Month: July 2015

33 WEEKS!

I had another ultrasound yesterday.  Since I am so far along, it’s harder to get a great look at the baby.  Unless she is perfectly positioned, (which never really happens), they can’t get super accurate measurements to say how much she weighs.  Yesterday they said 5.3 pounds, which is huge, but I feel like that is too high.  If I had to guess, based on my last, more accurate ultrasound, I would say she is just under 5 pounds.  That is just my non-professional opinion, though.  If she is 5.3 pounds, that would put her in the 80th percentile, which would mean she would weigh over 8 pounds, but under 9, by my due date.  Once a baby starts measuring in the 90th percentile, they start expecting a 9-10 pound baby.  Ouch.  Josh suggested that I stop eating Dairy Queen Blizzards for breakfast, just in case she really is as big as they say.  🙂

But seriously, she is doing what she should be doing right now, which is growing.  We don’t need an exact measurement to tell us that, so we were happy with the appointment.  We got to see that she has some hair on her head, too.  I am not sure if you all are aware, but when I came out of the womb, there was some concern that I was half Sasquatch. I had that much hair.  Eli had some black hair when he was born, but not an obscene amount, so maybe this baby will be like that, too.  Who knows.  Just one of the many questions when you are pregnant and waiting to meet your little one for the first time.

Those are the simple thoughts I am trying to focus on these days.  Every once in awhile, my brain starts to wander and get wrapped up in all the scary what-if’s.  I always preach that you can’t let yourself waste energy worrying about what you don’t know to be true.  That is much easier said than done, I know, and as September approaches, I am feeling more challenged by this.  It’s hard to find a happy medium between burying your head in the sand – ignoring reality, and trying to plan for every possible scenario.

So, that’s the scoop.  Not too exciting, but the ultrasounds are nice, so we can see her and feel reassured that she is doing well.  I still have a lot to do to prepare her room…okay, EVERYTHING to do…but that’s the fun part, right? 🙂

Random Things

I haven’t written anything for a couple weeks, so I thought I would do some mini updates, and share a couple random things.

Here is Denise and three of her growing babies, (one of them is hiding).  They get to roam the backyard all day, every day, so they are all very happy.  It’s still much too soon to tell whether they are hens or roosters.  They may even get passed on to my friend before we know for sure.  (Sorry Cam – haha.)

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I had a routine appointment last week.  No ultrasound until next week, but for now things are still going along as they should.  There are several midwives at my office, so I usually see a different one each time.  I finally saw the midwife that saw us at the 20 week ultrasound.  She was the one that told us they the EIF on the heart, but that it didn’t mean much, (which is usually true).  She is also the one that I called to talk to the next day, after losing sleep and having a weird feeling about it all.  She had encouraged me to do the testing to “put my mind at ease”.  When she walked in last week she said ‘I guess you will never listen to ME again!’.  It made me laugh.  Honestly, I think she did everything right.  We didn’t talk about the role that she played very much, but after I thought about it later, I realized I should have hugged her and thanked her.  If she hadn’t handled things the way that she did, I maybe wouldn’t have done the testing, and we would have discovered the baby had Ds at birth.  I know I have said it already, but I am just SO thankful things didn’t work out that way.  Been there, done that, wasn’t fun.  Now we can be more prepared.  Yes, there still may be surprises and hardships, but at least we know, and have already accepted the diagnosis.  Anyway, we also talked about labor.  She said she has been there for a lot of births where no one knew the Ds diagnosis ahead of time, and labor was no different, (not that all labors are the same, but nothing scary or unusual happened).  So, unless something randomly comes up, we are just going with the flow, like we would if we didn’t know anything.  I think I like that plan.

Speaking of labor…  If you haven’t watched the viral video of the mom that has a baby in the car, while her husband is driving, I highly recommend you watch it.  It’s not super graphic, it’s mostly just amazing.  You can watch it here.

