a "relaxing" weekend

so in continuing with the theme of "interesting suprises" to take place in 2014, lucas and i had ourselves a little mini vacay this weekend at the hospital. my back issues are originally what caused me to make an extra OB appointment thursday afternoon, but by the time i made it to the office i was cramping. consequently they put me on the monitor to check for contractions, discovered that my cervix was softened and dialating (1.5 but apparently only on the outside) and did a cervical sonogram to see that in 6 days i had gone from 4.2 to 3.4. i was sent home with a perscription to stop the cramping and scheduled to come back the next day for another sonogram "if i still felt crampy". since i would be near the office the next day for my glucose screening, i had already decided to take advantage of the sonogram regardless. it's a good thing! while waiting for the 3 hr glucose stuff to pass, i resumed cramping and started to spot. panic mode ensued and i made a bee line to the sonographer as soon as the test was done. my cervix was found to only be at 3.8 instead of 3.2 and they did not do another check internally and instead just sent me straight to the hospital for "24 hrs of monitoring and a round of steroid shots". willing myself to keep calm, i called my mom to head my way immediately and charles did the same with his mom. let me just say here how amazing my husband is. i have NEVER seen him like that. he was clearly terrified and although his nerves do not show as much as they did friday, his attention and focus has not waivered one bit. he has stepped up in ways that i knew he could but had not yet seen to this degree and it just makes me glow with pride! he was by my side as soon as he could be on friday and then went to get cameron from school and meet up with a dear friend of ours who watched him that evening so that husband and moms could be with me. i spent the next 3 days periodically being strapped up to monitor baby and contractions, which thankfully did not seem to be happening. i had a perinatologist do a sonogram and all was declared good with baby. at 26 weeks 2 days he measured approximately 2.3 lbs (64th%) which is a huge comfort. it also makes me think that, despite the doctors saying that i should have no trouble going full term now, he will come early because he's going to be ready to rock and roll sooner. his heart is good, spine is good and i have plenty of fluids and placenta in tact and finally moved up far enough from the cervix. i did have cramping on and off throughout the weekend and they would just monitor me again, but no more bleeding. i was also able to spend the weekend on a great heating pad for my back and legs and was given some pain meds for it while there. i am still quite stiff but considerably more functional than i was friday. and i'm currently at my desk, sitting on the heating pad. don't judge. it was deterimined that i might have had a UTI. i am dubious, but just thankful that it wasn't a worse situation. i will still be going back in 4 weeks for a second round of steroids just in case he gets more persistant about an early arrival. and i am on "moderate bed rest", which means that i can't lift more than 10 lbs, can go to work and sit on my butt for 10 hrs and then straight home to the couch otherwise. this is difficult for me, but mom will remain as long as needed and charles is ever-vigilant. i have another OB appt this friday so i look forward to more updates if there are any to be had. as of now, the plan is that i will continue to take it this easy at LEAST till we get past 28 weeks and then see how it's going. i don't want to keep mom here for the next 10 weeks only to need her help again after lucas arrives, so we're just playing it safe and will then adjust as needed. so a potentially terrifying situation actually turned out not so bad, we were EXTREMELY lucky. we had the absolute best care available both in and out of the hospital, thanks to our friends and family. it is pretty amazing. i am definitely excited to meet this little guy - clearly he has great purpose in our lives judging by the changes he has made to our family just in the last 26 weeks alone. horay for being a part of a beautiful miracle!!!!

"the best day of your life"

i read something recently that has been on my mind lately. and since work has slowed down a bit (and i don't have time to blog from home) i figured i would share it here. i think it was a little meme on jillian michaels' page to the effect of "anyone who says that their wedding day was the happiest day of their life has clearly never had two candybars fall out of a vending machine when you only paid for one". this got me thinking about a couple of things. first - of all the days i've had, i would not choose my wedding day as the happiest. it was great and beautiful and all things lovely, but, due to the nature of my personality, it was also crazy and busy and slightly stressful to try to please everyone and incredibly tiring. also, in hind sight, i had absolutely NO idea what i was getting in to and i did not know my husband nearly as well as i thought i did. so wedding day - yea, it was great. but it was just one day and has no more to do with my marriage than the capital letter does to the beginning of the first sentence of War and Peace. second thought regarding the quote: what is the happiest day of my life? this is what i have been pondering, because i honestly have no idea. is it sad that i can't think of one day that has stood out among others? just one? 24 hours is a long time to be straight up extatic, in my opinion. i have moments. and all the moments that come to mind are happy and beautiful because they are also punctuated with the feeling that i had learned from or overcome something to get through them. like the first really super huge fight charles and i had, the evening that i came back to our apartment having been through hell and made up my mind to keep trying anyway even when i knew it would be the hardest thing i'd ever done. or when cameron was born and i did not immediately love him, not because i didn't love him, but because i had no idea what to do but i also knew in my heart that i had the rest of my life to figure it out and make the very most of the most wonderful gift i had ever been given straight from God. or when i got on a plane filled with people i had never met in my life heading for 6 weeks in mexico to study a language that i could barely speak, just because i wanted to see if i could do it. there are a lot of feelings that stick out in my mind as being "defining" in my life, but i guess i am of the opinion that none are "the best" because i choose to live as though the best is always yet to come. what makes life worth living if you accept that you've already reached the peak of the mountain? there are a ton of things that i still want to do! finishing a half marathon would probably be a pretty close "best day ever" for me, but there are hundreds of "moments" that have to pass and be overcome before i can cross that finish line that will make it so. figuring out how to raise 2 kids will be another good one, but that will also be made up of millions of moments that afford me the chance to grown and change. spending the rest of my life with charles is another challenge that will be amazing, but will be achieved in a quiet passing of moments hopefully after many many years. so what are your thoughts? is it easy for you come up with "the best day of your life"? our lives are such a beautiful gift, how could we ever just choose one day? but go ahead, give it your best shot! :)

