Hospital Trip #2

Well, we went back to the hospital last night. It was definitely something I didnt want to do, but I felt much better once we got everything checked out. My blood pressure was high when they discharged me Wednesday morning, and I think somehow it got overlooked. When I talked to Shawn's mother and told her how high it had been, she said they never would have discharged me from Shands. I had assumed my doctor had seen what it was and he sent me home... but then when I actually thought about it I realized it may have never been brought to his attention, especially since I was in there for nausea/vomiting. I think it kind of got lost in the shuffle. But yesterday Shawns mother checked it for me and it was high, and last night I went to the fire station and had Kristina check it and it was still high and I called her... and she said to call my doctor. This is definitely one of the times it helps to have an OB doc in the family. Shawn called him last night and he wanted me to go in to the hospital to have some labwork drawn. He said he had no idea my pressure had been high when I had been in Wednesday and he would have never sent me home with it being elevated.

So back to the hospital. They had me lay on my left side and took my pressure like that and it was much lower. I told the nurse I felt like a broken car at the mechanic when my pressure was not too high. The reason it had come down so much was because I was laying in bed on my side and the weight of the baby was off of my blood vessels. I got up to use the bathroom and took my blood pressure sitting up, and it was elevated. My bloodwork came back okay... but I was sent home and told to "take it easy" all weekend. I see the doctor Monday afternoon. If I hadnt already gone on maternity leave he would have made me at this point, so I am glad that all of my paperwork was done last week and I didnt have to worry about doing that today!

So who knows what he will say Monday... I hope he doesnt plan on keeping me on bedrest for the next 2 weeks! He had mentioned induction at 39 weeks.... so maybe Monday he will at least schedule me. Though when we went in last night I kept thinking "we cant have her tonight.... Im so not ready to be a mom!" It made everything sink in a lot more... like this really is getting close. In less than 2 weeks she will be here.... SCARY!

My parents are coming up here tonight to watch the game and hopefully will be able to be here for our walk through tomorrow. Still doesnt look like the people have moved out... and their lease is up today. There werent any cars there last night or this morning.... but there is a bunch of crap outside the house. So I dont know if they took what they wanted and left... or if they are planning on moving today or what... but it will be interesting tomorrow to see what has been accomplished.

We will decide on a closing date after our walk through and my doctors appointment, but it will definitely be sometime next week! The next couple of days will be spent picking out flooring and paint and all that fun stuff!

38 Weeks

No real baby news as of yet. Just lots of Braxton Hicks contractions for warm up, I guess. I see the doctor again Monday and maybe he will induce me??? I am certainly hoping.

We heard for certain yesterday that we are "cleared to close" on our house with the bank! YAY! That was a lot of stress off of our backs. Now we just have to hope and pray that the tenants will be out in the next two days. Their thirty days is up technically tomorrow, but I think the sellers gave them until the 31st to be out. We are planning to do our walk through on Sunday, April 1st... so they better be out. And we may close as early as next Wednesday, depending on the baby and if/when she decides to come! Shawn and I have taken quite a few evening strolls down our new street and there doesnt seem to be any progress as far as moving is concerned. We are such dorks about it. They have a tarp out there, and we were like "oh a tarp! They can put stuff in a pickup truch and cover it with that!" They HAVE taken the screen door off of its hinges and we were like "maybe they did that to move big stuff out!" But in reality, no real signs of them not being there anymore.

Well, I thought I would make it through my whole pregnancy without any middle of the night trips to the hospital, but I was wrong. Tuesday night I started having severe GI problems that kept me up all night and I was absolutely miserable. I couldnt keep anything down and couldnt get comfortable and was having horrible stomach pains.... so at 5:30 I broke down and called the on call doctor. She was certain I was dehydrated which can bring on contractions, but the kind that wont do anything except make me uncomfortable. She wanted me to come in, so we loaded up and went to North Florida where they put me on the fetal monitor and watched me for awhile. They had planned to give me an IV of fluid, but my blood pressure was up.... not dangerously high, but high enough it wasnt worth dumping more fluid into my system. So I laid there and drank Gatorade for three hours while they made sure the baby was okay. Which she was.... very active during her morning playtime. My doctor came in after that because he was the one on call Wednesday, and he sent me home and he will see me Monday.

