September 30th: UPDATE

Well, we're down to 9 days left before the due date. Holy hell! How'd that happen?!

Anyway. I went in for a NST (Non-stress test) for the baby, because he's been rather sluggish the past two days. He squirmed around for them a little, the nurse scared the daylights out of me, saying that he felt like he was breech (he's not) and then informed me that I'm contracting regularly at 3 minute intravals. Funny thing is, I can't feel them. And they're not making real progress. Although I AM at a little over 2 cm dilated now. Woo hoo. Making progress!

Both Greg and I were sluggish yesterday, too- so maybe its just the general mood. I dunno. We literally laid around last night just kindof staring at one another. We both snoozed, read, snoozed, read and then attempted to watch Boston Legal. (I love that show. I still cannot believe that it's the final season. WHAT is up with that?!?!). I think we're going to have to watch it again. Thank goodness for TiVo.

Plans have changed for this weekend, too. I'm rather upset about it for selfish reasons, but Heidi's now going to be able to go to Lindsey's wedding, so I guess it'll be just Greg, Evan and I this weekend. I suppose that this will ensure that Baby will definitely make his appearance while my entire family is gone. No, I'm not mad at anyone, nor do I want anyone to change their plans. I just wish that the timing was better. I should know better than to expect things to go the way that I hope they will. They never do.

A friend and I were emailing back and forth today. She asked how I was doing-- I told her that it was like we were all ready for the party, and we're waiting for the guests who are all late to show up.

Week 39: 9/29/08-10/5/08 The Waiting Game...

I'm writing this a little earlier this weekend than I normally do. Its a quiet weekend with Evan, and we're just laying low, for the most part.

This week was fairly quiet, with lots of meetings and court hearings for Greg at work, and not a whole lot of anything for me. I went to Findlay to conduct a training, and fortunately, no contractions while I was there like last week! Work is getting harder and harder for me. I'm exhausted and a little bit bored. I think next week is going to consist of me calling all of my clients one more time to see how they're doing and what I can do for them.

Doctor's appointment was uneventful on Friday. We've made a TINY TINY bit of progress and are now at 1cm and 80% effaced. The nurse practitioner stripped membranes a little bit. They said that if we make it to Friday, the discussion turns to induction because they will NOT let me go past 41 weeks. I'm not thrilled about that based on the statistics in regards to inductions and c-sections (about 50% of inductions become c-sections), so this is NOT the route I want to go. Although ask me what my opinion is about it in a week if baby boy is still in still refusing to make an appearance.

My feet continue to swell, despite the fact that I feel like I'm dumping liquid down my throat constantly. I've found that the colder the water, the more I will drink. So a stop at the local Circle K on a daily basis for a styrofoam full of ice has become a necessity for me. I can drink 2 of the large cups there during the work day, which also means I pee about every 14 minutes or so. I do find that I have a harder time downing the liquids during the weekend. Not sure why. You would think that's easier. But I suppose its because I'm not staying in one place.

I've been having contractions and serious cramping, but its so sporatic that timing it is pointless-- it goes from 5 minutes apart to 50 minutes to 33 minutes and so on. Bah.

We have Evan this weekend. Greg had a Saturday shift at the Sentinel (5am-8:30 YUCK) so Greg's folks went down to Evans soccer game in our place and brought him home. I think they had a good time!

We took our annual trip up to the apple orchard, which was fun. That's about all our weekend is going to consist of, activity-wise. We're spending the rest of the weekend just laying low and relaxing. Evan's having a ball being able to play with his toys. I think Greg's having fun with that, too. He's re-discovered Transformers and Legos and the two of them have been playing with them all afternoon and evening.

We've been trying to stock up on some things before baby shows up. I made a huge batch of chili yesterday and lasangna sauce on Tuesday night. Greg is in heaven. I made apple crisp today and did it ever turn out GOOD! I love apple season. I guess maybe this is my way of nesting-- making a bunch of food. Unfortunately, I'm running out of freezer space and have to take a bunch of stuff over to my mom's. lol! Hopefully, it'll survive over there!

I think it'll end up being next weekend. Fortunately, Heidi is going to be coming up here, so we have someone to be here and help us out as needed! And if he doesn't make his appearance, we'll have a fun weekend with Heidi, just hanging out, maybe playing some cards?? We'll have Evan again next weekend, as his mother has a business trip of some sort. If he makes his appearance before next weekend, we'll still have Heidi to help us out over the weekend and also to help make sure Evan isn't left out.

