Expect The Unexpected

This morning I had an OB appointment. Usually my appointments are right here in Lincoln and are only a 15 minute drive from our house. Today they scheduled me for an appointment in Roseville, a 30 minute drive, and I approached it with growls and grumblings. I mean, for Pete's sake, who schedules an expectant mother a 9:10 AM appointment and expects her to drive further and have her toddler ready and shower and get dressed. Last night I told T, "They rescheduled me since the doctor won't be in Lincoln on Friday, but I don't know why. All they do is listen to the girls' heartbeats and send me home."

Now that you know my expectations, I'll tell you how it all really played out. Amazingly, I got there on time (+ or - 5 minutes is on time to me), went in to the doctor and had him tell me I've effaced and am dilated to a 3! And then with casual optimisim he followed-up with, "I hope we can get one more week out of you. And the good news is that I don't feel a lot of pressure on your cervix, but I think there's a head down at the base. We'll find out for sure at your ultrasound tomorrow."

Wow. So unexpected. I'm praying the girls will take their time and my body will be strong. I want them to be bigger. I want their quilts to be done. I want to be more prepared. I want to not own 2 homes. I want to have our complete 3 months food storage. I want to make T's dentist appointment. I want to actually have my hospital bag packed. Yikes.

P.S. If any of you have encouraging examples of women that were dilated and stayed that way for a while, I'd love to hear them!

Sick and Tired

This is what you'd find if you stopped by our house today. No, it's not E all oiled up and ready for a Mr. Universe competition. It's E all Vick's Vapo-rubbed up and trying to make it through the morning. After his nap yesterday he awoke with a raspy voice and then around 7:00PM he spiked a fever (101.4). It's been a little frightening for me because E has never gotten suddenly sick like this. We gave him Tylenol and T gave him a blessing and he slept through the night. This morning he woke up crying and feverish and I held him and rocked him and felt so helpless. The Tylenol has kept his fever down, he's drinking and eating normally, and somehow he keeps a good sense of humor. Example:

We've been having some issues with E referring to T by T's first name instead of calling him "Daddy". I would correct him and T thought that my saying anything about it was probably inspiring E to keep saying it, so I quit saying anything. E continued to call T, "T", and one day I'd had it. I told him if it happened again he'd get his tongue flicked because it's disrespectful. He tested. I followed through. He's all but quit calling T, "T". But today in the tub he was playing and then said, "T-*-!-#-@-&!!!" really loud and long. I turned my mom-factor from standby to stun and gave him THE look. To which he replied, "E will tell you a story about T. T is not a Daddy. T is a monster. Rroooarr!!!" Nice cover, little man.

As for me and the girls, we're making it! My ward asked me to teach a cooking class on beans that was this past Wednesday morning. I did and it went really well, but in retrospect it was probably too much for me to have taken on. That night I was exhausted and started having contractions. I was more than a little scared and kept praying in my head. T took E to the park so the house would be quiet and I propped up my feet, drank lots of water, and started timing. I think I'd had about 5 in an hour, though I'd only officially timed 3 of those, and I was sweating it because my threshold is 6. (If I have 6 I'm supposed to call my perinatologist and go to the hospital.) Then they stopped and I haven't had any since then. It was a huge wake-up call for me. My pregnancy has been so healthy that I forget there are things I can't/shouldn't do. Needless to say, I've been taking it easier since then and have found myself markedly tired all the time. I don't know if the fatigue is resultant of pushing too much on Wednesday or coincidentally affected me around that time, but I'm grateful that Babette A and Babeette M are still squirming inside me. Here's to hoping and praying they stay growing inside me for quite some time to come!

Happy Easter

E looked so dapper today that I wanted to pinch his little cheeks all day long. Sadly, most of the pictures feature his ultra-cheesy smile, but you get the idea.



In other news: I've officially been remarkably uncomfortable for two days now. I've been trying to find a good analogy to help T understand my discomfort. Tonight it donned me. It feels like I swallowed a cat. An angry cat. An angry, fighting cat.

T's response? "Fancy that she swallowed a cat. She swallowed a cat to catch the bird, etc."

I rolled my eyes.

Potty Mouth

T and I never definitively talked about what we would tell our children their anatomical parts are called. Consequently, when E was potty training I never called it anything and then one day T somehow told E that he had a penis.

Great. Not exactly the dream word I wanted floating around in the mouth of the boy who never forgets anything and has no social filters. And believe me, he has not forgotten that word. I tried to continue to be discreet, but E would let me know outright what it is. So I was forced out of my prudishness and I try to be comfortable, though still constrained, with the enhanced vocabulary.

Which brings us to sacrament meeting today. About half the children in our ward weren't in attendance today, (Not an exaggeration. I serve in Primary and literally half our seats were empty.) and our sacrament meeting was quiet. Excruciatingly quiet. You can hear the deacons' pants brush each other as they pass the sacrament quiet. E took his piece of bread, chewed, swallowed, and broke the silence by asking me in a normal volume voice:

"Does Jesus have a penis and a bum-bum?"

I think my face went even redder than T's. I couldn't even think of what to say and just as E was about to restate the question I grabbed a tic-tac and popped it in his mouth. The remaining time the sacrament was being passed was occupied by me liberally supplying E with tic-tacs.

Tic-tacs. Apparently they even freshen potty mouth.

REAL Pictures

I promised my mom I'd upload REAL pregnancy pictures by this morning. Yesterday's fake photo threw her off a little too much for comfort, I guess ;o)

The Shirt
The last time I posted pictures I received a lot of comments about the shirt. It's a Shade shirt that they don't carry anymore. It's not a maternity shirt, but when I'm not pregnant there's so much material that it goes to my knees. I thought I should wear it for my pregnancy pictures because it reveals, without concealing, my pregnant tummy for what it is. Sadly, I'm not sure it'll keep fitting for all my pregnancy pictures.