So then when I called work yesterday to tell them I was at the hospital there were no problems. Then around 11 I got a phone call asking me to call in when I got a chance. When I called the district chief he told me that they had changed me to 40 hour weeks effective Monday (as in 2 days ago) and they had wondered why I hadnt shown up to work Monday or Tuesday. Hmm... maybe because noone told me this change of plans? I was more than a little frusrated, because the way the contract reads if you are hurt on the job you get first shot at the 24 hour spots. I am still on light duty because of my knee technically. So if anyone was to be moved out of their spot, it would be someone who is there for a non work related problem, and there is someone who works the day after me out for that. I was so frustrated with the whole thing, and so exhausted and not wanting to deal with it. So rather than fight it, I just decided to start my maternity leave early. It wasnt worth going through the hassle of converting my salary to 40 hour pay check for one week (since Im hoping she is born next week!) and having to use a bunch of time next week for my doctors appointments and house closing stuff. It made more sense just to take the extra 2 shifts off. So now I am officially on maternity leave, and Madalyn can come any time she wants since I wont be worried about being at work! :)

It will be nice to have some time home before she gets here... so I can get everything ready and relax and have some "me" time.... plus it is nice not to stress about going to work, which has been difficult since I have been on light duty.

Whew that was a lot to update! I am off to teach my last class at SFCC today, though I am sure I will pick up more hours the longer Maddie decides to wait to come....

Love Letters

Here are the beautiful letters that we had made for Madalyn's room. Jenna had some made for Savannah by someone she met through The Knot.com, a wedding website. Katie did a great job and she is expecting her own little girl soon... If anyone is interested in ordering letters for her let me know. They look absolutely beautiful and she can do them to match any nursery theme and colors.

Well, the day is getting closer! We are about 2 weeks away from meeting our little one... even less if my doctor is true to his word and schedules me for an induction after my 39 week appointment (Monday!) Can you tell how badly I am hoping this will happen? I am just so anxious to meet our little girl and stop saying "when the baby comes..." or "after the baby is here" and just have her here! Plus it would be nice to sleep on my stomach again, and not have to pee 12 times nightly. I know everyone says that Im not going to get much sleep with an infant... but I am convinced I will have an easier time getting up with her when there wont be a million obstacles keeping me from getting back to sleep (such as a huge protruding belly or aching calves or stuffy nose or incessant need to pee) So I for one think it will be easier. And at least then Shawn can share in the responsibility. All he knows now is how many times it is back and forth to the bathroom for me. : )

I cant REALLY complain though, except for the absolute exhaustion. All those "sleepless" nights are catching up with me, and I think just the added weight and stress and all makes even simple tasks seem overwhelming. It takes me all day to do 2 loads of laundry! (Well to be honest, the laundry I washed yesterday is still in the dryer waiting to be folded... so thats more like 2 days to do one load!) And Shawn, bless his heart, helps out so much around the house in addition to working extremely long days.... he does so much more then he needs to. I am so lucky to have him around to put more then his fair share of effort into keeping things up around here. I just keep telling myself that any minute we could be leaving for three days to go have our little girl and will be having people come and check on Allie and have my mom staying here, so we try to keep everything as picked up as possible so that we arent leaving a mess.

Off to bed for me....

Still a girl....

