower than what it should have been which meant she was losing blood somewhere. So we all spent her actual birthday with her in the hospital on Sunday and took her cake to eat. They found out she had a bleeding ulcer...

Oh, and Aiden ended up having another double ear infection on Friday. Thank you tubes for doing your job. I know they don't totally prevent, but I was hoping for a little bit more reprieve than just a little over a month. No such luck...

If you stuck with that, wow. I feel as though it just went on and on. We are keeping Blaze comfortable right now and just letting him be and giving him all the love he deserves. Aiden is feeling much better. And my grandma is still in the hospital, for at least another night. Things might turn around soon...we shall see.

Cloth Diapering? Quite possibly

I am truly thinking about switching to cloth diapers. Everything that I have heard and been told makes it seem pretty easy. The whole getting started is what is a little intimidating to me. I know it's going to take a bit to build up a stash of cloth diapers, but I want to be prepared. And dang it, disposables are ridiculously expensive! We are looking ahead at hopefully having #2 and of course any extra money we can save would be a huge help right now. And obviously, cloth is much better for our wonderful environment. If I can just get my hubby on board :) I actually already mentioned cloth diapering to our sitter and they seem to be okay if that's what we choose to do. They just want to make sure they know what to do. Well, all but one is apparently okay with it. There are three different sitters at A's daycare throughout the day, so the one that isn't okay with it doesn't really matter much :) So, apparently all I need to do is start stocking up on everything and get the ball rolling! I'm a little nervous, but I guess I need to just jump into it. Wish us luck! By the way, sorry it's been a while since I posted, life has been kind of crazy lately. And my little man takes up my evenings with his cuteness :) And...A's molars have broken through on the bottom and he is getting a couple other teeth now too! We have been a bit fussy with the teeth. And...A got tubes put in his ears in March. He was having ear infection after ear infection and double ear infections. So, we finally got him to an ENT specialist and had tubes put in on the 14th of March and we haven't had any issues since! His ears are healing up nicely and all seems to be well with that now! Yay! Lastly, I may begin teaching colorguard again this summer, which makes me extremely happy :) and will help with the finances lol. We will see...the guard that I used to direct is in dire need of assistance since someone else took over and the band director would really like to have me come back in to hopefully get them straightened out before it's too late. If I could go back and be the full-time director again, I would, but that would mean sacrificing the precious little time I have with A and I am not willing to do that. Until next time....hopefully with some good news!

And so it begins...yet again...

I took myself off BCP's. I was having issues with them anyways. I don't think my cycle was ever where it should have been even when I was on them. That's definitely not a good thing I don't think. I informed my Dr. of this back in August, but he didn't seem to be too concerned about it. We switched my pill at that point since I was pretty much done breastfeeding (yes, my cycle started way before I stopped bf'ing). I was still having issues. Lots of spotting throughout my cycle and then when it came time for AF to show, it lasted only about a day.

At this point, I haven't had AF since December. And of course, pregnancy tests show BFN. Hubby is pretty much convinced I am pregnant, even though I keep telling him that I am not. But there is always that little bit of, 'but what if I am' looming in the back of my head. It makes me a little nervous because A just turned a year old a month ago, but I know that we need to be thinking about number two now. Heck, my Dr. wanted me to start trying again back in August! (that thought just scared me a little too much..lol)

I keep thinking, what if we have to go through all of the pain yet again. What if I have to go through another surgery (it's quite possible)? I'm not sure if I am up for all of it again. I have someone else to think about now other than myself and hubby. And he is my everything. Definitely the light of my life. He makes me smile even when he decides his new wake up time is 5:50am (all weekend...).

It's nervewracking. Hubby is ready. I'm still undecided because all of the pain and struggle is still fresh in my mind. But we aren't preventing it. If it happens, it happens and I will be ecstatic. Lord only knows what the future will hold...

A year old....

Tomorrow....the 5th....my baby turns a year old. My little man. And what the little man he is becoming :)