34 weeks

Another two weeks, another appointment. Everything was looking great this time around again (good blood pressure, baby's heart rate in the 140's) with the exception of me losing a couple of pounds and measuring two weeks smaller (32 weeks instead of 34 weeks). Because of those two factors the midwife wanted me to get an ultrasound done to check the fluid level, size of baby and make sure the placenta was still functioning properly, just to be on the safe side. I did not worry too much about anything being wrong. I was actually excited to be able to see our little one once more before the birth. So we made an appointment a couple days later and the sono tech showed us from her perspective that everything was fine with the baby (fluid level, size and working placenta). We made sure to let her know that we didn't know the gender of the baby and still did not want to. She measured baby to be about 5lbs. 13oz. Which if I go to 40 weeks would make for a good sized baby over 8 lbs!

Sideways close up picture of the nose and lips (nose to the right and lips to the left)

Daddy made the sono tech a little nervous when he softly counted to himself "one, two, three, four, five, six!" The sono tech whipped around in her chair and said, "six?" We all got a good laugh out of that!

Junior's tonsils

It all started over a year ago when I mentioned to the pedi at an appointment with Gaga, that I thought Junior's tonsils were bigger than they should be. The pedi looked in his mouth and reassured me that this was completely normal for this age and that kids sometimes need to grow into their tonsils. They never caused him a problem and the issue was forgotten about until about a month ago...

One random day I saw into Junior's mouth and noticed his tonsils were larger than they had been a year ago. We also noticed that he had recently started snoring loudly while sleeping. I put in a call to the pedi and they wanted me to try a dose of Motrin to see if they were just swollen for some reason and if this might bring the swelling down. They said there was no need to call back unless he was complaining about his throat hurting, they were red and pussy or he had a fever (none of which he had at that moment). About a week later Junior was complaining one night that he felt like something was stuck back in his throat and he continued to cough and gag to try and get it out. The next morning I called the pedi back and told them that he was complaining about something being stuck in his throat and they referred me to an ENT to go ahead and have them looked at.

We made an appointment for the following week and were told by the doctor within 5 minutes of being in the room that Junior needed to have his tonsils out. I thought it was a pretty rash decision made by the doctor that had only talked to me for a couple minutes about Junior's symptoms and spent even less time examining him. I just wasn't ready to put my "baby" under the knife if it wasn't a dire need. After talking to a few trusted friends at length, we decided that it wouldn't hurt to get a second opinion and see one more ENT. This time it would be a pediatric ENT recommended by my friend.

I made an appointment again for the next week and within a couple days Junior woke up with a fever. I took him into the pedi's office and he tested positive for strep throat within a few seconds on a test that takes 5 minutes to come back. Daddy and I both decided at that point this would be our second opinion and we should just get his tonsils taken out if they were going to start causing this to happen. We canceled our appointment with the other ENT and we were in waiting mode until Junior had finished his antibiotics and we went back in for a follow up with the pedi.

We finished up the 10-day antibiotics and a couple days later, one day before our follow up, Junior wakes up with a fever again. Another trip back to the pedi's confirmed strep throat again!!! We definitely had convinced ourselves at that point as soon as his antibiotics were finished we were getting those tonsils out.

So we come to the day of surgery and Junior was such a trooper through it all! From waking up early before the sun to get to the surgery center, to drinking the sedation medicine, to waking up after surgery with all the nurses in love with him, to eating two blue popsicles before we left the center, to never complaining about anything. Except for later that day when he wanted to eat chips and ride his bike (the two things forbidden by the doctor). Of course he had his moments of crankiness which was to be expected. He missed school on Tuesday, but was ready to go back on Wednesday and was upset when I picked him up early because I didn't want him running around at playground time.

Daddy and I did great also! We were able to leave our sweet boy in the care of the doctors and nurses as they wheeled him into the OR. We went to the waiting room and started a rosary. Halfway through the rosary the doctor came out to tell us that he was done and that Junior had done great and it was a good thing we took them out because they were extremely big. I thought for sure something was wrong when the doctor came out so soon. I was not expecting it to happen so quickly. We finished the rosary and then it was time to meet up with him in the recovery area. He looked so groggy and pathetic it made my heart hurt. The nurses said he was just the sweetest thing and two of them wanted to take him home. They said that most of the little ones do not wake up from the anesthesia so well. He was just laying there eating away at his popsicle when another little boy right around the same age came out of surgery and he was kicking and screaming. One of the nurses said, "Now that's the way they usually wake up!" After he finished his second popsicle and his bag of IV fluids had run the rest of the way in, we were good to go!

The night before surgery we took one last picture of Junior with his tonsils. (The two big balls at the back of his throat.)

The picture they gave us to keep of his tonsils. Had no idea we would be getting a little souvenir! The safety pin is to mark left and right for the lab when they are sent off.

Poor Junior, on the way home after his surgery around 10am. Blue lips from the popsicles. He was getting enough oxygen I promise!

Sometime around 8pm that night. Junior feeling much better and posing with all of his get well gifts and cards (and the picture of his tonsils).

Weekend Getaway

Daddy and I took a much needed overnight trip to relax and have some time to talk just the two of us before we are pulled in three different directions come April. Thanks to Nana and Great One for keeping Junior and Gaga while we were away. The resort we booked was not what we expected, but it ended up being much better than we expected once we got used to being practically the only ones there. It is mainly a golf resort and since it is not golf season, it was pretty vacant. We definitely enjoyed that aspect while sitting on the balcony at night hearing one cricket and waking up in the morning to one bird (even the wildlife hadn't shown up for the season). We enjoyed dinner and breakfast at the resort's restaurant, massages at the spa and quiet time on the balcony while we were there.