Well today I had my doctors appointment and ultrasound. Even though I am technically 37 weeks and 4 days it is considered my 38 week appointment. Everything looked great in the ultrasound, and Shawn was working over by North Florida and was able to come with me which was a nice surprise. Shes so crammed in there! She is head down and her head is low in my pelvis, her back and spine are across the left side of my stomach, leaving her arms and legs free to punch along the right side, which she loves to do. She was even punching the lady doing the ultrasound! She is measuring right on time... 37 weeks 4 days so our due date is right on. The US RN said that she would guess her weight to be able 7 lbs, 5 oz which puts her in the 70th percentile, a little bigger than average. But they could be off by up to a pound and a half, so who knows.

The biggest new, especially for Grandma Swanson, is that we are certain she is a girl! Madalyn loved showing off her "girl parts" more than her face. Just like in previous ultrasounds she likes to keep her arm across her face. But she definitely wanted to make certain we knew she was a girl!

At the doctor my BP was a little elevated. Last week is was 124/86 and this week it was now 144/86, which seemed like a big jump. However the doctor said that because it is my systolic pressure that is elevated and not my diastolic pressure he isnt very concerned. I had some protein in my urine but not enough to be worried about. But it is something to keep an eye on. He checked me and I am dilated between 1 and 2 cm and while he wouldnt put a number for effacement, he said that my cervix is "very favorable" for induction if that becomes necessary.

So looks like Shawn and I will be doing LOTS of walking over the next week!

Allie is feeling much better it seems.... I still dont know what made her so sick, but at least today she is playing like she normally does.

Still no new on the house for sure.... wont hear about the mortgage for sure yet, which is definitely a little stressful. I would have thought the people would have moved out this past weekend because they have until Saturday to be out completely, but it didnt look like they moved anything. And our walk through is scheduled for next Sunday so hopefully they will get it together by then. Our landlord here has leased this place as of August 1st, though I made certain he knew that we are staying here if we dont end up buying this house. Im hoping he is true to his word about letting us renew, because I wont be happy if we end up having to move to somewhere that we dont buy because we had this place rented out from underneath us. Especially because we havent even told our landlord for certain that we are leaving....

Sunday afternoon.....

Well its Sunday of week 37. Not too many more days to go. Over the last week and a half I have had so many of the signs of impending labor that I feel like she could come any day now. I have contractions on and off, and in my childbirth class book there is a checklist of all of the things that you might feel about a week before you go into labor... and more and more of those things are happening! I wonder which day Madalyn has picked for her birthday party?

Allie was really sick last night, so I was up almost all night with her. She must have eaten something she found outside at some point, because all night she was her normal playful self, then she around 11 she started throwing up and continued to do so all night and today as well. She has been the sickest I have ever seen an animal, and I was worried she might need to go to the vet. But she has managed to keep some water down this morning and she gets bits of energy where she runs around and plays for a bit, then goes and naps in the office. So I think she is starting to feel a little bit better and Im not as worried as I was.

Shawn has been working all weekend, though he took a few hour break yesterday so we could go and see Brian. We had a nice visit with him, then Amber and I went to get a pedicure and have some pizza which was a lot of fun.

I see the doctor tomorrow and will get an ultrasound to see how big the baby is... and to make sure she is head down, which we are pretty certain that she is.

37 Weeks (tomorrow)

Well I am officially 37 weeks tomorrow (or today depending on what calendar calculated my due date!) But my appointment yesterday was considered to be my 37 week appointment.

I had thought for certain I was going to have her on Monday. I woke up and felt just awful, then within about an hour I was nauseous and vomiting and started having contractions. I had a doctors appointment for my knee and managed to make it to that and was still having contractions but nothing regular enough to bother timing. I still felt horrible so I took the day off of work and came home and rested... which is what I needed but still wasnt worth taking time off when she decided she wasnt ready to come out! :) I had felt for certain that all of the "telltale signs of labor" were starting and maybe we were going to get to meet our little girl. Especially when I started with the whole "nesting" feeling... and wanting to make certain everything was ready for her. I even made Shawn help me put the car seat into my car!

