Happy Mother's Day 2010

I had a wonderful Mother's Day today. I was greeted this morning at the base of the stairs by Keira running to me with a Mother's Day card that she helped Daddy pick out and saying "I love you, Mommy!" Ryan cooked my favorite breakfast: waffles with strawberries and whipped cream! After I had a morning nap, we walked to our neighborhood playground, then went to lunch at Dogfish Head Alehouse. We came home for naptime and I had a two-hour nap on the couch with Ian, my little cuddler while Keira slept in her room. For dinner, Ryan made us spaghetti and meatballs (homemade!) and did all the dishes (he always does!). After Keira went to bed, Ryan and I enjoyed looking through the pictures that I've taken since April that I finally downloaded from my Nikon. So look for more pictures to come soon!

Here are several pictures from this morning's walk to the playground of Keira playing and Ian snoozing!

Ryan, thank you for a wonderful Mother's Day and being such a great father which helps make it so easy for me to be a good mother!

Keira and Ian, thank you for being the best children for which a mother could hope and for bringing such joy to my life every single day. It is an honor to be called "Mommy" by you.

29w2d: Day 33 - Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Today we welcome in 2010 and in several weeks we will be welcoming our baby boy into the world.

My New Years Eve was unfortunately very eventful with two episodes of contractions which required a shot of terbutaline each time to stop them. I started contracting about 2:30 that afternoon and the contractions went from 20 minutes apart and got down to 6-7 minutes apart when I was given the shot of terb at 5:30. That knocked them out for about an hour and a half, when i started contracting again at about 7:15. This time they started out at 15 minutes apart and were down to 6 minutes apart when I got another shot of terb. These ones were the most painful ones I have had yet. Again the shot knocked them out until a little before 10:00. I felt a few more contractions over the next hour or so but they never started up regularly. I got my next dose of oral terb and that may have helped prevent them from turning into another episode. I was asleep by 11:30 so I did not ring in the new year. I was tired from all the contracting and monitoring so I just hoped to get a decent night of sleep without contractions. I was able to sleep until about 7:00 this morning.

I've been contracting all this morning but they have stayed between 15-20 minutes apart. My secondary OB rounded at about 11:30 this morning and said that she was going to up my dose of terbutaline to 5 mg every 6 hours from 2.5 mg every 6 hours. She is hesitant to change to another tocolytic medication over the weekend since it is unclear how I will react to a new medication. They would rather make that change during the week. So we will see starting at 5 pm tonight how the increased dose does. Hopefully it does the trick! I asked my OB what effect the contractions might be having on my cervical length. The answer is that it is hard to tell but it has likely gotten softer. She said that we can probably do another cervical length check next week to see how it looks. That makes me happy because I was not scheduled to have another check for 2-3 weeks since I just had one on Monday. Cross your fingers that these contractions have not been causing cervical changes!

Sent from my iPhone

Goodbye 2009!

Daddy took Keira to her first New Years Even celebration at her friend Lorelei's house.  They hosted a Toddler New Years Party from 4 pm to 8 pm, and from the looks and sounds of it, a good time was had by all who attended!  I'm sorry to have missed it.  I definitely would rather have been there than here in the hospital contracting all evening! Oh well, there's always next year...

 

 

Thanks to Arria for taking pictures for us!  (Oops! Daddy forgot to bring the camera.)

28w4d: Day 28 - 4 Weeks and a Merry Christmas!

I have now been in the hospital for four weeks and hopefully have another 7-1/2 weeks here.

My Christmas turned out better than I had hoped. Ryan and Keira visited me on Christmas Eve and brought Boston Market for dinner. After eating, Keira and I watched "Rudolph" and snuggled in bed a bit.

On Christmas day, I woke up at about 7 am to turn on my computer so that Ryan could Skype me when he and Keira were ready to look under the Christmas tree to see what Santa had brought. They woke me up a little before 8 am to a ring-a-ding call from Skype. I was able to watch Keira find all her presents under the tree and open those gifts that were wrapped. I'm so glad I didn't have to miss a Christmas morning! It took her about an hour to play with and open all her gifts. She was most excited by her new dollhouse and played with that for a good 15 minutes before she was willing to open any other gifts! At about 10:30 that morning, Ryan and Keira arrived at the hospital to visit me. I ate a snack while Keira ate her lunch on my bedside tray. Grandma Janet and Grandpa Gary showed up at about 11:30 after driving down from NJ that morning. They brought in some presents for us to unwrap so Keira unwrapped a couple for herself and helped me unwrap mine too. She's pretty good at this unwrapping stuff! They all stayed until about 1 pm, when Keira had started to get restless and it was time for her nap (she napped on the car ride home). Later that afternoon, Ryan Skyped me again and I spent the afternoon watching them open presents, hanging out in the family room, and eating dessert, all from the comfort of my hospital bed. It turned out to be a good day as I got to "spend" it with my family!

As for a pregnancy update, I started feeling more pregnant yesterday. My stomach is suddenly much heavier and I feel like I am now waddling a bit when I walk to and from the bathroom. I also experienced my first contractions yesterday which I was not excited about. I had one in the morning a little before noon after my shower. I was due for my next dose of terbutaline at noon and once I had my meds, I didn't feel anymore until about 5:15 pm and 6:00 pm when I had two more. Then I received my 6 pm dose of terb and they went away. Thankfully I haven't felt anymore since those two last night and hopefully it was just a fluke thing. I would like to go at least a few more weeks before contractions start up. I'll keep you posted!

