When it rains, it pours.

Stepping away from the baby for a day.

I will preface this by saying that our family has been extremely lucky as it pertains to health issues. Eventually the pendulum had to swing the other way. Sure, my step dad and brother in law had heart attacks, but they have both come back very well. My dad has COPD, but he's in his 60s and started smoking when he was 12. Not a huge shocker. He's also been diagnosed for well over 10 years, which is far beyond normal expectancy with COPD. We did lose my father in law a few months ago, but that was not a big shock- his first heart surgery was almost 20 years ago, he also had lung issues, and had been getting recurrent infections. While 77 isn't ancient, it isn't young either (especially for another who started smoking in their teens. Smoking's bad, mmmkay?).

Then a few months ago my grandpa fell. Wait, let me correct that. He "fell". Like an domestic abuse victim falls down the stairs daily. Unfortunately we will never know the true story, but the physical outcome is that he fell days before his 86th birthday and broke his neck. Laid on the floor for 36 hours. In the main hallway of their house. I don't know if he and grandma had an agreement to let the other lay in hopes that they will die or if she was just being her normal cheery self and left him there. Again, we will never know.

After that happened, social services got involved, grandma had to go to assisted living for a while until grandpa recovered a bit, but eventually they were sent home. They were the only two happy about it. Then the stories started rolling in. Grandma was drinking- a lot. She would finish off a bottle and go get more. Grandpa was too weak to stop her and was afraid to tell her no. He was being forced to drive himself to doctor appointments. Bad stuff. So my uncle and mom stepped in and were eventually awarded temporary guardianship (especially after grandma fell- again. It's like the 5th time in 5 years). Step one was to take grandpa to a home. Done. Step two- grandma goes to detox.

Or not. When they arrived, they checked her over. No physical signs of alcohol abuse. Her blood levels tested at zero- if she was drinking at the rate she was being accused of, her levels would never get back to zero. Fantastic. Of course my uncle and mom feel like assholes, but at this point it's 4PM the day before Thanksgiving. They have nowhere to take her. Detox managed to find a way to put her on a 48 hour psych hold due to the dementia that they did find during her testing. But it wouldn't be a permanent thing. It got them through the next couples days until they could get things sorted out.

So now grandma is in assisted living and grandma is in a nursing home. Right now they cannot be together because they just try to plot how to get out (grandpa has dementia as well, so that doesn't help things). By Christmas all kids and grandchildren were banned from visiting because it was just causing too much of a regression every time they show up. Fortunately my step sister happens to be a nurse where my grandpa is, so we are able to easily get updates on what is going on. But it killed my mom that for the first time in her 64 years, she could not see her parents at Christmas.

Meanwhile, the uncle that had been helping my mom with this had other issues. Not only was my aunt having issues and had to have colon surgery last month (she is doing well after that, thank God), but her parents were in a similar position. At the same fucking time (literally- when they left from taking grandma to detox, they had to go start helping with arrangements for her dad's funeral).

But in the midst of this, my aunt and uncle did get a bright spot. My cousin N and his wife C were finally expecting after trying for well over a year, her being diagnosed with diministed ovarian reserve and him with poor sperm count. This will be their first grand child (this would be the aunt the was going nuts buying me stuff earlier, so you can imagine how she is doing with this baby!). They got through the first part of pregnancy with no problems, and finally things were looking up.

Until C got her blood tests back last week(not the baby's, hers- she has had some medical issues in the past). She has cancer (I didn't even think to ask my mom exactly what). The doctors wanted C to terminate. Her response? No way in hell. Right now she is scheduled for a c-section at the end of April when she will be at 34 weeks. Hopefully this child is as stubborn as his father (N was due on Memorial Day. His birthday is Valentine's Day). If you can spare some thoughts and prayers for them, I'm sure they would take every last one.

It's 2-fer Wednesday!

Only because I wanted to capture some cankle sexiness. You know you want it.




And for your enjoyment- I had to back up into the room further otherwise I was hanging into the doorway. Cute.



PS- Blogger- fuck you for dropping this the first time around. Tinypic- bless you for keeping prior uploads.

All that lightning crotch for nothing.

1 cm? That's it? Come on, at least 2 damn it. We have a long way to go if anyone thinks that small horse is coming out that direction.

