Not quite ready

Baby Update:

I'll officially be 33 weeks tomorrow, but I've been seeing my OB weekly now (starting two weeks ago) just for the sake of keeping an eye on things and because my liver has begun to act up just a wee bit. I feel like there's a revolving door at his clinic....I walk out to my car and turn around and walk right back in. He ended up doing a liver panel last week and my levels were just ever so slightly out of whack. Nothing (symptom-wise) has worsened in the past week. I seem to be able to control things with diet, epsom salt baths and my herbal supplement, so I'm hoping to keep it that way. I ate a ribeye over the weekend and could definitely feel the difference all day Monday...but was able to lower my symptoms again by eating only vegetables Monday and putting lots of lemon in my water. I'm definitely not a vegetarian in the making; it's very hard to get full without dairy and meat in my diet!!! So now my daily schedule consists of an antibiotic, which has to be taken more than 2 hours after my herbal supplement...and my herbal supplement has to be taken on an empty stomach and I can't eat anything for 30 minutes afterwards. Poor Ryan; the oven timer keeps going off and he thinks he'll try to help by taking something out of the oven, etc...but it's just his wife's reminder to eat or take something.

We're scheduled for another ultrasound on Monday..."just to peek at things". Dr. Richey had recommended that we have periodic ultrasounds towards the end, between the cholestasis and the placenta, just to make sure this little dude is still comfy and cozy. I was already carrying him very low, but he's somehow managed to snuggle in lower. I can feel his head on my sacrum and I can breathe much easier now. My OB raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing. The only concern that sneaks into my mind regularly now is a labor that's way too quick. With Logan, I was already in the hospital (for liver problems, not because I was in active labor) when my water broke...and he was born 3 hours later. That's pretty quick, especially for a first baby. Of course, I never had the luxury of going into labor with Carter. But now, with baby #3...and two other kids to coordinate plus the 40 minute drive to the hospital...
I actually am not scared of having a baby at home, but with this being a VBAC, it wouldn't be ideal. So, you can all pray that I have at least a 5-hour labor or so...just to ease my Type A mind!



So tomorrow I go to pick up our carseat. I pre-registered at the hospital (paperwork is NOT fun when you're having a bunch of contractions....THIS, I learned the hard way) and I threw our Cord Blood kit into a bag to put in the car....but I'm really still hoping for a November baby. I made my boppy pillow last night, but still need to make the car seat cover. Some friends are throwing a baby shower for me on Oct. 10; this will be the first baby shower I'll have that will actually occur BEFORE baby arrives. My poor family is freezing. We were driving to church on Sunday with the air conditioning on, yet it was only 40 degrees or so outside. Hey...mommy's a little warm right now.

33 weeks

Baby boy #3

Status Quo

Just logged into our blog and caught the baby countdown…yikes…only 74 days left to vote (and that was allowing people to vote up until 10 days past our due date). Suffice it to say, I’m beginning to enter…
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the “freaking out” zone.
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Two months to go doesn't seem like much time, especially with all the running around with bringing each of the boys 20 miles to school...and being picked up at different times. I decided that our mortgage payment should be about $20 a month, given the amount of time I actually spend in the darn thing! "Stay-at-home mom" is a misleading title...."stay-in-the-car mom" might be more accurate.
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So, I was off for another checkup at the OB today. Having only two weeks between appointments now seems to make the time fly. I had been having a few "funny" symptoms the past couple of days and was debating whether to mention them to him or not. I find myself annoyed by hypochondriac-type people that dribble on and on about every little thing they feel. I also find myself irritated by those that self-diagnose via internet or their neighbor. However, I made the mistake of not telling my OB about my symptoms with Logan because I didn't want to become one of "THOSE" patients...and only finally admitted to them when my midwife caught me crying one day. Kind of got myself (and Logan) into a bit of a pickle for the sake of my foolish pride on that one. So, I decided to humble myself and fill the OB in and let him do his job and determine whether it was anything to raise an eyebrow at or not...and he did. So, instead of my usual 10-minute appointment and $25, I was there for an hour and a half, handed over $160 and was on my way. In the end, the baby looked great, but he's suspicious of my liver being the source of my symptoms. Could me malfunctioning...or baby could just be "pinching" it since that's the side he's been hanging out on since the beginning. I don't have any of the symptoms indicating toxins in the bloodstream, so we're assuming the latter at this point. Baby was moving and measuring ahead of schedule. In fact, his head measured a week and a half ahead. Imagine that: a Magee male with a BIG HEAD...who woulda thought???
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On another note, my boys managed to both bring colds home during the first 3 weeks of school, but I didn't manage to get it until this week. I'm not one to usually take medications for anything; I rarely take tylenol for a headache even. But, I admit I do love my Nyquil when I have a cold...nothing like a good alcohol and medication-induced night's sleep when you're all stuffed up. However, I resisted the urge this time, being pregnant and all. So, last night's sleep was a bit of an adventure. If I was on my back, my heart would begin to race. If I was on my right side, the ol' pregnancy-induced acid reflux kicked in (a NEW pregnancy experience for me this time around). And, when I was on my left side, I couldn't hardly breathe between my sinus being stuffy and my lung capacity being about the size of a tablespoon lately. I did manage to get a little shut-eye in 30-minute increments. I think I actually laughed out loud at around 2:00 a.m., thinking this must look pretty pathetic if someone was watching. So, I meandered into the doctor's office today, apparently looking a bit under-rested. He says to me "You look a little tired today" (which is the polite way of saying: "You look like crap! Get some sleep already!"). Funny stuff.