Baby boy is moving up a storm now, often pushing his butt out on the righthand side of my stomach to the point of discomfort for his mommy! Hopefully in the next day or two I will get to see him via ultrasound and we will find out how big he is now.

Thanks to my visitors this week: Ellen (twice!), Leslie (thanks for subway, the cookies, and the cupcake), Andrea and Dana (thanks for cookies, Kit Kats, book, journal and Sudoku)! And of course, Ryan, Keira, Grandma Janet and Grandpa Gary!

Hopefully all will go well in the next week and I won't have any more contractions!

No...Not Santa's Lap!

At 25 months old, Keira is still not a fan of sitting on Santa's lap!

This morning, she went with Daddy and Grandma Janet to get her picture taken with Santa. They waited in line for about 45 minutes and she waited patiently, saying "Santa" every so often. Well, when it came time for her to walk up the ramp to sit on Santa's lap, she started crying and threw herself on the floor. As soon as Daddy picked her up, she stopped crying.

Here is her reaction last year for comparison purposes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful...

...that I was released from the hospital last night so I can spend today with my family.

...that this little guy is staying put and is healthy even though my cervix doesn't seem to want to hold him in.

...to be home as Keira woke up with a fever of 101.9 this morning and it would be torture If I wasn't home to comfort her.

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Don't you wish you could eat YOUR turkey dinner in bed?  I know you are jealous!

 (note the baby belly at bottom)

Trick or treat...

It was just a little after 6 pm when we made our way outside to see if it was dark enough to go trick or treating yet. (Note my baby belly showing at 20 weeks 3 days along.)

We only had to wait only about 15 more minutes before it was dark enough to go out! Daddy took Keira out to most of the houses on our street. I went out with them, but it was sprinkling a bit of rain and I was not supposed to be walking much so I went home after the first house.  Daddy says that before they approached each house, he had Keira practice saying "trick or treat...", but each time they got to the door, she just stared at the person who answered the door and held her pumpkin bucket out for treats.  At several houses, the homeowner let Keira take the candy out of the basket and put it in her bucket.  Daddy said that she would look back up at them and take another one if they encouraged her to do so. She walked most of the way on her own, but Daddy carried her at the last few houses so as not to tire her out too much!

Thankfully it never started raining very hard!  After about 20 minutes, Daddy and Keira returned home. For only going to about 15 houses, she came home with quite a bit of loot!

She came home and read some books before showing off her treats to us!

After moving all of her treats from her bucket into her shopping cart, it was time to play with the bucket!

Silly girl!  Here's a picture of her loot:

 

 What a fun way to end a busy day: a birthday party followed by trick or treating!!

  

 Only 365 days until next Halloween, Keira!

Merry Christmas...early!

Santa visited our house a little early this year since we will be travelling to Seattle on the morning of Christmas Eve. When we woke up this morning, Keira awoke to a tree and stocking full of presents.

After eating her breakfast, she and Daddy went through the goodies in her stocking.












Keira and Daddy then walked from the family Room to the Living Room to check out the goodies under the tree.







When Keira saw the tree, she let go of Daddy and crawled over to see what was under the tree.












She immediately began playing with the toys that Santa had left for her.












Daddy helped her with some of the presents and others she helped herself. She kind of enjoyed tearing the wrapping paper off the gifts!



















She liked Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from Great Aunt Cheryl and Great Uncle Bill.

And she loved playing with the Bee Bop Band that Santa brought.

Daddy liked the drink coaster that Keira made for him with her footprint on it. And Mommy liked the card that Keira gave her with her sock in it. Mommy and Daddy also exchanged gifts with each other.

The rest of the day was spent playing with toys. Keira really likes her new pink butterfly tent and played quite a while in it today. She also played peekaboo in it, trying to hide behind the doorway fabric. So cute!

We topped off the evening with a wonderful meal that Daddy cooked for us: steak, mashed potatoes, and carrots. Yummy! Keira even ate some mashed potatoes and carrots tonight, and liked them! She wasn't a huge fan of them at Thanksgiving dinner so Mommy was pleasantly surprised when she started making motions that she wanted what Mommy was eating.

Now there are just three days until we fly to Seattle. We will be quite busy until then getting ready for the trip, what with laundry, house cleaning, and packing. And don't forget playgroup on Monday and lunch with Ellen on Tuesday! Whew. I think I will be happy to get on that plane as it will mean we accomplished everything that needed to get done between now and then!

Countdown to Christmas...

There are just 11 days until Christmas, which means 10 days until we fly to Seattle for the holidays! (The three of us fly out at 8:30 am that morning)

On December 3rd, I took Keira to visit Santa Claus at the mall.

Pic left: Last year, she was just over one month old when she first met St. Nick. She took a nice snooze in his arms while the camera clicked away....

Pic right: This year, she was just over 13 months old when she renewed his acquaintance. The picture people tried to get me to sit on Santa's lap with her. I said I didn't want to be in the picture. The response "She's going to cry." My response "That is fine." And cry she did...but it only lasted a couple of minutes. Isn't that what happens to all little children?! 'Tis the season to be...scared witless?

Anyway, the countdown begins... 11...