In other news – Eli had eye surgery a couple weeks ago.  He had a wandering left eye, and his new eye doctor felt confident that she could correct it, (his old doctor, not so much).  It can be a little tricky to get it right, but we decided to go for it, since she thought it would help him out with depth perception, (which he really struggles with).  We will have a better idea of whether or not the surgery was a success 6-8 weeks post-op, so we see the doc again at the end of August.  Here is a fun ‘Who wore it best’ picture from the day of surgery…  (Seriously, this picture does it no justice.  His eye was SO bloody and red, and hard to look at.)

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We went to Heritage Square Sunday, to ride the Alpine Slide.  There is a church inside Heritage Square, and service was just starting when we got there, so we had to park at the bottom of the lower lot, and basically hike in.  That was super fun.  We normally avoid busy places on weekends, but randomly decided to go that day.  Of course we pick THE worst time.  haha  But it all worked out, and we had a great time.  Eli just loves the slide, and it was cloudy – perfect weather for having him outside.  He can’t sweat, due to a condition called Ectodermal Dysplasia, and overheats in the summer months pretty quickly, so doing lengthy outside activities can be hard.  I can’t tell you how incredibly bummed we are that this is the last year the slide will be open.  But, because it’s going to close, I decided to ride, too. 🙂  I am sure I looked crazy, and people probably judged me for it, but it was fun!  I am 7 months pregnant, so I miss fun!

Here we are, waiting to ride down

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I don’t really have any other news, but I just have one more thing that I want to quickly add.  I won’t do stuff like this often, but it has really been eating at me lately.  If I see one more negative rant about Caitlyn Jenner, I might have a total freak out.  Please remember that ALL PEOPLE are different, and acceptance is something that we should be teaching our kids, so that the generations to come are not total close-minded jerks.  Life isn’t just about choices.  Sometimes it comes down to genetic makeup – something we can’t control.  People are so quick to say things like ‘God made him that way’ when it comes to someone like Eli, for example, who has a genetic syndrome and autism, but when it comes to being transgender or gay, it’s suddenly a choice.

Not. True.

I could go on and on about this topic, but I’m not going to.  I will leave it at this…You will never know what it’s like to be somebody else.  Ever.  So all I ask is that everyone do their best to have an open mind, and a kind heart…or at least keep your trap shut, if you only have hateful things to say.  😉

2015 Chicks!

Denise had her babies!  I had put three brown eggs, and three blue eggs under her, and four of the six eggs hatched, (two of each color).  That’s pretty successful, if you ask me.   The blue eggs came from a breed of chicken called an Ameraucana, (most likely), and I am unsure of the breed that the brown eggs came from.  Brown eggs are much more common with different breeds, and I didn’t ask the man that gave me the eggs if he knew which breed they came from, (nor do I think he would know, if he has multiple brown-laying breeds).  I don’t know the sex of the chicks yet, so for now I will refer to each one as “she” to make it easier, and because that’s what we are hoping for.

Here is a pic of the first chick to hatch, from a blue egg.  She showed up a day early, on Wednesday afternoon.

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Denise had to keep sitting on the other eggs, until they were all done hatching, so I got to hold her while D was preoccupied.

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Baby number two didn’t show up until Thursday morning, looking the opposite of number one.

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When number three showed up, it was a little extra exciting because I got to catch a glimpse of the hatching egg, (the other blue one), while Denise sat with her butt in the air, to give room.  I could hear the chick pecking away at the shell, trying to break free.  This little one must have a different rooster daddy because she has feathered feet, which you only see with specific breeds, (maybe a Cochin?).  But, besides her feather feet, she is basically number one’s twin.

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After I noticed the feather feet, I looked more closely at the others, and realized that number two also has feathered feet!  So, while the two have different mom’s, they might have the same dad.  (How confused is everyone right now?)

Number four came soon after number three, and she is all black, with a fluffy yellow booty.  Here is a pic of all four, sticking close to mom.

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I knew that one of the two eggs left was not a chick, so Friday morning I grabbed it and threw it out, (it was marked from when I candled them).  When I was doing that, I saw that the sixth egg was broken, and also not a chick.  What I found was so gross, that I will not share details.  I normally do okay with disgusting visuals.  It’s the smells that accommodate them that make me come close to vomiting…which almost happened.    Anyway, on to some fun random things.

