Little scare this week! October 4, 2007

Had to take a little trip to labor & delivery on Monday because little Luke apparently leaned against the exit button and I started to have some contractions.   They started up on Sunday and what I thought were just period cramps.  I took it easy that day and after about 3 hours, I called the after hours line and the doc called me and told me to just keep drinking water.  I did and they went away after a bit.  They came back that night and then Monday morning, so I called the doc’s office just to see if I could move up my appt from Friday to earlier in the week.  Instead, they told me to be safe, they wanted me to get checked out by labor & delivery- and my doc was there anyway on call, so on my way, I went.  Once I got there, I apologized all over myself to the nurse.  I felt like I was wasting their time.  They hooked me up to the little monitors and I had a contraction (what I thought was just the cramping) about 5 seconds after it was hooked up.  They left me alone with the TV and the nurse came back about 30 minutes later telling me I’d been having contractions every 8 minutes.  Who knew!

So she gave me a shot in my arm and fed me a turkey sandwich and I sat there watching more TV for a bit while the contractions slowed.  I got to see Dr. Perkins- he did an exam (FUN) and said that my cervix was still closed off on the baby’s side, so that was a good sign.   I go back tomorrow for my regular appt and he’ll check again to make sure there’s no more progress.  I’ve still been having some cramping, but it’s not as frequent as it had been (from what I can tell).

I must say the best part about the experience was getting a feeling for Dr. Perkins bedside manner- and hearing the baby’s heartbeat.  Its music to my ears- almost like he’s talking to me.  And I never realized all of the hiccups the poor kid gets!  He got them twice while I sat in there.

I can’t wait to meet him.  🙂   Ok, I can wait…but it’ll be cool to meet him 🙂

Nursery Update September 4, 2007

So the nursery is coming together. Check out what it looked like back in July here. April and I have been working on it a lot. My mom gave us 200 dollars for a changing table recently, and April has changed it into a ton of stuff. I’ll let her blog about that here soon.

It’s not finished yet, but here are some pictures, even though I know you’d just LOVE for me to accurately describe every detail, I’ll just give you the pics. 🙂

View from just inside the door.

View from the back right corner from the 1st image.

View from the glider in the 2nd picture.

April’s really getting big! She’s doing really well, and I’m proud of how great she’s handling everything! Only 11 weeks left.

Failed my 1-hr test August 29, 2007

I failed my 1-hour gestational diabetes test.  For those of you out of the loop on those things, it’s a standard test they have pregnant women do to check them for gestational diabetes.  I had to drink some stuff that tasted like flat orange pop, or a melted orange popsicle and then get my blood drawn an hour later.

They told me I should eat as normal, and I had just run out of oatmeal, so I had some Frosted Mini Wheats before I went for the test and sure enough, my sugar level was a little too high.  So, they are making me come back in on Friday morning for this 3 hour test.  I’ll have my blood drawn, drink more flat orange pop, and then have my blood drawn after 1, 2, and 3 hours.  I don’t know which will be worse, hunger or the draws.

In other health-related baby news, I’m also on the low side of “normal” for iron.  The doc would like me to start taking some iron supplement to help me stay ironic 😉  HA!  Anyway, they said that the baby is just using a lot of my iron, so I need to take something to help keep my level up and it will hopefully help me to not be so tired.  A miracle pill, perhaps?  🙂

Baby is good- he kicks a lot.  I think he has me trained like Pavlov’s dog…he kicks, I get hungry.  Go figure.

We’ll keep ya posted.

100 Days Left! August 12, 2007

While the baby can decide on his own when he’ll be coming to visit with everyone, the doctor’s due date says we have 100 days left. (102 until Thanksgiving!)

Sorry it’s been a while since an update- things have been busy here. Jason has been very busy working and I’ve been busy working and sleeping 🙂 Since our last update, Jason has been to the eye doc for histoplasmosis in both eyes- not good. Fortunately, it has stopped itself in both eyes. We just hope that it stays stopped and doesn’t start to grow anymore. Also since the last blog, I got to go on a market trip to visit with some of the marketing directors that I work with by phone on a regular basis. That was cool- hard work, but cool.