This past week I have started feeling uncomfortable... I think partially because she has dropped into my pelvis and I have a lot of pressure and dont feel great now. Im glad though that Im not the only one who feels like this... when I went to Shawns softball game last night all the mommies there were telling me how badly they wanted to give birth at this point and all of the things that they tried to make them go into labor! So at least Im not the only one who is starting to feel tired of being pregnant at this point. Apparantly its something most mothers feel!

At my appointment I had had already know he probably wouldnt check me... he said he usually doesnt do it because it wont mean anything. He could find Im already dilated and tell me that and then Ill be dissapointed when I go another 3 weeks without anything happening, or he could see Im not dilated at all and tell me that and I could go into labor that night. So it makes sense... but still I would like to know if all those contractions the other day helped to do anything or if shes not even thinking about making her debut to the world! Everything looked good at the doctors appointment, though my blood pressure was a little bit higher then it had been. It isnt considered high, but I do think I am holding a bit of fluid because my feet and hands are a little puffy.

I have another appointment on Monday and have an ultrasound scheduled with that appointment so I will get to see her then. (If not before then.... HINT HINT Madalyn!)

36 Weeks!

Well I had my 36 week appointment yesterday.... and its so hard to believe I go every week now! We scheduled me for an ultrasound in 2 weeks... I think it is March 27th but I dont know offhand. He says shes still head down, which is good... and Im still measuring a week small... so much for monster baby! I feel huge... so its nice to hear Im small in some way! :) Everything looked great... I had only gained 2 pounds, which is what I am suppossed to gain... and my blood pressure was perfect, so it seems everything has finally regulated itself and Im right where I should be.

The baby is really active, but she seems to already be on a schedule. Shes super busy before bed, and wakes me up at 6:30 every morning (believe it or not, it has been 7:30 this week when she starts kicking! She has figured out daylight savings time!) Its really interesting how she seems already to know about daytime and nighttime. It probably helps that Im able to sleep at work and not be up running calls because that means I sleep most nights (well I lay down most nights... I sleep between the 12 nightly trips to the bathroom)

Amber is in town this week and we went to lunch yesterday and she came over and hung out last night. We had a lot of fun... even just bumming around on the couch watching American Idol and all. Its nice to have friends who understand Im still love to hang out but am just not up for going downtown or out to clubs anymore!

This week I am trying to get some ideas for the house... mostly thinking of paint. It is frustrating not to know if we are definitely going to be moving or not... but its still nice to let my creative side come out. I found the perfect bedspread for our room... the LAST thing we NEED, but something that would make our room look really great. I also saw an idea on HGTV to actually make a headboard out of wood and foam and different panels of a fabric that would be super cheap and look very cool.

House Photos

Things are looking pretty okay as far as the house is concerned... the final contract has been signed and submitted and we are just waiting to hear about the appraisal and the final approval from the lender. So another week or so of keeping our fingers crossed... and hopefully we will know something soon!

It still doesnt look like the tenants have even
thought about moving out... they still have all of their stuff there.... so being that they have 2 weeks until they need to be out that is a little worrisome... but not our problem really since they need to be out before we can close.

Baby Pool Votes

Here are the votes so far.... keep them coming in! I will be updating this as more people say their votes...

Here are the votes so far.... keep them coming in! I will be updating this as more people say their votes...

Carey- March 26th PM 8 lbs, 2 oz.

Amber- March 29th PM

Zeke- March 30th PM

Thai- March 31st AM

Minnich- April 1st AM 8 lbs, 7 oz.

Zach- April 1st PM

Jaime- April 3rd PM 7lbs, 2 oz

Pooh- April 4th PM

Scottie- April 5th PM

Alyssa- April 7th 7lbs. 11 oz

Dave- April 9th PM

Shala- April 9th PM 7lbs, 6 oz.

Jaime's Mom- April 10th AM 6lbs, 14 oz

Nickole- April 11th AM 7lbs, 7oz 19 inches

Jenna- April 11th 7 lbs, 5 ounces 19 inches

Shawn- April 13th AM 10 lbs, 2 oz (I already kicked him HARD for that one!)

