Picnic in the sunshine

Akron visit

I had my visit with my high risk OB at Akron Children's and I love my doctor! She spent over an hour talking with me. She is confident in her job and in things going well for this pregnancy and delivery.

We are still planning a C-section at 39 weeks. If my blood pressure starts going up I will be put on bed rest and if it's at 37 weeks or later we'll just bump up the C-section date. Anything after 37 weeks is considered full-term so no real worries about the baby being underdeveloped at 37 weeks.

I need to have my blood pressure monitored more often (every two weeks for now and once I hit the 30 week mark it will be every week). My Akron doctor is happy to let me stop in to my Ashland OB to have my BP checked so that I don't have to drive up to Akron as often. My gas tank and checkbook appreciate that.

The Akron doctor wants to run her own baseline tests so I am having more bloodwork, another ultrasound (yay! I get to see Greyson again:)) and an echocardiogram of my heart, next Wednesday. It will take all morning but I trust my doctor and feel very confident with her. She isn't worried about finding anything abnormal in any of these tests, she just wants to have them done in her office and to have them in her records. And like I said, I am glad to get to see the baby during the ultrasound so I'll most likely have some more baby pictures to post soon.

I'm getting ready to start my third trimester! Hard to believe... but also not hard to believe. I'm getting so excited to meet and hold Greyson. Although I don't want him to come too early!

In other family news:

Jon is down to 30 days left in his schooling program! I am so very proud of him. He still has some huge tests and hurdles to finish but I know he will finish strong. He has started looking for jobs and we know God has a plan for us and for Jon's job. We are approaching it with prayer and know God will help us along the way.

Emma is doing wonderful. She's finally over her cough (I still have mine... grrr).
She wants a princess castle birthday cake- it's hard to believe my baby is turning three in just one month from now! She is really chomping at the bit to get her swimming pool out. It's stored at Nana's house so at least I have a good reason that we haven't pulled it out yet. Emma thinks that 60 degrees IS warm and thinks it would be fine to go swimming. Instead we go puddle jumping and on the few truly warm days we have had I just get a big bucket of water and she has a ball with that.

Jarrah is ready for the rain to stop so she can go outside to poop in "optimal conditions" and the nice weather also means walks. She is such a good dog and does well with having little exercise but I know it will be great for her to get back into our daily walks.

Sidenote: It will be great for me too, and my increasingly softening body, to go on daily walks. I remember when I was pregnant with Emma the weather was nicer much earlier in the season so Jarrah and I hit the road for long daily walks. I try to do my pregnancy pilates DVD often but have been sick for almost 3 weeks now and when I do much activity I set off on a coughing fit. That seems like a pretty good excuse for now:)

We have a mallard duck couple (male and female) at our house. They must live in the woods right by our house and just waddle over and eat the bird seed from the bird feeders. We love watching them, well, except for Jarrah, she loves barking at them. When they hear Jarrah it's funny to watch them try to "hustle waddle" back to the woods. Cracks me up.

We have lots of bunnies munching on our abundant clover patches and the deer are very tame. One walked right by the window the other evening- I could have stuck my arm out the window and almost touched it. Again, these animals are happy to munch on our grasses and such until they hear Jarrah's bark. She truly thinks she's saving us from the ducks/deer/bunnies.

We are all well overall and have so many blessings in our lives. We are looking forward to more sunshine and Jon, less studying:)

What do you think??

1. When birds perch on phone wires can they eavesdrop on our conversations? After all, they can hear worms underground with their feet...

2. If worms are fast enough to crawl out of the ground when it rains so that they don't drown, why can't they crawl back into the dirt after the rain stops before they dry up on my driveway?

3. Why is it when there is nothing on TV and I watch some random sitcom it is the very same episode I watched last time there was nothing on TV and I watched a random sitcom?

4. What would it be like to wake up some morning and have your life suddenly be accompanied by a music score?

5. Why do dogs hate baths but love to go for walks in the rain?

6. What do cows think about all day?

and finally

7. When I sweep my house in the evening how can a spider find time to make a web, kill other bugs, leave them in the new web and then die all before morning when I find them before breakfast?

A perfect day

Emma and I have been rather sick this last week. It really hit me on Wednesday and today is the first we are starting to feel a bit human. The sunshine really helps that too.

We got up this morning and hung around the hours in our pj's, had a surprise visit from GG and Grampy and then got dressed and headed to the library. Emma was thrilled that her favorite "Maisy" video was available and after getting that and several other things we headed to the park.

That always causes smiles.She's a flower girl. She loves to pick them, smell them, pull all the petals off...

Next to the rock throwing. She would have preferred to be standing in the creek and covered in mud but I was a deadbeat about it. So she stood by and threw in tons of rocks.