Go BUCKEYES, by the way! Way to beat Minnesota!!! woo hoo! I really miss going to the games. I know Mom and Dad do, too. *sigh* Oh well. Unfortunately, our Minnesota Twins (baseball) lost, although the Cleveland Indians seem to be doing pretty good. Have I mention that I find it funny that this baby is going to be as big of a sports nut as his brother? We have LOTS of OSU and Indians clothes, as well as one lone Twins outfit and a couple of Browns outfits, too. You know, I don't have anything from the Toledo Mudhens! Oh well, that seasons pretty much over, anyway. We have a cute soccer outfit. I'm hoping it'll be nice enough after baby is born to take him to at least one of Evan's soccer games.

We're feeling VERY prepared for baby to make his appearance at this point. Everything has been washed and setup, and the carseat is ready to go, too. We're rather anxious to get this show on the road, that's for sure! But, we're also savoring the quiet moments, as well. Unfortunately, the further along we go, the more uncomfortable I get, and the outtings are beoming more and mroe limited. We hit Sam's club on Monday to stock up on last minute items (And even a Christmas gift that I stumbled upon) and it was a LOT for me to walk through the store. But we had a good time, and have discovered that we will NEVER go up there on the weekend again. Monday is definately the day to go. It was SO QUIET there. It was FANTASTIC.

Anyway! Have a great week. I'm hoping next time I write this, it'll be to post baby pictures!

Love you all!

jenn

Week 38: September 22-29th: False Alarm and Miserable

Well, we're at week 38. And I'm miserable.

Why? Well...

• I can't sleep more than 20 minutes at a time, I now apparently snore when I lay on my back, so when I do get close to 20 minutes of solid sleep, Greg wakes me up because I'm snoring, so I roll over to one side, which quickly goes numb, and then I roll to the other side, which then goes numb, and then I roll back to my back, where we start all over again.
• I developed his horrific pain in my hands, almost like an arthritic pain for the first hour or two after I wake up. It eventually goes away, but it hurts like hell, and I dread going to sleep at night and starting the whole process over again.
  
• My feet hurt-- the swelling now never, ever goes down. Ever. It's always there. And the tops of my feet hurt like you wouldn't believe.
  
• I'm congested, especially at night, so add that to my sleeping woes, as well-- all of the fluid goes to one side of my face, so I have to turn over to the other side so that drains, too.
• Baby loves to bounce his head up and down on my cervix, causing nasty pains.
  
• I'm having contractions, but nothing regular. Except for Friday, but more on that later.
  

So yeah, I'm miserable.

Last week was pretty uneventful until Friday. Greg had his usual work stuff going on, and I had my final trip to Lima on Tuesday for work.

Friday, however, I was scheduled to go to Findlay to finish up my clients in that area. It started out okay, although I felt like crap (as I typically do, as of late) in the morning. Around 10:30, I started having contractions. Not a big deal, I thought, until I realized they were coming every 11 minutes. By noon, they were every 8-10 minutes apart. I called Greg and let him know, and stopped at the Findlay office. I called Emily, who works in Findlay, to see if she would be able to follow me home. She flipped out that I was going to drive home, but I had to do SOMETHING with my work car. And the pain wasn't so terrible that I couldn't drive yet. SO, around 12:45, I headed home. I called L&D, who said when they're 3-5 minutes apart to come in, but in the meantime, take a shower and do some walking.

So, that's exactly what I did. I showered, and then walked around our little block until Greg got home. We continued timing contractions, which slowly whittled down to around 5-8 minutes apart. We spent that time working on finishing up our hospital bags. We decided to go over and get a good early dinner, since we didn't know what the night might bring (baby, maybe???) and hit Bob Evan's. After that, we went to Meijer's to walk around. We hit around 4 minutes while walking around the toy aisle. SO, we left Meijer's and called the hospital again. They then said to wait until I couldn't talk through the contractions. Okkkaaaayy... Did they think it was a walk in the park for me??? Seriously? SO, G & I decided to go an walk at City Park. We made it about half way around, and contrax hit 2-3 minute and were extremely painful and I couldn't talk through them.

SO, off to L&D we went. And they promptly slowed down soon after I laid down on the bed to start monitoring. SERIOUSLY?!? Seriously. I'm at 1cm dilated and 70% effaced, and made no progress despite the stinking contractions. By the time we got home, they were even further apart and continued to slow down throughout the whole damn night.

At this point, I'm still having contractions, but they're sporatic. SO, back to work on Monday and the wait continues.

Sorry, Lindsey, doesn't look like baby is going to make an appearance before your wedding.

