Day 9

It's been 9 days since Andrew and I planted our pumpkin seeds and guess what? THEY ARE NOT DEAD!!! SUCCESS!!! Ha, no but really...they are doing great! Andrew gets really excited to go check on them.

Day 6

Well it's the morning of day 6 and Andrew and I walked outside to check on our pumpkin sprouts. Yesterday we had 11 healthy sprouts and today we have 13!!! I have been replaced as the primary care giver of the sprouts. In fact, it appears I am only needed for documentation purposes... I love this little boy so much!!!

Day 5

I am beginning to think I have misjudged my ability to grow plants. All these years I have feared planting my own garden. Here we are 5 days after planting the pumpkin seeds and we have very healthy sprouts. Yesterday we had 8 tiny sprouts and today we have 11. I'm feeling over confident...I'm starting to map out an herb garden, a strawberry patch, maybe a grape vine and some tomatoes, oh, and blueberry bush...wait...we already have kin to Peter rabbit sneaking under our fence every night and I am NOT a fan of birds... Maybe I should just be happy our pumpkin seeds are sprouting!!!

Sprouts!!!

So the "All About Pumpkins" website and the actual package of seeds said it would take 7-10 days for the seeds to germinate...well, well, well...maybe I have the magic touch after all... We planted the seeds on the evening of Sunday, August 12, 2012 and here it is 4 days later we have 8 sprouts! Andrew and I have put it as part of our daily routine to check on our pumpkins and water when necessary. Today, I looked out the window and thought I saw green sprouts in the middle of the area for our seeds. I got really excited and said, "Andrew, go get your shoes. We need to go outside to check on our pumpkins." He said, "OUT OUT" and ran down the hall and came back with is famous rain boots. I should have known those would be the shoes of choice...that's a whole different blog post! Anyway, we got all shoed up and went outside to see...

we have sprouts indeed!!! Oh, I was so excited. I mean excited enough to jump up and down pointing at the sprouts cheering "SPROUTS ANDREW, SPROUTS!" Unfortunately for me, I also pointed at said sprouts and Andrew then tried to uproot them! Good news for the sprouts, they are still safely in the ground!!!

However, the little sprouts definitely needed some water so we gave them a nice drink. Well, I stood there with the hose while Andrew ran around, played in the water, chased the dogs, etc. You know, his way of being ACTIVEly involved. He had the ACTIVE part down for sure!!!

Anyway, the photos are thanks to my mom who happened to be visiting so she can watch the little nugget tomorrow for me. This little guy seriously makes my world go round. I can't even imagine what life would be like without him blessing me every single day! Stay posted as we continue to water our pumpkins and watch them grow!!! YAY!!!

Planting the seeds

It's been far too long since I've blogged! I mean, it's not like I haven't sat back and laughed about my life a million times...I just haven't had the time to sit down and write about it. Well friends, I'm making it a goal to try harder...and by harder, I mean actually attempt it!!! HA! Seriously though, if I have time to look at pinterest for an hour or more a day, I have time to blog!!!! Actually, I've stopped looking at pinterest lately...hence my blog update!!! Anyway, the point of this post is not about pinterest. In fact, what I'm about to share with you I didn't even get the idea from pinterest!!!! It came out of my own head...I know scary, right?... As anyone who knows me knows how much I L-O-V-E the fall in general. I love everything that happens in fall, the weather, the food, the colors, the holidays...it's my favorite! So to spread some of that absolute love with my son, I decided we were going to grow some pumpkins. I think now would be a great time to inform everyone my growing ability is well...I don't have any! Zero ability! I'm terrible at gardening. In fact, I knock the leaves off my artificial plants while I dust them...I really can only grow beans in a bag with students and then send them home when they start growing too big and need to be transplanted. I really am not a green thumb AT ALL!!! But, I had this wild idea about how fun it would be to grow a pumpkin with Andrew. Unfortunately, I had this idea a little late in the season so 95 days from now when our pumpkin(s) are ready to harvest it will be the week before Thanksgiving. Talk about cutting it close!!! Here's how it all started. I thought, "Hmmm, we should grow a pumpkin. Wait, I don't know anything about growing pumpkins. Hmmm...let's Google this. Oh, I could grow a little pumpkin like Jack Be Little. Seeds, dirt, full sun, water... I can do this!!!" I called Josh, (he's still out of town) "Hey babe, listen, Andrew and I are going to grow some pumpkins in the backyard." Josh: "Ok, that sounds fun." Yep, I love that man! So we started the adventure. First I Googled where to buy pumpkin seeds. Then Andrew and I went to Walmart. No luck. Then Home Depot. No luck. Then Lowes. No luck. These were on three different days. Finally, I decided this was ridiculous...I needed a pumpkin seed STAT! So I got on amazon and had it shipped to my door for free just a click of the button and $3.95 later pumpkins seeds in route!!! I can't remember how many days passed from clicking to getting them in the mail but it was less than a week for sure. Now, a smart gardener would have used this time to set up the area, buy soil, etc. Not me...I'm no gardener! I got the seeds in the mail and thought, oh, I guess I better buy some dirt tomorrow after church. So we did. I also needed some coffee creamer so there we were...Andrew and I, at Walmart with a 40 lb bag of dirt and International Delight Heath Bar flavored coffee creamer at the checkout stand. It was hot when we got home and we had other things to tend to so it wasn't until I saw storm clouds brewing that I thought, oh, maybe I should plant these pumpkin seeds before it rains. Novel idea if I do say so myself!!! HA! So here I am with a pair of gloves, Andrew's wagon loaded with the 40 lb bag of dirt, a shovel (most ridiculous shovel I've ever seen but the only one I could find in the garage) some bricks, and a small package of seeds.