Emma loves to make "mad faces, happy faces" and "prise (surprise)" faces. This was supposed to be "happy face". I got the happy part and she, well, she got the "tired face".

We came home, ate lunch and she fell fast asleep for her nap. And I dropped onto the couch. I guess we are still on the mend and get tuckered out quickly.

But the sunshine on our faces sure was good medicine.

Brother and sister

Here's Greyson
Here's Emma.I think they look like siblings. They also look like they are smooshed in someone's belly... Oh, right, they are/were.

I think Emma's nose looks more like mine and Greyson's looks more like Jon's.

Emma thinks that both pictures look like the babies are "muddy".

I'm feeling the baby move very often now. He's kicking, wiggling, punching or moving and I feel it lots of times everyday (and night).

I got my referral for Akron Children's set up. My appointment is with one of the doctor's that saw me after I delivered Emma. I'm sure we'll be headed in the right direction and we still have plenty of time.

In other news: Jon is starting his LAST rotation tomorrow. You did read that correctly, the last rotation! It is one of the hardest ones but he can do it! His big case study presentations are this week. He has started studying for his registry (National Certification Test) which he will take in July.

I'm done with tax season and am loving my short work schedule. If it would ever quit raining we'd start our daily walks to the park.

Emma is great. She is napping right now. But I heard a noise about 15 minutes after I laid her down for her nap and went in to check it out. She was sitting in bed peeling stickers out of my childhood sticker albums. When I took it from her and told her it was time for sleeping, not for playing she looked at me for a second and handed me a little toy dog, another book and then pointed to her nail clippers for me to take as well. I love that she is so honest.
I had to go back in about 10 minutes later and take the Elmo puzzle out of her bed.
She finally fell asleep.
She is such a great kid and I'm so blessed to be her mom. I know having Greyson will just double that feeling.

Happy Easter

We had a blessed Easter this year.

Celebrating the gift of salvation felt extra real to me. I was reminded over and over of how unworthy I am and how Jesus saved me anyway. My worth is in Him.

My friend that passed away from cancer a couple weeks ago is currently benefitting from Jesus' suffering and even more from Jesus overcoming death. She is living eternal life right now- all because of Jesus.

I'm so thankful to you Jesus. You gave everything for me. I want to live my life all for You.

He is risen- He is risen indeed!

Friday's ultrasound

I was blessed today a thousand times over. God made an unexpected way for Jon to get to come to our ultrasound today. My mom came too and together we saw Greyson Joshua for the first time.

This bottom picture has edits done to the right arm (left side of picture).

He really has two arms, two legs and all his digits.

The ultrasound tech asked us before she started if we wanted to know the gender of the baby. Jon and I said in unison "YES!". It's a good thing she asked before she turned on the ultrasound machine because as soon as she turned it on we were looking at Greyson's bottom and his parts- first thing he showed us. :)

I had to drink lots of water as to have a full bladder as instructed by they doctor. I did that, but I also wanted to make sure the baby was awake so I had three mini pieces of candy.
The tech said that she couldn't "get this baby to hold still". I sheepishly said "that might be the candy I ate before I came in". She smiled and looked at me and sarcastically said "thanks!".

So he wasn't extremely cooperative in getting certain shots she needed at first. She never did get a black and white (2D) profile pic that was super clear. He kept looking at us. We did get to see all kinds of cool things though.

His beating 4 chamber heart. It was beating about 158bpm.

Kidneys- although the ultrasound tech kep showing me what she was looking at, I never could really see the kidneys.

Imbilical cord and thank goodness he wasn't squeezing it like the baby the tech told us about. She said she saw an ultrasound for a high risk pregnancy where the baby's heart rate kept drastically dropping. They did an ultrasound only to find the baby literally squeezing the imbilical cord hard enough to stop enough blood flow to himself that he would eventually start to pass out, his grip would release enough that the blood flow would return to normal and he'd wake up. However, since the cord was still in his hand he'd do it again.
I figure, that's the only thing in there for babies to play with! Just kidding. I would have been freaked out too just like that baby's mom did.

We saw the lens of his eyes. Too bad there's no color. Come ON technology!

He had his arm up over his face a lot of the time.

He yawned at the end of the ultrasound and she got some good pictures of that. It's fun to see them doing that.

He weighs 10 oz and is right at the 50th percentile for all his measurements.

We saw his full bladder (and mine, I was glad for the bathroom break after she got the pics she needed).

We saw long fingers, perfect little feet, and Jon's nose. We think he looks more like Jon than me. A couple views looked more like Emma but mostly, he looks like his daddy.

The tech was pleased to see that everything measured exactly to the day of our original due date- September 15th. I'll still have him at least one week early via C-section.
We've decided to go ahead and deliver in Akron and I am in the process of being referred to a the high risk doctor that I saw up there after I had Emma.