We did make it to Evan's soccer game Saturday morning. He wasn't quite as good as he was 2 weeks ago, but I have a feeling its because he's missed all but one practice because he's been so bad at school. He was on red 3/5 days last week. The week before I think he was on blue or red every except Friday. None of us have any idea what to do about his behavior, or even what's causing it. Naptime was the issue, but towards the end of the week, he was acting out- One day he threw blocks and laughed at the teacher when she got after him, and then another day it was throwing a football in the classroom or something like that. Now, he's telling us the teacher is mean to him, and that's why he's on red-- which we know is bologna. SO I guess the honeymoon with the new school is over, and we're back to square one. Punishment every night that he's on red is that he sits in his bedroom on his bed, with no toys whatsoever until dinnertime. After dinner, he gets his bath, which is all business, no play, and then he goes straight to bed. We keep the same schedule when he's with us-- he's in his jammies when Dani picks him up. The only discussion he's allowed to talk about at dinner is what happened at school. I feel kindof bad for Dani, since she has to bear the brunt of the punishments! Unfortunately, I don't think this has much of an effect on him. He just doesn't seem to care about the punishment. He just takes it.

On another subject, I finally got to go sailing today! It was a BEAUTIFUL day, with just enough wind. We were out for about 2 hour. I feel bad that I haven't been able to go out until a few weeks before the boat gets pulled, but the weather just hasnt' been cooperative!

Anyway, attached are a few pics from Ev's game yesterday.

Love y'all,
jenn

Week 37: Busy Weekend, Busy Week! And Progress has begun! Woot!

Well, it's official. We've been told several things at the doctor's appointment this week: 1) Should we go into labor, there's no stopping it. 2) We're starting to dilate-- just a fingertip, but hey, a finger tip is a finger tip! 3) Baby is definitely head down 4) I gained FIVE POUNDS in ONE WEEK. WHAT THE HECK!?!?

They said that the weight gain was probably due to retaining water, and NOT my over-eating last week. If that's the case, I think I lost fat-weight and gained water, because I think each of my feet weighs 5 pounds more than usual.

I think we're officially ready for baby to get here. I just want to be done. I've got 3 weeks left, but Greg is predicting Thursday. I'm predicting that with my luck, I'll go over the 40 week mark by a week and a half. Just because that's my luck.

Grandma's quilt arrived in the mail on Tuesday. It turned out SO nice! I love it and it will be treasured always!

Evan's still having difficulties with behaving at school. He had a good day on Friday, but he was back on red again today after throwing blocks and laughing at the teacher when she threatened to punish him. WHO IS THIS CHILD?!? Anyone have any ideas as to how we can deal with this?

We had a great weekend with him. Soccer was canceled due to the rain. Greg picked him up in North Baltimore early on Saturday and we did some bargain shopping at the Once Upon a Child shops in Toledo. Not a whole lot of luck, unfortunately. We still need a pack-n-play and a few other things that we feel are "okay" to get second hand.

Saturday night, my cousin, Annette, got married. She looked lovely! It was a little strange seeing her in a dress, although it was even stranger seeing her twin sister, Val, in a dress!! I don't think I've ever witnessed Val in a dress before. She looked fantastic! So did everyone in the wedding party. Sherry and her little girls were especially sweet! I loved the little princess dresses! I still can't believe you found those at the Disney store. I know Sami and Evan had a BLAST playing with Maddie, Emma and the rest of the kids that were there.

My feet, however, did not enjoy the wedding reception. Mom, Em, Heidi and I volunteered to help them out because the caterer baled out at the last minute due to some health issue. I worked for as long as I could, until Mom, Emily, Heidi and Greg all forced me to lay down on the couch just off the kitchen and put my feet up. My feet were SO SWOLLEN. Greg said it was the worst he'd ever seen them. Oops. Oh well. I'm fine. I'm sure it was more the weather than anything.

Sunday was the wonderful, fantastic Holtmeyer family reunion, AKA The Chicken Reunion. First stop, Emily & Kevin's house for the pre-reunion party, where the chicken was slllloooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww cooked. Sami & Evan had fun playing house while chicken was cooking, and everyone else had fun drinking a leftover keg from the wedding (yes, it was prior to noon, the lushes), visiting and telling stories-- It was fun listening to stories about Richard, Dad, and Randy at our Great-Grandparents. We also heard stories that were told to them about Grandpa Bruns and his brothers-- like the one about someone being put in the center of a coil of barbed wire and the coil bounced out of the back and down the road with someone in it! Heidi thought Randy said something about it being Grandpa or Benny, but I thought that was just that one of them fell out of the back of the truck when Art was driving.

It was back to work today as usual! Ugh.