Belly Pics (Week 35)

Finally some belly pics! There are from 35 weeks, 2 days pregnant. Im just happy I can still wear the clothes I could wear early in my pregnancy and havent outgrown those! I have a doctors appointment Wednesday and will be posting an update as of then. I still dont have my bag packed for the hospital... but I DID make a trip to Target and at least bought some stuff... so I AM making some progress!

Week 35

I can hardly believe there are now 35 weeks behind us. We have a little over 4 weeks left to go assuming she comes on time. And these next few weeks are jam packed so Im sure time will fly by and she will be here before we know it. Her room is pretty much all put together... we even have diapers for her! I guess now its time to learn how to get the car seat installed in the car so when the time comes we already know how to do that. My friend Kristi asked me if I had my bag packed for the hospital (Which I dont as of yet) and she told me I definitely need to get that stuff together and fairly soon. Truth is I hadnt even really thought about what I will pack. So if there are any suggestions on what to bring let me know!

We have been saving our change for about 6 months... waiting for a "rainy day." Today on a whim we decided to cash it in and buy a nice dinner with the money... and turns out we had $122! So we bought some Porterhouse steaks and crab legs and are making dinner here. Now that I know how much it adds up I will certainly be better about hanging on to my change!

We went and saw our friend Brian Minnich today. It was the first time I have seen him since his trial and Shawn saw him while he was at the county jail just before Christmas. I was pleasantly surprised at how good he looked... and he seems to be holding up better than I had anticipated. It was a little strange at first... but after we adjusted to the guards walking around and watching us it was just like our old double dates at Pizza Hut! We had a good time hanging out with him, and hope to make it out there at least one more time before Madalyn is here.

We are using our baby pool as a way to help raise a little money for him... which is nice because a lot of our friends want to give him some money to help out with incidentals and all, but cant part with enough to make it worth the effort to put it in his account, so this way we can give something back to him who has given so much to us. His vote is that she will be born April 1st and weight 8 pounds 7 ounces. I will be posting peoples predictions on here as well to share with everyone!

Things are still up in the air as far as the house is concerned... waiting to hear on the mortgage approval and I gave the sellers the final contract to sign and get back to me by Friday afternoon and its been all weekend and still no word from them. I dont know if there is a problem with the contingencies we had on there (that the place be vacated by the tenants and all damages incurred by them be taken care of prior to our closing) or if they have just been busy. Either way I have been trying to not stress about it and just relax.

My semester is almost over believe it or not... I have one more test in each class and a term paper in each class and then I am finished! I have 2 more classes that start at the end of March but they are online as well so they shouldnt take up too much time.

I see the doctor on Wednesday and will be posting an update about that.

Baby Pool Info

Well that time is QUICKLY approaching... only a little over 4 weeks until Madalyn's arrival! We have decided to do the traditional baby pool, with a twist. We are going to ask everyone to join in guessing her birthday (date and day or night) and her size and the person who comes closest gets a goody bag filled with all sorts of treats!

Its a $5 donation to join in, and we are going to take the money and give it to our friend Brian Minnich to help his cause. Please join us at this special time to also help make a difference for someone who is very dear to us, and the reason that we are together today. We owe every minute of our happiness to his friendship!

If youre interested in joining in, send me a message with your vote. We can take cash or check, and I also have a paypal account so you can pay online with a few clicks of a mouse!

Hope to hear from you soon.... by the way my due date is officially April 13th, and at my last doctor's appointment I was measuring a week behind, so she is now a little on the small size after her big growth spurt a few weeks ago.

House Update

Well we DID get financing for the house.... so all of the paperwork is being processed. I wont believe until we have a check in hand... but as far as we have been told it looks like it will work out. We will be paying more money than originally thought, but can refinance in a year and hopefully be paying less then. So this year we will be living very frugally.... but that will keep us out of trouble anyways, and who has time to spend money on fun stuff with a new baby? So I think it will work out okay.