Here is a picture of the inside of a just hatched egg.

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Denise plucks feathers out of her breast and belly area for this whole process so that her skin is against the eggs and babies.  I tried to get a pic of this, but trying to hold her and take the picture at the same time proved to be quite difficult, so this is the best I could do.   You can see the chicken skin next to her leg.  She was not happy, so I didn’t want to keep trying for better picture.  This pic doesn’t do the nakedness much justice.  Her whole underside is bare.

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The first outing in the yard.  SO CUTE!

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Chicks are supposed to be kept at a very warm temperature until they get their feathers.  When they don’t have a chicken mom, they are kept in a brooder at 95 degrees for the first week, subtracting about five degrees each week until they are ready to go outside.  So, rather than having a heat lamp on them, like I would do if I were raising them on my own, Denise keeps them warm herself.  Since it’s summertime, they can be out in the yard, enjoying the warmth for a good part of the day, but when the temps drop, or it’s nap time, Denise sits on the babies.

Here is number two peeking out from behind mom’s feathers.

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From here I will let Denise raise them for several weeks, then eventually they will go live at a friend’s house.  Let’s hope they aren’t all roosters!

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28.5 weeks – Update

We had our first ultrasound appointment to check on baby’s growth today.  In addition to that, I got to choke down a delicious glucose drink and get a shot in my rear.  It was a great morning.

There really isn’t too much to share about the ultrasound.  My placenta and amniotic fluid were looking good, and she is now three pounds!  She is measuring in the 64th percentile, so that is awesome.  Side note – I always had a negative association with growth charts and the word “percentile”.  When Eli was a baby, my peers would talk about what percentile their baby was in, like it was a way to brag about how gigantic they were, and Eli was always barely on the chart, if at all.  It always stung because I was trying so hard to get him to eat and grow.  Maybe I was just bitter, I don’t know.  As he has gotten older, I am not NEARLY as sensitive about the charts, or the fact that he is barely on them, since we are quite sure his short stature has to do with whatever he has going on, genetically.  (He is nine years old, and not even 48 inches tall.)  Anyway, back to today.  We had an  ultrasound tech we hadn’t seen before.  Like the other techs, she seemed surprised by the fact that the baby has Down syndrome, because she doesn’t show any text book signs.  But then, like the others, she followed that with, “there is only so much you can see on ultrasound”.  Which is true.  Eli proved that to us.

So, for now, we will just continue to have our routine visits with the midwives, and have another ultrasound in four weeks, then another four weeks after that….which seems like forever from now.  I have recently decided that I am pretty much over being pregnant.  Oh wait – What I meant to say was, “Being pregnant is so joyous and wonderful, and I have never felt so beautiful.  I wish it could last forever!!”  Never mind that popcorn falls out of my shirt and bra, when I go to change my clothes, because I was shamelessly pigging out earlier that day…Or that I have to rush to the bathroom, fearing that I am about to pee my pants, only to have an ounce of pee come out.  And who cares that I woke up in a cold sweat after having a nightmare that I went to Olive Garden, and they were out of bread sticks.  Big deal!  And really – who DOESN’T want to gain 30 pounds in 7 months?  Okay, okay.  All snarky remarks aside, being pregnant is also pretty amazing.  I do love watching my belly ripple like a water bed when she is moving around, and I do love feeling like I am already bonding with her.  I am also super thankful that we have more time to prepare for her arrival.  We are SO not ready.  haha

I will post baby updates as we have appointments, but they will be few and far between.  In the meantime, I will continue to bore you with chicken life and whatever else I feel like yapping about.  Speaking of chickens – Denise’s chicks are due to hatch sometime between tomorrow and Friday.  I am currently not feeling very confident in her, because she was jostling the eggs like crazy this afternoon, and she isn’t supposed to be doing that at this point.  We will see, I guess.  I REALLY hope she gets at least a couple babies out of this.  Stay tuned!