Uh, Happy Birthday Jason, I Think

I know that's a werid title. Jason's birthday was Sunday the 14th. For his birthday he almost got to have twins! Let me go back to the beginning, shall I?

Jason was scheduled in at 8 in the morning on his b-day. What a sucky time to work, on your birthday of all days! I got woken up to James playing video games. When I dozed back off, he asked if he could use the portable dvd player that is actually Katy's and stashed in my room, I said NO. He went in, took that out, and also took out my DS. He couldn't get that to work, or maybe he could, I dunno. He said he couldn't but I have a strong disbelief in anything he says when he's trying to get OUT of trouble. Izzy decided that since we had locked the fridge (a piece of rope and a padlock) he would take EVERYTHING he could out of the back hallway and dump that on the floor instead. UGH!

I dragged James out of bed and had him clean up the back hallway as his punishment. Izzy, I made him stand in time out, get a bath with no toys (*gasp* NOT that, trust me, he wasn't too happy), sit in time out in the office on the stool, no movies, and no snacks. He spent a lot of time sitting in the crib, he found it appealing for some reason and I could keep a better eye on him as he was in the office with me, or upstairs. James was ok with cleaning up the back hallway once he found out that Izzy was being punished too and said "good, now I won't have to retaliate against him". That kind of statement so bothers me coming from that kid!

About 1 in the afternoon, I started having regular contractions. Keep in mind, I won't be 32 weeks until Wed this week, so contractions, regular ones at that, are NOT good. I timed them a while to see if they would go away. I drank a bottle of water. I moved around. All a big fat not working. Great. They were about 5-7 min apart. At 3 I finally decide I have to call the midwife to see if I should go in. That was a big "Yes ma'am, get your butt in here". I tried to call Jack, he was at work. I called Katie Ann. I called Jason at work. Katie was first because she had a lot further to drive, being up at my mom's and all. Jason still made it here before her. Katie got here about 4 and off we went.

They set me up in triage, which is now roomy and nice, especially compared to how they had it set up at the old hospital. I get on the monitors. Damn, regular contractions! Little ones, but they were there. They couldn't get both babies on the monitors so I was sent downstairs for an ultrasound, that Jason unfortunately missed because he was dealing with my ever so impatient sister.

Side note here. How long did she honestly expect it to take us at the hospital? Why is it that we are there an HOUR and she is already calling us and asking when we will be done? Also, why the HELL wasn't she keeping a closer eye on Izzy? When I got home, my house was much more trashed than when I left!

Back to the main story here. The babies were both doing fine. Jack is head down, but he has his back to my cervix. Abbey is curled up inside the U that Jack makes. They were both practicing their breathing, a very good sign for them. She didn't take measurments to determine their size, that wasn't the goal. She measured each ones fluid and took some readings of blood flow through the umbilical cord. She checked Jack's kidneys. They both had a little fluid in each one. One of Jack's kidneys may be bigger than the other. I see a doc for that later today (with today technically being the 16th). The cords are not around the babies' necks.

I get back upstairs and the contractions are BIGGER. Well crap! So it is decided that I get a shot of terbutaline. That is some NASTY stuff. I also get a bag of fluid. And the Doc (who happens to be the same doc I saw in the office last time) ordered steroids for the babies' lung maturity to go a little faster. The terbutaline gave me some AWFUL side effects, but I was told of them. My cervix is way up high and closed tight, both good things. They got the contractions to ease up quite a bit. I was still having them, but they were much less frequent and much more mild. I was ordered not to stray away from my home town (which rearranged a couple of plans for the week) and to drink enough water to drown a fish. I also had to go back on Monday and get the 2nd shot of steroids.

Jason went down stairs at one point to call his sister and let her know to come pick up the kids and to cally my sis and let her know what was going on. She had called my bro and asked him to come over because she was freaking out about needing to leave to go pick up Alex and wah wah wah. In this time frame, James ran away again. I didn't get Katie's side of that until earlier today (today being the 15th, which I am still on). She called the police. And my bro to come look for James. Thankfully he didn't run too far, and he came home on his own. Our family worker happened to be the one on call, so that worked out for us as well.