Hey, what else could I need? Plus, Andrew was so excited he wanted to pull the wagon himself! So we went outside, dogs included, to dig some holes. I Googled "All About Pumpkins" and learned that I needed to only plant them about 2" deep in the soil and make sure the soil is moist and don't get water on the leaves.

Easy enough... So I dug two holes, made a brick boarder around them, filled them with dirt, pushed in a few pumpkin seeds, and then soaked them.

Andrew was a big help. He kept uncovering the seeds I would plant. He also transported dirt from one hole to the other by the handful. He's always so helpful!!!

We took a few pictures and I wished the best and then went inside to give Andrew his bath before bed. It did rain a few sprinkles Sunday night, but I was sure glad I soaked the seeds pretty well prior the "rain." So there you have it...we are growing pumpkins!!! Wish us luck!!!

37 weeks

Picture it... It was a crispy Wednesday morning on the 5th of January 2011. I was excited to go to my drs appt because I was finally getting to see Dr. Carrington again. He had been out of town since December 17. He also thought for sure I wouldn't make it past Christmas. When he left for his vacation, I was 100% effaced, 3-3.5cm dilated, having contractions regularly and being medicated to stop my contractions as well as taking daily shots for my blood clotting disorder. So when I saw him on this day he was pretty shocked I was still pregnant but very happy I held out this long. That's not to say there weren't many scares which included hospital admits and shots to "shut down your active labor" along the way. Most recently I was trying to convince the other drs in the practice that I was leaking amniotic fluid. The week before the dr did two tests on me and one came back positive while the other came back negative for amniotic fluid so he ordered a biophysical profile on me. That's a fancy term for a long ultrasound where they measure and watch the baby for a long time. Everything looked great and the baby was doing great so after 5 hours of fetal monitoring I was discharged and got to go home. So I told dr Carrington all about what I'm sure he already read in my chart and I still felt like I was leaking so he ran the same tests as the week before got the same positive and negative results. He called for the same biophysical profile but this time we had the week prior to compare with and guess who's amniotic fluid was significantly lower than the week before and was bow sitting on the low end of normal when it came to amniotic fluid??? Me! I told you I was leaking... Anyway, Dr C then came in and said since we had battled long enough and 37 weeks was safe for the baby to come out because it was considered "term," since we were now taking a shot two times a day with different medicine that could be reversed in an IV if needed for my blood clotting disorder, and since I was now leaking fluid, he decided to schedule an induction for Sunday, January 9, 2011. That was a shocker to me but exciting. It's weird to think about the exact day you will become a mother and meet your child for the first time. There were several things we needed to do... Wait, rewind... Josh needed to do (I was still on bedrest) before we introduced our child to the world. The top of that list was grocery shopping! So we left that appointment knowing in 4 days our lives would be blessed with the birth of our child. We shared the news of the scheduled induction with everyone via phone calls, texts, and facebook. Josh got ready for work, I climbed back into bed, and we continued our normal Wednesday routine...

I'm back

So it's been well... A long time since I've updated this blog. And the truth of the matter was out of fear. After losing Alan early in 2010 and blogging about all of the excitement of the pregnancy and all of the heart break of the miscarriage, I found it scary to blog again on our second pregnancy. I was terrified that we would miscarry again. Looking back, I probably should have expressed my thoughts and fears through the blog but there was something about writing things down that make it too real. I suppose I didn't want to admit the fear I had during my pregnancy because I wanted to embrace the blessing of the pregnancy. So I guess where do we go from here? Well we quickly discuss the pregnancy..

