Monday update

Todays post may come across as a complaint post. Sorry in advance! Though I am very excited about our growth u/s and OB appointments this afternoon.

Last Thursday I had a whole new issue arise. In the late morning I had a pretty good pain in my lower back which worked itself out pretty quickly. From then on every time I got up to do anything it got a little worse. Well about 3:45 I got up and it hurt so bad I started crying and just broke in frustration. Seriously, what other funky trial is this pregnancy going to bring? Hmmmmm tooo many! Well, it took me about 1/2 an hour to get to the potty and back to my desk. The first person I called after work was my friend Stephanie who has had lots of back issues and is with a chiropractor. If anyone would know what the heck was wrong she would. After describing in detail the symptoms and how the pain was she said it was most likely a Siatica nerve issue. OK, well no one who has mentioned they had this issue really conveyed how stinkin bad the pain is! Sheesh. Well, she had a couple suggestions for me. One is a miracle suggestion.... She said to get down on all fours with my forearms on the floor. Then put the knee of the side causing most of the pain on a billow to raise it a little staying in that position for about 5 minutes. It totally worked! I still have pain, but it is completely managable now. YEAH!

My next big thing is Sundays. By Sunday I am worn out every week and need to rest a lot to make it thru the work week.

The big news

This is a photo over Fiji. On our last trip to Australia in September we were diverted there when heavy fog prohibited our landing in Brisbane. Everyone in Guy's family was shocked because apparently Brisbane never gets fog. So do we mark off Fiji on our world map of places we have visited? We saw it from the air and the plane window when we sat there for about an hour and a half. Pobably not...

Guy received a letter from the Gilbert police department letting us know he was not selected for a position about two or three weeks ago. We were very dissapointed at first. One thing we realized right away is this was the first big dicision we made without praying about it. Oooops. I'm not so sure we would have received a yes answer has we prayed about it.

After much thought and consideration for our next step we decided and got a yes answer to staying here in Raleigh. We also decided to sell our home here. The big debate for a while was if we should rent something or buy a less expensive home. We are going to buy a less expensive home. Most likely we will be here in the Raleigh area at least 3-5 more years.

Our house officially went on the market last Monday. No showings yet, but we aren't surprised. This is a pretty slow market this Spring. Normal traffic in our area is 1-2 showings a week. With the market being a bit slow right now we will probably see a showing every other week. The last three Saturdays our agents have been taking us around to look at the cheaper homes. While every home is a compromise compared to our current home we have not felt depressed or upset by our choices. There are always definite 'NO' homes in our search, but there are also heavy contenders each time. The first few homes we looked at that were acceptable are now all under contract. A big odd in this market, but they were the best of the best in the price range. Yesterday there was one home in particular I was interested. We definitely would need to evaluate everything very carefully and put at least $600 into inspections before buying it. The home is huge and in a very nice neighborhood with a very solid structure. The issue is that it has been vacant for 2 years. The back door had been kicked in at one point leaving the home open to the elements right there. There is some smell of animal urine right by that door and also water damage right around that opening. The carpets and vynal flooring had been removed. The back fence, deck and front steps need repair. If all of the major systems work the rest would be rather cheap and well worth about 10k under the current list price. Our agents estimated off hand (they will do the research) the market value if fixed back up would be about 35-40k over the list price. Guy and I had always said we didn't want a rehab house, but this one is certainly appealing.

Only time will tell and we really need a buyer on our home first. Here is the link for our house listing. http://trianglelistings.marketlinx.com/SearchDetail/Scripts/PrtBuyFul/PrtBuyFul.asp?prp=mls&AgentId=R6508&EmailKey=23805525

So with the big news we are staying in Raleigh my poor mommy is so depressed about it. Now she wont get as much baby time, and my mom is surely baby obsessed. She will love her grandbabbies bunches and bunches. Tawni's husband is probably going to be deployed to Iraq this coming September. Tawni is planning on moving in with my mom and grandma while her husband is gone.

1st of several new blog entries

Here is my 25 week belly shot. Yep I'm 27 weeks today so this is really late! And I'm already bigger. These little monkeys are moving around and growing like crazy.

Not so fun contractions and update

I've been having contractions for about 5 weeks now. Most of them are just a tummy tightening with some mildly painful ones. On Sunday night (it's Tuesday now) they became very painful. They were so strong they made me throw up. Yuk! It's only the third time this whole pregnancy. Because I threw up I thought the pains were related to overeating or an upset stomach. Two hours later after still having them it finally dawned that they were really contractions. I drank as much as possible to stay hydrated since upchucking can make one dehydrated. I finally fell asleep and within 20 minutes was woken up by another very painful contraction. After waking Guy up we called the on call OB who had us go into the hospital. We got in there, had to strip and wear one of those pretty gowns, and was hooked up to a monitor. The babies were moving a lot so they weren't able to get a steady h/b on either of them. The girl was a bit easier, but she finally gave up on trying. At first there were no contractions and she said she was going to give me a button to push to indicate when I thought I was having them. Then about 15 minutes later I still didn't have a button and mentioned I was having a contraction. She told me I was having them every 2 minutes. They let the doctor know who ordered a couple of tests and came in to do a check on me. They had me do a urine sample to test for an infection, an FFN test to see if the protein babies release just prior to labor was there, and a few other tests for misc. things. All of them were negative which is great. He also did a cervical check, my first, which is a very unpleasant exam as women who have given birth would know. He thought the cervix felt closed and thought only a finger maybe on the dilation. He also had them give me a Tributaline shot as well as some IV fluids. After the shot and starting the fluid I felt sooooo much better. The shot's side effects are a racing heart and some very jittery babies... They were already moving a lot but became wild little monkey's in there! Guy could see my tummy jumping a few times. The OB said to just take it easy yesterday and to go to my already scheduled appointments on Tuesday.

Today we went to our growth u/s first. The babies look great and the digital image of my cervix showed it is still 4 cm which is great. So those nasty contractions haven't been making a change which is a big relief. The OB was the last new one I hadn't met yet. She was very nice, and took a look at the babies. She let me know Tributaline doesn't work to stop real labor so my painful contractions weren't real labor and they didn't change my cervical length. Both very good signs that pre term labor is not imminent. She said we'll be in the office so often at the end that we should schedule our next apt for 4 weeks out with the understanding if anything goes wrong I will call or come in right away.

I did have a weird experience when getting the u/s done. I felt really starving hungry and mentioned it. Then I started feeling faint. The u/s tech was great and recognized the signs of the baby weight cutting off my main circulation since I have to lay on my back for the u/s. She got me to lay on my left, a nice cool washcloth for my forehead (right as I started to get really hot), and some lovely graham crackers. After a minute or so I felt much better. Never saw that one coming. She said it is pretty common in later pregnancy or us really big multiple baby carriers. No wonder I never lay on my back as instinct must have let me know it would be an issue!

We made it to 24 weeks!

The 24 week mark of pregnancy is a wonderful milestone to get to. It means that we are now looking at an 80% or better chance of bringing home live children from here on out. Of course, that's with fine medical staff and facilities close by. Any birth in the next four weeks would mean an extended stay in the NICU with many difficulties as well as the potential for long term developmental issues. So this means we don't want The Boy and The Girl to make an appearance anytime soon we're just happy they are now viable. And besides that, we still have no concrete idea of what to name them. Our next OB and perinatal growth u/s appointments are scheduled for this Tuesday 1/29. Hopefully we'll get some cool u/s photos to post and they will tell us all is well. I have lots to post about our trip to Phoenix, me being super sick the last week and just life in general. Hopefully tomorrow. There are some photos too.