Jason came up and told me about James and Katie and that whole debacle. At that point, I am huddled up, shivering and freezing, under a blanket (heated) and a sheet. I start having coughing fits because apparently, terbutaline is also a med they give to asthmatics to stop their episodes. Great, just great. I'm having a hard time breathing well and I need to give Jason the number to our therapist because it isn't programmed in to the cell phone, something I apparently need to remedy. The therapist gets called, James comes back, Audra gets there, things get settled down, thankfully.

Audra has willingly taken the kids until Tuesday evening so that I can have a couple of quiet days of rest. I really need them. I am SO exhausted. I could barely sleep last night. I think the worry of the twins coming too soon and the meds and all of that just got to me. I FINALLY went to bed at 6 this morning, but then woke up at 8:30 because I thought I heard someone come in to our house, and it turned out to be our neighbor getting ready to take his boat out ont he lake. Good grief! I laid around in bed most of the day while Jason cleaned. I told him that was my plan and he was very OK with that. He called in to work last night for today. He felt he needed to be home to make sure I was OK.

Speaking of Jason and myself. Sitting there in the L & D Triage gave us some time to talk. I told him that what he had said hurt me so much and why. He told me that the choice of words he had used weren't accurate. We came to a meeting place at least. Things are definately smoothed over. I did ask him to utilize our family therapist and actually TALK to her. He did that today, while the kids weren't home, so he could speak honestly and not worry about little ears overhearing what they shouldn't. We've decided that as a stress reliever, he needs to stop hiding away and do something active. So now I'm on the search for a punching bag, one of those big ones you hang from a rafter. He'll put it in the basement and when things get stressful, go take that frustration and aggrevation out on the bag. It at least seems like a good idea. I have thearpy. He will have a bag. Ironically, in our mismatched male/female roles, that right there is very sterotypical.

Tomorrow (later today technically) I have an ultra sound and an appointment with a Maternal Fetal Medicine doc. It's just a consult. I see a midwife on Friday. I was already going to start having weekly appointments, but I think now it will become guarenteed to be there every week and I'll get Non Stress Tests (NST's) as well as the every other week or so ultrasound. Right now the hope is the babies stick it out for at least 2 weeks, until I hit 34 weeks. The nurse was impressed that I hadn't needed a terbutaline shot before now and the midwife was VERY pleased at the closed cervix. They also did the fetal protien test, the one that tells if you may go in to labor in the next 2 weeks, and that was negative. I kind of figured it would be, with having scraped a very closed cervix and all.

This week is a busy week. Tuesday is the Maternal Med doc. Jason has Tue, Wed, and Fri off, which is nice. Wed I have therapy that morning. Thur morning I am meeting with the doc that did James' psych profile. HOPEFULLY we will get some narrowing down of what is going on with James at that point. On Friday I see the midwife. Jason's folks are coming up for dinner and they had it catered by my sil. Yum, good food that I don't have to cook! We always get together for "our" birthdays. My birthday is Thur. Jason and I are/will be 32 this week.

Because of my "stay close to home" restriction, I can't go get Katy Beth for her 3 week visit. This makes me very sad because I was REALLY looking forward to the time with her. We're going to set it up so that after the babies come and James and Jayden are with Grandma Linda that Katy will come down for a bit. She had said that she wanted to while they were gone. Hopefully her swim and baby sitting classes won't be taking place at the exact same time.

Well, I'm heading off to bed now. I'm VERY sleepy. I'm sleeping back in the bed tonight, and last night. It just makes me feel "safer" I guess. The security of having Jason right there next to me is soothing.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you all have a less chaotic week than mine is shaping up to be!

Happy 3rd Birthday Izz-Man!

I know, it's like a super hero name or something. Actually, being my kid, he'd be a "bad" guy and his name would be "Destructo Boy!" Can't forget the exclamation! Can destroy rooms in a single sitting! Lose shoes without a thought! Want to trip someone up on the stairs, this is your guy, he'll make a barricade that even the cat is hesitant to go up! Trust me, I'm NOT exaggerating on this one.