On the balcony over looking the lake before dinner

Baby and I (thanks to my friend for letting me borrow the dress!)

Daddy enjoying the view

View from our balcony

32 weeks

Baby and Mommy are growing! It seems like I have really "popped" out the last 4 weeks since my last appointment and pictures on here. I can definitely see little knees, elbows, hands or feet move around as baby stretches and gets settled inside. You can easily see my whole belly move sometimes when the kicks or punches are really strong. My appointment this week was pretty uneventful. The same checks, blood pressure, weight, measurements and any questions I may have (which I usually don't). The baby's heart rate was again steady in the 150's and I have been gaining the "expected" amount of weight. The midwife was certain that the baby is head down. The only thing out of the ordinary was the baby measuring at about 31 weeks instead of 32 weeks. There was not cause for concern and the midwife said we would watch it and of course recheck in two weeks with my next appointment.

Valentine's Day and more

Making some heart-shaped cookies that day

Great helper

Flowers from Daddy for Mommy (took the picture right before they died)

Flowers from Daddy for Gaga

Gaga in her bed down for a nap

Gaga in Junior's bed down for a nap. Found her there one time after I put her down in her bed...guess she thought it was more comfortable. Lately, when I put her down for naps, she will quietly get back out of bed and either play in her room or pull everything out of her drawers and then put herself back in bed to fall asleep. I only find all of this after she wakes up or after I check on her when I know she's asleep.

My little helpers! I have trained them well!!!

Another snow

They only predicted about an inch of snow after ice had covered the streets for the past three days. Well, we got 6-8 inches of snow instead. Daddy had carefully made it into work the other days with just ice, but this was the last straw. He decided to work from home that day...it was just safer.

Daddy taking a work break to walk to the donut store for us. It was much too dangerous to drive there and it's only across the street!

Our hero back with breakfast

Stuck inside...painting and playing with playdoh

The kids

Junior:

• When he wants me to read something out loud he tells me to "talk to it" (the paper)
• Likes to tell us how things are going to go that day or if we give him the run down of the day he will respond with "well, let's do this instead"
• Junior has been having some issues with his tonsils (that will all be in another post) and after school one day we were heading to an appointment with the ENT to have them looked at. While getting into the car, his classmate was doing the same in the car next to us. Here was their conversation:

Classmate -"Where are you going?"
Junior - "To the doctor."
Classmate - "Why?"
Junior - "Because my tonsils are getting huge."
Classmate - "What does that mean?"
Junior - "That means big!"

Ha! I couldn't stop laughing!


Gaga:

• When we ask her to do something she will yell, "NO" at us (this was actually a problem a month or so ago and has stopped since...thank goodness!)
• She seems to be getting the "time-out" punishment quite often now mostly because she will not listen and we know she understands us. She is just being defiant. Most of the time she will drop something or throw something across the room and we will ask her to pick it up and put it back. She stands there in front of that something, looks at us and then turns and walks the other way. It is very frustrating because what could take a couple of seconds to do turns into a 5 minute power of wills between the two of us to get her to pick it up.
  
• She LOVES to read books to herself out loud and will spend long periods of time getting multiple books at a time; paper back books she will sometimes stick her finger in her mouth to wet it and proceed to turn the page (guess she's been seeing me do that)
• She is a performer and will make the most unusual faces and poses to make us laugh
• She wants to do everything Junior is doing and will try to repeat EVERYTHING he does
• Loves opening and shutting doors
• My favorite saying of hers recently has come about when she was needing to go to bed one night and I told her she had 5 more minutes, and then a few minutes later I told her she had 2 more minutes, and then it was bed time and we put her in bed. Since then whenever we tell her it's bed time she will tell us "two, five, two, five" as to be telling us that she needs 2 and 5 more minutes. Silly girl!
  

Gaga's 2 year old pics

Better late than never...here are the pics we chose from Gaga's 2 year old photo shoot. Saying that she loved getting her picture taken is an understatement. She was a ham saying "more cheese (while smiling)" every time they stopped taking pictures to change the backgrounds. She didn't want to stop. The bad thing about that was trying to pick out just a few good ones.

Gaga's Baptism Day

As always, we celebrated Baptism day with a dinner of Gaga's choice (spaghetti), dessert and reminiscing over her baptism pictures with candle and white garment. She had no clue what was going on when we lit her candle and took pictures. She did however do very well blowing her candle out! Happy Baptism Day, Gaga!

Cupcakes! Yum!

Unsure what was going on

Trying to get her to smile and wave at the camera

28 weeks

Nothing much to report at this point. Baby is still doing extremely well growing bigger and stronger every day. Over the past few weeks the kicks have become stronger and more of movements then just little bumps I can feel every now and then. I am finally feeling baby higher up since it is getting bigger and finding more room in its house. My latest appointment with the midwife was exciting because I am now starting to go every 2 weeks and it just makes the last part of this pregnancy go by so much quicker. My belly measures right where is should be and the heart rate was again in the 150's...pretty consistent! The midwife tried to find out how baby was lying inside and said that it was close to head down but a little tilted. She then checked one more time and it had easily moved to a head down position. So there is still a lot of room in there! The kids are still very much involved in loving on the baby whenever they get a chance. Junior will pull my shirt up to "see" the baby, rub it and tell me how big it is getting. Gaga will usually mash on it and then pull my shirt down saying "baby cold". They are getting anxious to meet this little one as much as Daddy and I are!