Practice!

Jeremy and I had a very fun and interesting day! Our friends, Jeff and Becky, are program directors for the Crescent Lake Bible Camp across the lake and today had their Walk-A-Thon. Becky decided to walk in it and Jeff had to run so they asked us to watch their two kids all day. !!! Scary thought but okay! Marcus is 8 months old and Taleah is 3 years old. We got there are 6:45 am - (SO EARLY!) - and watched the kids until 5 pm. It wasn't too bad at all! Jeremy got some real good experience with diapers :) and I got to see what it would feel like having 2 kids and being pregnant with a third - oi. It's hard work!! All-in-all it was a great day and it actually did help with the confidence level of the new baby.

Not much else is new - Jeremy does have a phone interview on Thursday so please pray for him and for our future! This would be in Mayville, ND...so I'm excited but of course lots more plays into it than just me. And I need to keep reminding myself this is only an interview - not a job offer.

Have a great rest of the weekend! TTFN.

Had...

another Dr.'s appointment yesterday and all went well! I am pretty relieved that they are more often now because more things are happening that I'm like..."Um...is that normal?!?" My doctor is hilarious. The first time Jeremy met him he thought he was on speed - the guy really goes 100 mph! I'm used to it now but it's funny. He's got a dry sense of humor but if you catch on to it he's pretty funny. He saw the baby do one of his sommersaults while he was trying to find the heartbeat and commented on how alien like it was - the whole time I'm looking at Jer going "SEE!" I have said it's been alienish since the beginning - and that's not a bad thing! It's just what it reminds me of right now. I talked to him about the contractions and he was quite reassuring. He thinks I'm getting more because I'm farther along as well, but also the dehydration is playing into it. He said though that he doesn't want me to completely eliminate things like soda or chocolate because it's not necessary - they aren't as dehydrating as I thought they were. My weight is right on target and I have no swelling yet, so no need to watch salt consumption yet either. He also said he is no longer worried about the baby's survival at this point, though if labor were to start they would still try to stop it. After 34 weeks, though, he said he may try to stop it but he would probably just let it go because I've had zero complications thus far. Praise God! So all of that was good news and I go back in 2 weeks. After that starts the every week visit and we're that much closer to meeting this precious baby!!

Had my first baby dream but it wasn't a good one. He was a cutie alright, but very sick and both of us were throwing up. What in the world does that mean??

Okay, I try to not usually comment on things like this on this page, but did you watch AMERICAN IDOL tonight? Avid fan here - and I unfortunately had to miss the show tonight but found out online that CONSTANTINE WAS VOTED OFF?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!!?!??!!? Are we joking here?!?!?!?!?!?!?? I am officially going to have to make my opinion known in many more votes from now on because this is getting ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, enough. :) TTFN!

Braxton Hicks...

Contractions are no fun. At all. I have had a rough week of them and just thought it was because baby was growing and I'm getting further along. That could still be the case but they are coming much more frequently now and are more intense. Twice last week they were pretty bad. Then last night they started coming every 3 minutes. ARGH! They woke me up out of a dead sleep at 2:30 and I started timing them. I got up, went to the bathroom, and had a big glass of water. I laid back down and they got better, but were still there. The doctor said I should never have more than 6 in an hour, and I was on #8. So I called the nurse line, which goes directly up to the labory and delivery floor. They were so great to me, and reassuring. They told me I could come in right away if I wanted to (which I did not) or I could try drinking about 3 more glasses of water, laying down, and calling back in an hour. I did that and the contractions did subside after about 20 minutes. When I called back I hadn't had one in 45 minutes so they told me to go back to bed and call again if they start. Finally got back to sleep at about 4:30. They didn't start again until tonight, but sure enough they were 3 minutes apart again. So again I drink a TON of water, lay down, and they subside. I'm glad to know it's not real labor, but at the same time it's scary and drinking all that water is a pain in the butt. I guess chocolate, soda, and some other dehydrating things need to be taken out of my diet. :( I just keep telling myself it's for my baby and then I can do it - but I really need my chocolate!!!

Hope you all had a great weekend. TTFN!

Long Post!!! (Lots to tell!)

Yeah! We're back online! It took almost 3 days, but we finally found our Adware. This stuff is so sneaky. I ran 3 different Spyware/Adware programs, and none found it. Tried a Malware program, antivirus program, and made sure all systems were up to date. Again found nothing wrong, yet when my CPU usage was at 90% with no programs running? Didn't make sense. So then I went to the Microsoft site and used their virus program - again detected nothing. Then tried their AntiSpyware Beta1 program and it found one Adware! And it was the Adware causing all the problems because we are now running back again quite smoothly. We still have no idea where it came from, email or webpage, but it's the type where we initiated it without knowing. Still scary and quite annoying.

There is so much to tell!! First off I am at 30 weeks - 30 WEEKS! Can you believe it? In 8 weeks my baby will be considered full term - how crazy is that? We still have so much to get ready...oi.

Alrighty...onto news. I got to visit North Dakota from last Thursday until Monday and it was such a wonderful visit! Meeting and spoiling Carter was the highlight of the trip, but spending time with Kyla and the rest of the family was great too. She has grown up so much it is scary. She's 3 going on 15. (As one magazine put it...) Carter was baptized while I was there and it was great to be able to see that. Christoper and Sunny and Aaron were sponsors.

I got to spend most of my time with Carter and Kyla and got some good pictures of them as well. I left Kyla alone one morning for about 10 minutes and this is what happened.... :) ....

Pretty darn cute. She was so much fun. She has a new bike she loves to ride and she is so gentle with her baby brother Carter. She likes the big airplanes Jessie rides in on and LOVES sleep overs at Nana's house! It was a very good time.

