David singing himself to sleep

Baby Henry Update

Baby Henry is doing great and is slowly growing (which is great news).  After a few days in the hospital (and a lot of IV fluids), my amniotic fluid levels are better and the blood flow in the cord has improved (at least, in each case, improved to borderline levels so that we can buy baby some more time in the womb). Best of all - I convinced them to let me wait it out at home (thankfully, all those years of negotiating for a living came in handy). I do, however, have to go in daily for sonograms to make sure my placenta is still hanging in there. After all the medical tests and diagnoses - here is my breakdown of what is going on. My placenta is like an old Honda car with 200K miles on it - the A/C has gone out, the windows won't roll down and there is a knock in the engine........but it is still running. So, for as long as it is still running and baby is ok, we are going to wait it out.

I very much believe that your body knows how to handle pregnancy and that my body will tell me (and baby) when it is time to evacuate. But just in case, I have lots of super qualified medical professionals watching daily...so I think we are good. I will let everyone know if anything changes and, most importantly, when little baby Henry makes his arrival. I am hoping that he is much more low key than the last few weeks of this pregnancy have been.

David is doing great and still enjoying his summer. He had a really hard time with me being in the hospital - especially the first night that he realized that they had to leave me there. He was very concerned and had lots of questions about whether I was going to be okay. Matt spent a lot of time explaining to him that they were just checking on baby Henry, but every time David came to visit - David insisted on asking the nurses if "mommy was ok"... I think he just wanted a non-biased second opinion to make sure Matt and I weren't sugar coating anything. David was very happy when I got back home and just wanted to lay in bed with me, read books and snuggle:

Baby Henry

As most of you know, we have had some issues with this pregnancy the last couple weeks and I have been seeing a high-risk maternal fetal medicine specialist for checkups three times a week. Without going into too much medical detail, they were worried about baby getting all the nutrients he needed from the placenta and so they were watching baby closely to make sure no signs of distress. The check-ups have been going well until yesterday. We went in for our growth check and BPP (the sono check they do) and, although baby looks good and happy, my amniotic fluid was low and the blood flow into/out of cord had some signs of resistance........ so I had to be admitted to the hospital. They are giving me IV fluids and some other treatments and are going to rescan me on Sunday. They will either induce then or see if I can make it another week or so to give baby time to get a little stronger. I will be 37 weeks on Monday - so that is considered full term and baby should be fine (although he is a little small). Not exactly the way I wanted this one to go, but we are dealing.

Kitchen Remodel

They are still putting the finishing touches (and a few doors and the panels for the fridge) on the kitchen, but here are some before and after pictures:


Old Kitchen:

 

The tear out:

 

 

 

New Kitchen (with iphone pictures, so I can't get the good wide angle pictures). There are a few cabinet doors missing and the panels on the fridge are being installed on Friday.......but we are getting there!!

 

 

 

Old dining room:

 

 

 

 

Old living room:  

 

 

Happy 4th of July

Summer continues

David's summer of fun continues...

Brandin, Shawna and the kiddos came over last weekend. We are so excited to see them more now that they moved closer!!

We took David to his first movie. It was a great experience, but we might have picked the wrong movie. We saw Monster's University - a cute movie, but David was not a fan of the end where the monsters go into kid's bedroom and scare them. As I type this, it even sounds crazy - who is making these movies?? We left early (David informed us that it was scaring him and he wanted to leave), but not before enjoying some popcorn and lemonade. We also had a few nights of leaving the light on for him..... predictably, he was scared of monsters coming into his room to try and scare him.

With the weather being so hot and me being so pregnant, we have been finding in-door activities for the weekends. Matt and David's current favorite - bowling. We went on father's day and have been back a few times since....

It must be the white trash in my blood, but I am a much better bowler pregnant than non-pregnant....

My little swimmer...

Good-bye Emma

I have been putting off writing this post for a while because it is still so hard to believe, but on June 14th, we said good-bye to Emma-dog. She had a great life and was an amazing dog. She had been part of my family since 2000 and had been with me thorough a lot - college, 9/11, law school, moving to Dallas, meeting (and marrying) Matt, having David.... I still have not adjusted to her not being here. It was a sad day, but it was the right thing for Emma and our family. Even though David was not able to play with Emma much the last year or so (because she was old, had lost her eyesight and tended to snap when she got nervous), he loved her and talked often about his "puppy".  We had a brief conversation about her passing when we got back from the vet, but he didn't seem to care much. After a few days, however, he had a lot of questions about our conversation and what happened to Emma. The whole experience makes me realize how much he really takes in and how he is absorbing the world. Like everything, it gets better with time...but he has occasionally mentioned how much he misses her - which reflects how all of us feel.

This is what we are dealing with...

I get up to go to the restroom numerous times throughout the night and this is what I woke to around 4am this morning. David is huge and gets in the oddest sleep positions...

Summer - Week 2