State Fair

It's that time of year again...State Fair! The boys are at an awesome age for going to the fair. There's only about 12 rides they're big enough to go on (yet we still dropped $50 on rides; at $3-$4 per ride, per kid, it doesn't take long), but they're old enough to not run off too much. We don't need to have a stroller with a thousand things with and no need to pack sippy cups, etc. Until next year anyway...



So, being the model parents that we are, we pulled our kids out of school for a day to go to the fair. It's about a 4-hour drive away and we took advantage of going on Ryan's day off in the middle of the week. It works out nicely as it's less crowded, which is nice if you plan on standing in line for every ride, etc.



We borrowed Grandpa Jim's truck and camper and parked right at the fair. We had about 5 hours there before it closed and the boys were asking to go back to the camper about 30 minutes before the fair was done (which is also when it started to rain).

The mini ferris wheel; Logan's telling me "I can see the WHOLE fair from up here!!!"

Carter and Daddy coming down the slide on the Indiana Jones climbing adventure.

My favorite - the roller coaster (sadly, they don't allow preggos to ride and I'm not supposed to anyway....but I sure wanted to!!!) We thought Carter might be scared that it went too fast. As it turns out, he was laughing so hard it made Ryan and I laugh too.

Getting ready to "race".

Petting the tortoise at the Rainforest Exhibit (lots of cool snakes, lizards and other things one doesn't ever see in Alaska); Carter was a maniac running from one critter to the next.

The other thing we do when we go to the fair is take the boys to Toys R Us (we also do this over spring break). The boys save their allowances for the few months before hand and usually have about $25 to work with. However, this year they had leftover birthday money plus some other money that had been given to them, so Carter had $65 and Logan had $50. We were there almost an hour and a half. Carter came home with about 8 new Thomas trains and a couple of trucks. Logan deliberated for a VERY LOOOOOONG time and finally decided on a Wii game. He was really struggling with getting a particular Wii game and nothing else or getting a less expensive Wii game and another toy. Little guy's smart enough to know he doesn't usually have this much money at one time and decided on the beloved Wii game...Mario Party 8. So, the next day I dropped Carter off at school and then Logan and I spent our 1/2 hour reading in the car before he can go into his school. But this day we didn't read books....we read the manual to Mario Party 8. Remind me if I need some reading material to help go to sleep....

So we're back into our routine now. We had a minor celebration for Daddy's birthday on Friday, but we had already given him his present so it was pretty low key. And as you can see, a couple of us needed to recover from a busy week:

Baby update:

Not much new to report here. Saw my regular OB 3 days after seeing the specialist in Anchorage. As for now, we're "on schedule as if everything's normal." Hard to believe I'm already at the point where I see him every 2 weeks. This next week we'll cross the milestone of 30 weeks, which is when my liver "got sick" with Logan. As this usually starts earlier with each pregnancy, we were relieved it didn't start until 34 weeks with Carter. My OB was a bit perplexed by that last time. So far, no signs of liver malfunction with this one. I'm really hoping to make him scratch his head this time when it doesn't occur at all! Not to mention it would be nice to not have the worry towards the end or be forced to take a baby early again. (By the way, if anyone wants to buy me an I.V. of Mountain Dew as soon as this baby gets here, I'd love you for it!!!). I look forward to drinking water by the glass again instead of by the liter. Life is good.