My OB didn't even offer up the fundal height this week. All I got was "Well, it's definitely not shrinking!". I didn't want to ask at that point. And certainly not after he told me we are doing another u/s next week. Joy. At least all my annoying pains are normal. Pressure points- lovely. Can't seem to find that in any of the books.

So 1 cm, 50% (so pretty much nothing, but at 35w6d, that's not necessarily bad). Group B strep test done (lab is usually quick, should have that back in a day or two).


Oh, and I have a new great nephew as of about 1:30 or so this afternoon. Should have one more before j makes his appearance.

Edit: So I just looked over my stats from last appointment. 8 more mother fucking pounds? What the fuck is that about? I have barely been eating. Stupid water retention.

Happy snow day!

Normally I wouldn't have batted an eye about going to work today. It's just snow for fuck's sake. At 35w4d? Blow me. I'm staying home.

My OB's office is probably going to think I am crazy for trying to reschedule my Wednesday appointment for today. But if I can avoid taking an extra day off work, that would be preferred. Plus I want to play in the snow a little!

I did have a good laugh though. My hospital just called to line up my pre-labor appointment. Normally they call around 32-33 weeks and schedule them for about 35 weeks. Apparently I slipped through the cracks. Awesome. I will be at 37w5d when I have mine. And I think I procrastinate. J is still convinced that I am going to have him the weekend of the 22-23 because he has drill and it would be inconvenient as all hell.

We shall see.

Edit: Well suck. OB isn't in today- he doesn't come back until tomorrow. So much for that plan!

Good Bye 2010.

And what a way to send it off. Spending the entire day rearranging the living room. I'd blame J, but this was entirely my idea. We needed to replace a bookcase, and a couple other things needed some rearranging in order to unclusterfuck the room.

We started last night with switching out our old TV for a new one, and thus the fun began. So several hours and 4 trash bags later, we have some vast improvements. The dogs are not fond the new changes. Shocker. Still have a few things to do in j's room, perhaps tomorrow (they are all little things, so I should be good. Today would have been impossible without J's help- way too many big things that I shouldn't be moving alone. You want the #1 thing I hate about being pregnant- being unable to fend for myself on many things. It drives me nuts).

Then someday the kitchen. Sigh. Too much to do.

So that was our excitement to round out this year. Hopefully 2011 will bring great things for everyone!

U/s Results

My vag is safe. Well, relatively anyway.

j weighs in around 6 lbs, 7 oz (give or take some margin of error of course). Even if that is 2 lbs high, he is already bigger than J when he was born. Right now the prediction is for j to come in around 8 1/2 lbs (where I was at when born). Not huge, just on the upper end of normal. I will take it.

All his measurements look great, cord looks good, heart looks good, we could see him taking some "breaths" and swallowing, so that is good as well. j is head down and should stay that way, so breech shouldn't be an issue. Now when I tell him to get his ass out of my ribs, I am quite correct.

It has been brought to my attention

That I suck at blogging. Le sigh. So let's play catch up.

Shower was on December 4. My family showed up. J's had a minimal appearance. No drama from them. Oh darn. I scored a ton of stuff- I thought I had a bunch of duplicates, but turns out one set would be 0-3 months, then the other 3-6 months, so it worked wonderfully.

A photo of my swag:


The following Tuesday was my work shower- got a bunch more awesome stuff (and one duplicate big item that I have since returned, but not bad considering).

Other than that, it's been pretty uneventful here for the most part. Just normal pains and whatnot. We finished up our Infant Care and CPR class last Thursday, we will finish Lamaze on Wednesday night. Most eventful change- from my 30 week to 32 week appointment, my fundal height (which had been measuring dead on prior to my 30 week appointment- it should be about 1 cm per week pregnant) went from 31 to 34, and I put on 5 lbs those two weeks. So I get another u/s on the 28th! Yippee! I checked with my friend that goes to the same OB to make sure this was standard practice and he just doesn't mention it in advance, but it is not. We (or better, me) are hoping for a non-giant baby. Since my dates obviously cannot be off, that cannot be the issue.

My sister's small baby was 9 lb. Her big one was 10lbs, 15 oz. Pray for my vag.