Now for baby updates- our little guy has been growing and kicking away. He always lets me know when he’s hungry. About 10 minutes before I realize I’m hungry, he starts kicking. It’s like my warning sign. I go for my next appointment on the 24th for my gestational diabetes testing. Keep your fingers crossed for a one-hour passed test! If not, I’ll have to go back for another test that’ll take 3 hours- boooo.

Jason is very excited and is always saying he can’t wait until the baby is here. I feel the same way, but I just feel like there are so many things I want to have taken care of before the baby arrives. Work, home, every where. And of course, those irrational fears about the delivery room. I’ve decided that God makes women get really big and uncomfortable at the end of their pregnancies so they won’t fear the delivery room so much. Since I’m not feeling horrible, I still have those fears. Everything from IV’s (I know- it’s not a big deal, but it is to me) to the baby being healthy and everything going smoothly. I want to have a nice, v-birth. I’d prefer to not have a c-section. All of these little fears coming up. God will take care of it- and I’ll be able to take whatever comes my way, but I have this “ideal” way things I want things to happen and highly doubt it goes that way. I just want to have a good 100 days, get the nursery finished, find good child care, and have a safe and healthy remainder of this pregnancy.

So it’s Been a Bit July 15, 2007

April has been doing such a great job keeping everyone updated that I have been able to sit back and enjoy her writings. But, it’s been a bit since I’ve come to you for an update, so I thought that since I have a minute here at work, I would.

Working three jobs is setting in. Man am I tired a lot. I’m not sure how this is going to get better with a baby on the way. But April has been fantastic, letting me sleep when I need to and helping me out any way she can.

We have been looking for a new car for me. We wanted something big enough for my long legs to fit in, and something big enough for baby seats and kids later on. So we spent all day yesterday looking for a new car, and finally found one:

A 2003 Dodge Durango. It’s funny to think that this is going to be the car that my boy grows up remembering. I remember the cars that my parents had over the years of my childhood. The vans, the truck, the sedans. Just interesting.

Anyway, not much has been happening on the baby front. I think that I felt him kick a week or two ago, but haven’t been able to feel him since then. Hopefully his kicks will get stronger so I can easily feel them as we go on.

Speaking of going on, we’re about four months away from D-Date. I hope everything is going to go smoothly. Does it ever? I don’t know, but I think we’re ready for anything. Mentally I’m still struggling with my ability (or lack thereof?) to be a good father, but really there isn’t anything that I can do about that until the baby comes, and work as hard as I can to do well by him.

I’m still waivering on the name. I like Austin. I like Luke. I like Austin and Luke. Everyone seems to favor Luke, though, which by my Devil’s Advocate Nature makes me favor Austin. Who knows. We’ll probably end up flipping a coin. 🙂

One last thing for this post, holy crap at the cost of childcare. The place we’re looking at for childcare is 189 bucks A WEEK. That is crazy. That’s 756 dollars a month, 9072 dollars a year. That just boggles my mind!

Anyway, as always your comments and thoughts are welcome. I see you lurking; post something. 🙂

Late.

Drano pic July 9, 2007

For those who might want to see what mine looked like.  Previous Blog

I’m really curious to see how many this works for- I’ve already heard of one that had dark Drano results and is having a girl! So that would be 1 right, 1 wrong so far!

Note the brown/dark green icky color. No blue present except for the foam at the top.

Childcare & Painting updates

Last week I started the task of trying to find childcare for the baby- so that we’ll have someone who can care for him while we’re both at work. It’s heartbreaking.

It’s so frustrating that some of the daycares I had been calling just weren’t sympathetic or understanding to my situation. I was just another person calling to get on a waiting list. And I couldn’t get anyone to call me back until today. Still can’t believe that some of these places acted like I was bugging them with my questions, etc. Seriously- I haven’t even had this tiny little baby yet, and I’ve got to call complete strangers and talk to them about taking him when he’ll still be so tiny- and someone these people on the other line think I’m enjoying this. I could just cry thinking about it. And did earlier today at work.