Attached are pictures from the shower, the quilt, as well as a few preliminary pictures of my belly that Steve Peterson, of spetersonphotography.com took. The one of Greg is definitely one of my favorites. I hope we have time to take a few more with him-- maybe some where I actually have my hair and makeup done and don't look exhausted!

Week 36: September 7-13th. In the home stretch. What a week!

Well, we're definately in the home stretch! I cannot believe that we're at 36 weeks. Once I hit 37 weeks-- NEXT WEEK (!!!!!)-- they'll let me go-- Baby will be considered full term. Holy cow!
I'm officially uncomfortable at almost all times, and Greg and I have officially hit the nesting stage. More on that in a bit, though.

I think I left off last week with Evan's birthday party and our Monday.. Tuesday was a busy night for both Greg and I with meetings and work. Wednesday was an Evan night-- didn't do a whole lot, Thursday was our prepared childbirth class-- which was actually a lot of fun. I met one of my "thenestbaby.com" message board friends, Amy, who lives in BG! What are the chances?? And she's due only a few weeks after me with a baby boy. So that was cool. She and I email back and forth all the time. We watched some videos on car seat safety and watched dummy babies get flung all over the place in car crashes. Fun, huh? Then, we went to the OB department and they showed us how to bath a baby girl. All it did was make both Greg and I want this baby "on the outside" more! I cannot wait to hold this little one in my arms (and maybe sleep comfortably for at least an hour or two before he wakes me to be changed or to eat).

Friday was another nice, quiet night. Saturday, we started early by doing lots of errands. Greg went one way, and I went the other. By 10:30, we were ready to head to Findlay for Evan's soccer debut. HE ROCKS. We all think he's even more of a natural at soccer than he is at baseball. None of us have really practiced with him. I won't brag about him too much, but lets' just say that he scored 7 out of the 9 goals. Woo hoo! That afternoon, Steve Peterson (spetersonphotography.com), came over and took "practice" maternity shots (aka baby belly shots)!

Sunday was fun. Emily, with the help of Mom, Myra, and my other mom, Barb Peterson, threw me a nice baby shower. It was really nice. We had it at Emily's house. There were no games, much to the excitement of the guests. We just ate, visited, ate some more and then opened gifts. I recieved some WONDERFUL gifts from everyone, and we just had a really nice time in general. I missed having my other two sisters, Heidi and Lindsey, there, but I understand the circumstances, and love them dearly. They still helped out quite a bith with the shower, and I thank all of the wonderful women in my life who helped throw this shower, as well as those who attended.

Sunday afternoon, Greg and I nested. Dad came over to help G bring in the cradle, and of course, he wanted to see all the things that we recieved! Mom came over soon after we got started pulling everything out of the bags and putting things away. After Mom and Dad left, Greg and I sat down at the table, went through our registery and made a list of everything we still needed. Primary on the list was the breastpump, stroller and carseat, plus all of the obnoxious little things that really add up. We went through all of the coupons, gift cards, discounts, etc that we had been saving, figured out who had the best price on what, and hit Wal-Mart that night.

After our trip to Walmart, we started sorting clothes into sizes (Would you believe that 90% of the clothes were 3-6 mo??) and started figuring where what went.

Yesterday, we went to Babies'r'us and bought EVERYTHING else that was left that we felt we still really needed (pump, stroller/carseat) and the rest of the little stuff. Yeah. That was an expensive trip. Greg put together the stroller last night. =-) It's sitting in our kitchen. hmmm.

This week is already half over. I can't beleive it. I went to the hospital and visited with the lactation nurse after work. Despite my scaring, I'll still be able to breastfeed. I'm so happy and relieved. Its something that I truely feel is important, and really wanted to be able to give this as a gift to baby.

Anyway! The next couple of weeks are going to fly by!

love you all!

jenn

Week 35: September 1-7th: Evan's Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVAN!!!! I cannot believe you're 5! How'd that happen?!?

We had a good week this week. Tuesday was back to work as usual. Greg and I both worked late-- he had a meeting and I had a new client. Wednesday was the same. We didn't have Evan on Wednesday this week, we had him on Thursday because Dani had a late meeting. SO, we did a little last minute birthday shopping, hit Grounds for Thought, and then came home and watched a movie or TV or something not very exciting.

Thursday, Evan spent the afternoon with us until about 6:30. We took him over to Grandma & Papa V's house for the evening while Greg & I went to our prepared childbirth meeting. I swear, they could get this meetings done in 2 if they would stop repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again. bah. We did the hospital tour, though, and saw all the rooms that we might potentially be utilizing. She took the whole bed apart and talked non-stop. But, it's information that we have to know, I'm sure. SO, we now know it. Next two weeks should be a breeze-- breastfeeding and caring for your child in the first year. After that, we're done... We'll only have a few weeks left to go! Oh wait, we only have a few weeks left to go now!