First trimester: SCARY but amazing. I embraced every day that I vomited (through the first 16 weeks straight) I have a few great vomit stories that stick out in my head. The first one starts at the drs office. We had a great visit with Dr Kaufmann and were released to go to my regular OB because the pregnancy was doing great and I was 11 weeks along. So Josh and I decided to celebrate this huge milestone by going to eat at chilis. I found the corn chowder soup to be very appealing to my pregnancy cravings so I ordered that with chips and salsa. When my soup came out it was garnished with some fresh chives. It looked yummy and tasted yummy too. After we left chilis, I remembered we were out of dog food so I asked Josh to stop at Walmart on the way home. Walmart was about a 10 min drive from where we were. As Josh was safely waiting to turn against traffic into the parking lot of walmart I quickly piped up with GAS it NOW. He knew better than to waste time asking questions so he did as he was told! I yelled at him to stop the truck and when he was trying to safely pull into a spot I already had the door to the truck opened, me hanging on to not fall out and corn chowder spuing all over the asphalt. Since it was a cool 100 degree day in Texas the vomit quickly heated up and began to smell. Josh is completely grossed out at this point and yelling at me to close the door because he could smell it. This scene was very reminiscent of Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon in the movie Four Christmases when the baby spits up. So I turn to give Josh the evil eye long enough before round two of my upchucking begins. Josh is slowly creeping the truck toward in the parking lot to keep from smelling it. As I carry on my barf festival I hear Josh in the background yapping about people watching, the smells, etc. When I finally finish my puking I look up to see only two cars in the back lot of walmart... Ironically both being occupied by watchful eyes. One was at AT&T work truck with a guy clearly stopped and eating his lunch... Well he WAS eating his lunch until my free show came along and the other was some dude in a car starring at me. Josh pointed out he was watching me the whole time and as I gracefully wiped my chowdered up nose and mouth I said maybe he didn't see... At that point I looked at the guy who was looking at me and then he just cracked up laughing.. Yup, he saw and you know he wasn't thinking oh I bet she's pregnant.... Oh no, he was clearly thinking I was intoxicated puking my guts out in the walmart parking lot at 2pm on a sunny Thursday afternoon. Classy! Anyway, I have no shame so I told Josh to pull up a spot so I didn't have to step in my vomit and I got out of the truck with confidence and marched right in to get the dog food I came for... Well actually I stopped off at the restroom first to pull the chive that was wedged in my right nostril out while Josh got the dog food. The other two times that come to mind were at Target and Italian Inn. I actually made it through my shopping extravaganza before the urge to blow chunks came over me. I was actually walking to my car with my shopping cart when all of the sudden my walking turned into speed walking which then became jogging that turned into pushing the cart at full speed... That ended with me abandoning the cart and finding refuge in a grassy median with a lovely tree I fertilized for free. That was a comical showing for the many spectators none of which offered to retrieve my buggy or give me a napkin to wipe my face. Some people are just so inconsiderate... They could have at least tipped for the show. Geesh! Finally, the Italian Inn. It wasn't in front of anyone thank goodness I made it to the restroom in time but I will say half chewed spaghetti noodles exiting your body via your nostrils is an unpleasant feeling...

The second trimester was also SCARY because I was having random bleeding. The dr described it as "a nose bleed of the vagina." nice... Only me... Anyway, the 2nd trimester was pretty cool. I finally stopped puking and clearly looked pregnant instead of just hitting the local all you can eat joint. I felt pretty amazing and loved sporting my bump around town. I loved having a "bump" because prior to being pregnant I had a kangaroo pouch and a biscuit. But my biscuit turned into more of a dumpling when I lost some weight. People don't smile and comment on your "dumpling" or "marsupial pouch" like they do a "bump." for the first time ever it was cool to have random fat sticking off your body in weird places. I loved it!!! But the second trimester was short lived because eventually My bump got so big I couldn't reach around it!

That brings us to the third trimester. It was SCARY too. I started off big and ended enormous. I loved and embraced my waddle. I loved the fact that I could save time in the shower not shaving because I couldn't see my legs anyway. Between the "bump" in the front and the "blob" in the back I didn't realize I had legs or feet anymore. You can't possibly shave what you can't see... Hahah anyway, all was going well so I thought until around 28 weeks when I was diagnosed preterm and put on bed rest. Honestly, bed rest wasn't so bad but maybe it had to do more with my positive attitude about it. I was willing to do whatever it took to keep my baby safe. Even if that meant being on my sides at all times for weeks on end and through thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, and new years. I had many admissions and discharges from the hospital a long the way but we safely made it to 37 weeks... And that is where I will begin my story.