I love my job- I love the people there and I’m not going to leave my job. For monetary reasons and because I do enjoy working. I just wish we had enough money to pay some nanny to stay in our house and care for him while we’re gone and we could hook internet cameras up all over the house and log in and watch what’s going on anytime we want.

At 3p today, I made a call to a daycare near us and finally heard a voice that heard and understood my concerns. It was like a breath of fresh air- knowing that this woman on the other end of the line was sympathetic to my situation. Not so sympathetic that she wanted to give us any discounts (ha!) but she talked to me and explained the way things worked at their place. She encouraged us to drop in on them- to see them without a planned trip and didn’t want us to rush into deciding on them. Just hearing those words made me want to sign right up with her. Another benefit- they don’t have a waiting list for January yet (yippee!!). All of the other places I’d called have had waiting lists 6-12 people long.

In other news, Jason painted the nursery! No stripes- those were a lot harder to do than what I thought! So we’re going to accent with all of the dark blue. The crib is up now too- I’ll update with more pics of that later.

Hope everyone is doing well!

BEFORE AFTER!

Baby Stuff! July 2, 2007

So after finding out that we’re having a boy (!), April and I went out to fashion our son with some cool stuff. This may not be one of the most interesting blog posts for you, but check it out anyway:

So here is a crude drawing of how the baby’s room is going to look. Colors are as close as Paint will let me get, so if the following things don’t match 100%, cut me some slack. 🙂

So here is the blanket that April kind of built the paint scheme around.

This just happens to be my favorite set of items. 🙂 Check out the little footballs on the boots. Hawt!

Ohhhh…hangers!

Here’s some sheets for the crib…

And these sheets are much more awesome, natch.

Some cool shirts…

And the pants to match, of course.

April really liked this one. I was happy about the sports monster I’ve created. 🙂

NOTHING beats classic pinstripes. NOTHING.

Here’s a surf shirt that we found on Clearance. It’s for six-months-olds, so he’ll fit into it next summer when it’s warm enough again to wear it.

This all goes with the Texas Longhorn onesie that I bought back in February.

Anyway, I’m stoked about the baby! We’re going to start painting the nursery tonight or tomorrow, and putting the crib together on Wednesday. Still four months left, but we’re at the half-way point already!

It’s a BOY! June 29, 2007

Well, I’m a believer in the Drano test now! We went for the ultrasound today and we’re having a boy!

I’m thrilled- if you can’t tell 🙂 Both the u/s tech and I saw him there in all of his glory and just as we said “it’s a boy!”, he moved. Figures! He moved and crossed his legs at the ankles. She kept going back to look for another view, but never got as good of one as she got the very first time. He looked good- she checked his heart, brain, kidneys, bladder, and measured him. He’s measuring right on time- Nov. 20th still as the due date. And she said he weighed around 10 oz.

It was so cool to see him- see that little baby for the first time. It put some parts of my mind at ease and brought up more questions in other parts. This has definitely made me want to get a 3D/4D ultrasound- I wasn’t really planning on it, but now I want to scrap together all of money I can to have a better ultrasound and to see him again.

Ok- that’s enough for now- I’m trying to get Jason up so we can go the Babies R Us and look at all of the cute baby things. I’ve held myself back for long enough 🙂

I Want to be a TV Dad June 23, 2007

TV dads have it all. They’re rich, smart, successful. Cliff Huxtable, Jason Seaver, Andy Taylor. Seemingly there wasn’t anything they couldn’t do, say, or teach.

Is that possible? Is it possible to be that good of a dad without the help of a team of writers, directors, and cameramen?

I certainly hope so. I guess the answer has to be yes, doesn’t it? How do you become so wise? How do you know what you’re supposed to be teaching your child, especially a boy, to become a successful person in life? I don’t even have the answer for that myself, let alone the ability to communicate that to someone else.

I am scared that I will not be able to teach the lessons that need to be taught.

The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them.
-Confucius

Lord, what have I got myself into…