Yesterday was our home inspection... we kind of had a struggled getting over there and dealing with the current tenants.... they didnt return the owners phone calls all weekend and then when they did said they didnt want people in the house unless they were there (which legally they cant do as long as they had 24 hours of notice which they had) So the owners tried to reschedule... but I told them no, that we had planned this 4 days ago and had met with the inspector and would be there at 4... so we started on the outside and stalled enough until the guy came home. We only had 10 days to complete the inspection, which is Friday... and Shawn is working today and tomorrow and I work Wednesday and then Thursday night... so it was yesterday or Friday basically.

I am worried that the tenants are going to cause problem. They pnly pay $750 a month for rent (which is about $200 lower than everything else around here!) and they are going to be hardpressed to find something that cheap anywhere around here, and with 5 kids living there its going to be hard to find anything big enough for them!) They arent the classiest of people to say the least... and they live in absolute filth. I will be taking pictures of the inside of the house, but chose not to share the ones I did take because it is so disgusting! But from these pictures you can see the yard and the back of the house.

Madalyn has been really really active the past few days... wiggling around and kicking me a lot. I had quite a few contractions yesterday as well.... Im sure they were Braxton Hicks contractions but its the most of those that I have had throughout my pregnancy. I cant believe how close it is until she is here. Today I am putting away the rest of the clothes that Jenna sent home with us this weekend.... I only kept the newborn stuff out in the drawers and closet and have packed everything else in rubbermaids in her closet.

We are contemplating a change in wedding plans.... with the whole house buying thing we have been leaning in the direction of having a VERY small (family only) wedding, maybe on the beach somewhere, and then eating dinner at a nice resturaunt. If we do that it will probably be over the summer sometime.... and while its not the big wedding we had been thinking, I think it will be easier with a new house and a new baby to scratch all that planning. Shawn and I know that we want to be married, and really the only thing stopping us from going to the courthouse and getting married is wanting to share it with our families. Plus we could take what has been earmarked towards wedding money and put it into the house, even if it just sits in savings it will cut down on the stress level of money for the next year.

Also, Shawn is setting up a MSN group for Madalyn so we can email pictures and baby updates and all.... so if you read this regularly and want to be added to the group send me an email at emtgatorgirl@Hotmail.com so we can get you added....

Happy Birthday Savannah!

My neice Savannah's birthday was on March 1st and she is now 1 year old! I cant believe how fast the year has gone by (not to mention how much life has changed this past year.) Shawn and I went to Bradenton on Friday night to spend the weekend with Jenna, Brad and the baby. My parents came down yesterday for lunch and to spend the afternoon, then we all headed back home late last night. It was a long weekend and I was absolutely exhausted by the time we got home last night, but it was well worth it to be able to spend time with the family. Depending on Miss Madalyn's plans we will be heading to Riverview St Patty's weekend so we (I mean more Shawn than I!) can help Jenna and Brad with things in their new house.

Pregnancy wise... I am 34 weeks, 3 days.... so only 5 weeks and a few days to go! I cant believe how close it is getting. We pretty much have everything we need for her all set and ready to go. I guess this week we need to make a priority of attempting car seat installation, so we at least know how to get that in there in case she decides to come early. Other than that we are good to go and just waiting her arrival.

House wise things are still up in the air. We made an offer that they accepted and we signed the contract, but turns out the loan program that we thought I qualified for because I am a firefighter is for people who make LESS money than I do. I dont make THAT much to be overqualified for things, especially since I will be supporting a family of 3 on that.... but who knows. So back to the drawing board in that department... I will know more tomorrow from our mortgage broker, but hopefully he has something that we qualify for and can still afford everything else! I would really hate to pass on this house because it is everything we want and would be such a great opportunity for us. Plus Shawn is so excited about putting his handyman skills to work at his own place.... So keep your fingers crossed for us that things will work out.