Friday, we picked up Evan and I can't remember what we did. I don't think it was much. I think we were all pretty tired-- Evan played with his toys and Greg & I continued to straighten up for Evan's birthday party on Sunday. Saturday was more of the same, with me working on food for the party.

Sunday was the big day. We ran errands and picked up the cake in the morning and then Evan napped in the afternoon while G & I finished things up. Can I just say that I need to learn to make LESS food? It always seems like its not very much when I'm making it, though. I like a variety of foods so people have things to choose from. I guess I'm too much like my mom. I make way too much. Oh well. It was all good: Burgers, hot dogs, 7-layer salad, snicker salad, cantalope, chips and corn-on-the-cob (Evan's request). But THEN, Em brought watermelon, and Myra brought grape salad (YUM) and taco dip (DOUBLE YUM). I was a very happy pregnant lady. LOL. And I think my dad & Em were pretty happy with the taco dip too. lol.

Evan got WAY too much for his birthday. THANK YOU everyone. Especially for the books. Even if HE didn't act too appreciative of them by the end, Greg and I DEFINATELY were. You all know what bookworms he & I are, and we want the boys to be the same way. I want a bookcase FULL of kids books by the time they're grown up, just like we did. This morning, he told us that he wanted use his new workbooks so he can start reading today, so we'll be posting some pictures of that sometime soon.

Unfortunately, the transformers and Greg and I got for him were WAY too complicated. The one broke as soon as Greg took it out of the box. SO, they went to Wal-mart today and exchanged it for a different one that supposidly was easier, but I swear, it's taken Greg just as long to work on it, and I think I've heard as many explicatives as I did last night. SO, I don't know if the mission was accomplished or not. "Wow, that was a process" was the sentance he just uttered.

They also used his giftcard that Aunt Emily and the gang got him, and bought a Legos Martian space ship kit. He's anxious to get started on that, too.

He tried on his pants and his "shit kickers" as Emily and Greg lovingly call them. They're all too big, so they fit PERFECTLY. Woo hoo!

We're laying low today, and just watching the hurricane blow through Louisiana and praying Lindsey's okay as well as her apartment and car! Fortunately, she's moved up Northeast of Baton Rogue to ride out the storm with her unit. Of course, I would imagine she'll be part of the cleanup process. Sounds like its not nearly as bad as they were predicting, but it also sounds like its going to be a crazy fall for her-- there are now 4 more storms forming in the Atlantic. She cracked me up all week, though. She's been crazy excited about this storm coming through. It was like talking to the tasmanian devil, she was talking a mile a minute, and you could just tell she was reved up and ready to go.

SINCE SEVERAL PEOPLE DIDN'T TAKE THEIR LEFTOVERS HOME, Greg, Evan, & I, along with Kyle are going to eat leftovers today and for the next week. bah.

In baby news, we're in week 35 now.. 5 weeks (give or take!) left. YIKES, YIKES, and QUADRUPLE YIKES. We're both flipping out. I had a couple of PAINFUL contractions yesterday as we were leaving Meijer's, within 20 minutes of each other. I took it easy for an hour after we got home, and then I was fine. No more contractions AT ALL. So I'm fine. No freaking out, people. (AKA MOMS). We did make a trip on Wednesday night to the hospital to get checked out. Baby gave us a little freak-out of our own. He hadn't moved much all day, which was fairly typical, but then he didn't move at all in the evening. I tried EVERYTHING. I drank a TON of powerade in about 2 minutes to sugar him up and see if that would get him going. I tried changing positions. Finally, around 10:30, I gave up and called the OB department. They said to come on in and they would monitor me. We got there, they had me sign paperwork for myself and then also as the guardian FOR MY BABY! Wierd! I gave a urine sample and then they strapped me to the monitors and gave me icewater. My bloodpressure was really high-- 170s/80s. His heartbeat was fine, and he finally started squirming around 11:30 or so. We made it home by midnight. So it was a short trip, but it was still a little tense. My BP started coming down right away-- they said that was probably due to nerves, and by the time we left, it was still a little high, but the lower number was back where it was supposed to be. There were no proteins in my urine, so everything was okay.

He's now about 5 1/2 pounds and 18 inches long. YIKES! Getting big! Now, he's busy packing on the pounds. Starting this week, we'll be making trips to the doctor on a weekly basis-- usually every Friday at this point.

Alrighty! Next week is the shower! Hope y'all are able to come to the party. It should be fun! Em and Heidi have been busy preparing for it.

Love you all!

Jenn