We had his cake on Sunday evening because I figured Jason would have to work today. However, I saved the pics for today. The cake isn't decorated or anything like that. We didn't sing "Happy Birthday" or do candles. He got all of his presents already. It was just cake.

We had the ultrasound today as well, however that is a post for a different day as today is the celebration of Izzy.

Prayers and blessings everyone. Enjoy the cake pics. Go and make a cake of your own, your kids will thank you!

I Know, I Know

So Nablopomo is sucking for me right now. Now, technically it says 30 new posts in the month of November, so I'll do a couple of makeups and we'll go on our merry way, ok?

A few things.

Today is my daughter Vyky's birthday. She is 14 today. I thought of doing a post just to her. I don't know if I will or not. It's still very emotional. I can sympathize with parents who have lost a child. Not having her near me, in anyway, is similar to her dying. However, I KNOW she is still out there. She's growing and learning and maturing. I wish I could see her, to hear what she thinks and has to say. I imagine she is amazing. And beautiful. It might be easier if I had a picture, however I don't. I've thought of writing to her dad and asking for one. I'm not sure if it is fear of him not answering, or fear of him answering that keeps me from doing it. I am sure that at some point, I will write it all out. Maybe even later today, but right now, at 4:16 in the morning, it's not happening.

My sleep schedule has been SUPER weird the past few days. I stayed up all night on Sunday night. I was told to call Jayden's doc first thing (8 AM) on Monday to schedule her an appt. By the time I was ready to go to bed, I would of had to be up in about 3 hours. I was having Jason wake me up before he left for work so that I knew I'd be awake. He leaves at 6:30 in the morning by the way. He would have woken me around 6. I napped on Monday during the day. Then at 6:30ish that night, I went to bed and slept til 3 in the morning. Last night, I went to bed at 9, and slept til 3 this morning. I'm hoping that tonight I can stay awake until at least 10, so that I can sleep a little later. It doesn't help that Izzy has been getting up between 3 and 4 every morning to come down stairs and crash on the couch.

Thanksgiving is next week. We'll have a big old dinner, lots of family time, a good time (I hope) will be had by all. Then the chaos of the "official" shopping season will begin. We are using Jason's Christmas bonus to do our gift shopping. I'll be working on handmade items as well.

The goals for this weekend are to get the house in tip top cleanliness shape for the dinner on Thursday. That means I need to work on the dining room every day this week until it's ready. It would help if Izzy would stop going behind me and taking all the books off of the shelves, but oh well.

I think that is all for now. Prayers and blessings everyone, I hope you have a great week.

Happy Birthday Katy Beth!!

Happy birthday Katy! I hope you have a really great day! I know you are at school today. I hope that the dinner you have is tasty and the gifts you receive are wonderful! We will see you at Thanksgiving and we will celebrate then!

Katy is 11 today. That big age of transition and growing. Being an almost teenager, as she reminds me, is full of angst and self doubt and fear. It is also a time of change and growing and learning.

Katy is a smart beautiful well rounded girl. I believe in her, and her ability to grow and adapt to the changes that will be coming in her life. As everyone who has ever been through it knows, teenagerness (is that even a word?) brings about so many changes in ourselves, in our bodies, in our way of thinking.

Katy has the support and love of a lot of people. I know she will handle the coming years with grace and dignity.

By the way, I'm not saying she won't become mouthy and moody and all that teenage crap that every parent dreads. I AM saying she is smart enough, and loved enough, and encouraged enough, to know that no matter WHAT she is dealing with, she KNOWS she has someone she can go to when it seems to be too much, as it will, even though to us adults it won't really look like too much.

Katy impressed a judge this year. He couldn't believe she was only 10 at the time. He felt for sure she was much older, simply on how she handled herself. He called her funny and smart and mature. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind and be heard. Now, if a girl of 10 isn't afraid to tell a judge what she wants, I really believe she will do well as she gets older.

I think the challenge for us, her parents, will be getting her to come out of her shell a little more, to, if not lead, at least not be so willing to follow. It has been difficult to teach her that she can say what she needs to and not worry so much about how who she is talking to will feel about it.

Prayers and blessings everyone. Remember to enjoy your loved ones at every age, for soon, it will be past and you will wonder where the time went.