The Diary Queen also opened while I was there and it is a pregnant woman's dream come true! Oh I could've eaten everything so it was probably good that I only had one day there. But I left wanting more, that's for sure! Mom and Dad are doing well and GG is as funny as ever. She loves her hymns and singing Christmas carols. Who cares if it's April, right?? :) She doesn't!

Baby news...I had an appointment the day before I left and all is looking great! I will be seen every 2 weeks now for the next month and then every week after that. We have semi-gotten the room ready, but it's hard to know exactly what to put in there with the possibility of moving. We are using a Moses basket my parents gave us as well as a bassinet from Jeremy's parents that he used as a baby.

The next pictures require some explaining. Some of you know this, and some of you may not - Jeremy and I have decided to cloth diaper! Now pick yourself up off the floor. :) They have come a long way from the days of pins and vinyl pants. The first few months we will be using a combination of prefold diapers with covers as well as all-in-one pocket diapers. After that we will move to strictly all-in-one pocket diapers. The following pictures are my first of those. They have a waterproof outside, a pocket in the middle, and a fleece inside that touches the baby's bottom. The fleece wicks moisture away to the pocket, where you put whatever absorbant material you want. There are a variety of inserts from microterry to hemp. The one in the picture is a combo of jersey and hemp. There's much more I could say but I won't bore you! They are just so darn cute!

Alright I think that's enough! OH WAIT! I almost forogt the most exciting part! THE LOONS ARE HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!! They came while we were away and I heard them last night for the first time, though I've heard they've been here since about Friday. I am SO excited they are back!! Let me refresh your memory of my love for loons...

Gotta love 'em. TTFN!

Frustrating!

I'm writing from my work computer because mine has got something going on! We either have a virus or spyware (which 3 different programs cannot find) so I'm not going to be posting or emailing from home until I figure out what's going on.

I have so much to tell too....

TTFN.

Baby Purchases!

Alrighty...so lots has been going on. We've made some purchases (FINALLY) but have many more to go. We were in Wausau adding some more to the Target registry (still have no clue what to put on there as we have no clue what we're doing :) and while there came across a deal. We had some money put aside for either a camcorder or a glider/rocker. After looking at the camcorders we would want, (MiniDV), the cheapest one was too expensive. So it looked like we were getting a glider/rocker. We decided to look at Target camcorders anyways and lo and behold there was one on clearance! And if we decided to take the actual display model, we got an additional 30% off. That dropper the price $150. So we took it! There were two to choose from; one a tiny one that fit in the palm of your hand and the one we got. We chose this one because its LCD screen was a little larger, it had an extra light already attached, and the lens was very clear. The other lens had some stuff on it, but we couldn't tell if it was scratched or smudges. The guy wouldn't touch it because he said it was so easily scratched, so we decided not to take the chance.

We also got the matching carseat to the stroller. We had to go online because it was last year's model apparantly and nobody was carrying it in store. The first place we went to may have ripped us off. They took the money, then said they didn't have it in stock and would refund us. That was 2 weeks ago and still no refund. I've left 2 phone messages - one got returned and the other thus far has not. We'll see - honestly though, it's just money right?? Yes, it would be nice to have back but I'm not going to get too upset about it. It's just annoying. Anyways - we went through Walmart.com the 2nd time and received the carseat in less than a week.

Also had a doctor's appointment today and all went well. I had to do the glucose tolerance test but won't get the results back until Thursday. (WHEN I'M IN NORTH DAKOTA!!! CANNOT WAIT!!!) It didn't taste too bad, but it did make me pretty sick to my stomach. The doctor also thinks that the baby is already head down, though there is still time for him to go back to head up, and then back to head down! :) All I know is he is very partial to my right side and my ribs are taking the brunt of it.

Jeremy's sick again. :( And he leaves for Washington, D. C. tomorrow with his 8th grade band. Please ask for healing for him in your prayers - the thought of spending 24 hours on a bus sick with stinky 8th graders is not appealing right now!!

Okay I've written enough! TTFN.

So sad right now...

I have so much to tell and I will tell it, but in another post. As many of you know, I have become very good friends with some women through Fertility Friend.com - they have a sister site for those who have become pregnant. There I actively write on a "Due In July" board. It has been so nice to have other women to talk to who are going through the exact same things that I am - and often at the exact same time! I hadn't been able to check the boards since yesterday until right now, and I am still crying. :( One of my good friends on there lost her baby - at 25 weeks. I may have never met this woman in real life before, but we had conversed on many occasions and my heart is just breaking right now for her. The thought of losing my precious baby boy right now is almost too much to bear. He and I have a bond - I feel like there are secret moments during the day when he's talking to me and connecting with me and nobody else knows it but me. It's our little secret. And to have that suddenly be gone with no real explanation - it's just so terrible. (He's kicking me right now as to say "Everything's okay!" but that trust is so broken now...I don't know that everything will be okay.) I trust God's plan for our lives and the lives of His children. But the heartbreak of it all is overwhelming.

27 weeks!

I wasn't going to post this picture, but I think it shows just how much I'm growing!! Things are going at quite a fast pace right now and I'm really feeling it. He has been so incredibly active these last 3 days, which in the past for him, tends to signal a growth spurt. I'm just so excited to meet him. The last few days have been hard with symptoms again (told my supervisor at work that I don't think I'll be working right up to the due date) but still a new excitement has come over as well. I think it is maybe the fact that the third trimester has started and that we truly are close to the end! Can't wait...

I keep forgetting to write this on here, but I'm going to North Dakota! I leave in 10 days and will be there for 4 days...I think. April 14-18 I believe are the exact dates...so if I can get together with anybody I would love to see you!! Just let me know!! :)

TTFN :)