journal: hello june and the season of sweat

outside my window: there are the loveliest evergreen bushes just outside my office window where a whole flock of some small chirpy critter always seems to hang out. it's a nice happy little sound as i stare at my dual monitors and spreadsheets and emails all day. i imagine it's getting pretty toasty outside today too and it has been plenty humid lately. i'm trying not to think about how miserable i will be in july and august when the crevice sweat reaches epic proportions. thankfully, my desk is right under the AC vent and the office always seems to be like an arctic tundra in the summer, so as long as i don't leave, i should be good. clothes: my parents were up this weekend and, as usual, mom could not resist the opportunity to drag me through the mall. i consented to the purchase of a most excellent black tank top maternity dress thing on sale for $20 and a clearance tshirt for $8 at old navy. i am such a royal cheap skate, and even these items took some convincing. but they are super cute and i am feeling quite hip and trendy. i have the black dress on with a jean jacket and a black and white herringbone scarf on that mom sewed together from a scrap of fabric. i also am wearing a slip. is anyone else rigid in slip-wear? i refuse to wear any kind of unlined skirt without a slip. perhaps that's old fashioned, but i guess i'm just not willing to take the chance that someone will know what my underwear pattern is. toddler: oh how fun life is with a 2 yr old. "my 2 yr old's emotional outbursts are so much fun!" - no mom, ever. holy eff. it doesn't help that i'm working four 10 hr days through mid-july so i have to wake him up 30 minutes earlier and then we don't get home till after 6 each night. it wouldn't be so bad if i weren't huge and pregnant and having to take it easy while wrestling a flailing octopus of emotion multiple times per day. my poor mom, this weekend she was trying to change a poopy diaper when he had an "issue". consequently, there are poop stains all over his bedroom carpet now until i get time to run the cleaner. awesome. but other than that stuff, he's doing well. his vocabulary is exploding and he is a lot of fun when he wants to be. curious george is a new favorite. he will soon be transitioning from the partially guarded toddler bed to the toddler bed with the fun noodle under the sheet with a hopefully quick transition then into a twin bed within the next couple of months. i have been looking online for curious george bedding without much luck, i plan to make a trip to the fabric store at some point and will likely just go with a solid color comforter and sew up some CG curtains and find some wall decals or something. in the kitchen: i've been having a heck of a time coming up with meals with this pregnancy, nothing sounds good (except ice cream. all. the. time.). so i have lately resorted to parusal of the ol' betty crocker cookbook. having never been much of a pork loin fan, i came across a fantastic recipe for peach and dijon mustard glazed pork loin which we had last night with my lovely roasted brussel's sprouts. oh my goodness was it delicious! i have packed leftovers for lunch today and i'm excited. i grilled steaks saturday and tonight will be some leftover-purging. tomorrow i will bake some chicken breast from another betty recipe, "2 mustard chicken bla bla bla" whatever it was. horay for mustard i guess... crafting: yea.. no. i bought some fabric a couple of months ago (at least!) to sew gifts for a great friend of mine whose daughter was born 2 weeks ago. stiiiiilll folded up in the closet. reading: i read the church bulliten yesterday, does that count? bringing me joy: charles and i celebrated our 8th anniversary thursday. although it was not under the best circumstances (traveling for a funeral), we did get to spend the whole day together as a family. he also bought me a new chain so that i can once again wear the beautiful cross he gave me for christmas a few years ago. i bought him a countertop for his man cave bar. :) that's life! another great source of joy: he and my dad worked saturday and sunday in the basement and accomplished great things towards the completion of the man cave. charles has purchased the supplies for concrete staining and at some point this month he will finish that. it's all coming togther and we are very excited!! this weekend we also got to spend some time with uncle cameron. it seems that he is much more relaxed and talkative when his wife does not come with him, so that was nice. he and charles did a bit of "bonding", so that was good. neither are overly fond of the other for very different reasons, so it made me happy to see some communication there. and especially so when my little cameron would interact with big cameron. he still maintains that he got the better of the deal by only having to "raise kids" for a few years before they moved out. but then, he's never been really into touchy-feely stuff so i'd definitely say that it all worked out well for him. but an infinite source of merriment to me is that his wife's oldest daughter is pregnant. yep, that's right. my 34 yr old brother is going to be a grandpa. BAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! sadly, the daughter lives in san antonio and he lives in vegas, so he will have minimal interaction. but it's still pretty darn funny. stuff i'm thinking about: pregnancy worries. since this was a "naturally occuring" pregnancy, i am much more paranoid than i was with cameron. or at least, my worries are not as easily quelled. i also have partial placenta previa and have been placed on restrictions and told to take it easy. see "toddler" section above for more information on how well that's going. ... so i spend a lot of time trying to take it easy, then not, then having cramps and contractions. just cleaning the house is enough to do me in. it's not cool. but i have another sonogram appointment friday and hopefully things will have shifted around and baby luke is still looking healthy and safe. i will be happy when this is over, it has been such an emotional and turbulent pregnancy in a lot of ways and i worry about how my mental/phsyical state will effect the baby, and then i worry some more because i know it won't be any easier to keep that from happening when he's out. so yea, pregancy worries gallore. pictures to share: sure! i haven't taken many lately and i've posted even fewer. in theory, this will be a friday project at some point.