Pregnancy Update -Week 35

     Today officially marks 35 weeks and two days of this current pregnancy. I finally went in and did the three hour glucose test when I was 31 weeks along and I failed it. Apparently I "really" failed it by a lot as my doctor said. So I have officially been diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. It was a pretty big shock to me. I only just barely failed the one hour test by a tiny bit (you are supposed to be under 140 and mine was 142) and I took the three hour test with Brynlee and was just fine so I went into the three hour test feeling pretty confident that it wasn't a big deal and that I would be fine. I also waited six weeks between the two tests because I didn't want to make an extra trip into the doctor's office. My doctor said it would be fine to wait. The three hour test is a pain as it is because you have to fast all night and then come in and get your blood drawn. Then you drink this really gross drink and wait for an hour for them to take your blood. I had an appointment during that time and then I sat in the waiting room and read a book. I started and finished the book Tuck Everlasting while I was there because you have to get your blood drawn every hour for three hours after that. It was a long morning and I was super ready to get home and eat after that appointment. 

     Having Gestational Diabetes requires me to test my blood sugar four times a day; Once first thing in the morning and then two hours after every meal. Poking your finger kind of hurts and at first they gave me ultra fine needles so I had to poke three or four fingers almost every time just to get enough blood to test with. In the morning my numbers are supposed to be under 95 and two hours after a meal they should be under 120. I am supposed to exercise for at least 30 minutes a day and I have to avoid all things sweet and sugary and I have to really watch the amount of carbs I eat. Things like potatoes aren't good either. I usually only drink water anyways so that has been easy at least. It has been hard to find things to eat. For the most part my numbers have been fine but when I eat things I shouldn't the numbers usually show it. Cookies and sweet things are the worst but I can't do rolls or white bread either. Even one bite of cookie has pushed my numbers out of the good range. It has been hard to find things to eat but it has been manageable. I have learned a lot about eating healthy so in a lot of ways it has been good for me.

     Joel keeps making cookies and bringing home donuts and things I can't eat so that makes things hard but I have been pretty good to avoid all of those temptations. Since going on this "diet" I have lost four pounds which my doctor said was fine and just a good indication that I was making good changes and I have not put any of that weight back on yet. Exercise also makes a huge difference in my numbers so I have been trying to go on as many walks as I can. It has been so darn hot though that it makes it hard for me to want to do anything. I normally get really hot while I am pregnant anyways and being pregnant during the month of July has not been fun at all. My hands feel hot all the time.

     With my diagnosis comes more visits to the doctor as well. I have to take a low dose aspirin every day, and my doctor said she will most likely have me induced. Her cruise was canceled so she said I could have the baby anytime but now I will probably be induced before 39 weeks depending on how my numbers look. I had to get more blood work done at my doctor's office again and they will watch what things look like there.

     Not only have I had to make extra doctor visits and trips to the pharmacy for medicine, I also had my first trip to the ER with a pregnancy. I guess my body it getting too old for this. It was the day before our trip we had planned to go up to the cabin and I woke up feeling super dizzy. I tried to walk when I felt better and literally fell over. The room started spinning so violently every time I tried to move. The only thing I could do was lie in bed. When I did get up I got super nauseous and kept throwing up. I could lay on my side and feel fine for a little bit but then I was get sick again and the whole world would start spinning. I had no idea what my kids were doing and realized I could not parent them that day so I called my mom and she came and got them. I got out of bed to check on everyone and felt so dizzy that I had to crawl on my knees, I was still throwing up, and I couldn't even hardly talk to my mom when she came. Brynlee was pretty worried about me and opted to stay home to take care of me. She called Joel as soon as my mom left and told him he needed to come home. Amazingly he wasn't busy and after talking to me on the phone for a minute, he came home and checked on me. I called my doctor and they were supposed to return my call but never did. I called them again an hour later and they told me to go into the ER.

     My mom took the kids to the library and then came back to get Brynlee so they were all gone and Joel was able to take the time to drive me into the ER. We were there for over four hours. They tested my heart, gave me fluids and some medicine, and took a urine sample three hours into the thing. That's when they discovered that I had a UTI. I have never had one before and I had no other symptoms of it. Although, I was up several times the two previous nights having to go to the bathroom. The ER doctors gave me a prescription for some antibiotics and sent me on my way. Joel had to work late that night and he had to work longer than he anticipated but we were still able to make it on our trip to the cabin. I actually feel pretty blessed that things turned out the way they did and that there was an easy fix. When my mom brought all the kids home that was the first thing all my kids asked me, "Do we still get to go to the cabin?" I am so glad I was able to tell them yes. As soon as I got some medicine I felt way better.

     Besides all of those little complications with this pregnancy I am actually doing just fine. My back has not been as sore as usual. My doctor thought that following this diet and exercise regime should make we feel a lot better than normal and I suppose that must be part of it. I haven't noticed a huge difference. I still get heartburn but not as much or as often as I was getting it before and not as much as I usually get with my pregnancy. Here is a picture of me at 34 weeks while we were at the cabin.

     As for baby, right now she is doing well. I feel her moving all the time and she is head down. My doctor did a quick ultrasound to make sure she was head down and she is still a girl. Joel and I came up with two names that we kind of like so I think she will have a name when she is born. We are all getting pretty excited to meet her. I washed all her baby clothes and hung them in her closet just so I could see what I we needed to buy for her. We have a lot of baby clothes so we don't need a lot but this is my first baby that is not born in the spring so I will need to get her a few new outfits in the right season. We can't wait for her to come.

The Fourth of July

We spent a fun filled fourth of July going to the parade and firework in Melba and hanging out at grandma and grandpa Hirtle's house. My brother Brian and his family came to the parade and sat by us and we also sat by Joel's brother Jake and his family as well as grandma Hirtle. There was a lot of walking involved and Brynlee's foot was still feeling pretty sore but she handled it like a champ with only a little bit of whining. This year Kyla was the one that was super scared of the loud noises during the parade. She sat on aunt Rachel's lap for almost the whole time and would not get off. She made Rachel cover her ears for most of the time and Kyla's cousin Madison was great about giving Kyla a few pieces of candy. By the end of the parade Kyla warmed up to things and was laughing and having a good time so on the way home she talked about how much fun the parade was. The girls all loved getting the candy and they got quite a bit. 

  

After the parade we headed straight to visit grandma and grandpa Hirtle and we ate some hamburgers and hot dogs. Grandma and Grandpa filled up a big water trough with water and the kids had a blast playing in it. It was a hot day but that water was pretty cold and there was a little bit of a breeze outside. The kids still spent a long time playing in that water. 

  

Grandpa let all of the kids take his canoe out and float it down the little canal that runs along his house. Brynlee had fun doing that. Then Joel took all of the kids for a ride in the four wheeler train. Summer would only ride with Joel and Kyla preferred to ride with Joel as well. The kids ate popsicles and had a great day playing with cousins. Joel got a nice long nap in and Summer got one as well. 

We all went out and picked several raspberries outside later that evening. It was hot but the kids did a pretty good job at helping and we got lots of raspberries. Summer loves raspberries and ate a lot of them. We ended the night by heading back out to Melba so we could watch the fireworks. They did not have as many sitting spots so we ended up just sitting on a random sidewalk but we were sill lucky enough to run into my sister Heather and her family so they joined us for the night. Kyla sat on Aunt Heather's lap with her cousin and did pretty well. Summer was on my lap and was having fun until the big fireworks started. Then she closed her eyes and refused to even look at the fireworks. I covered her ears and she would not let me move them. She turned her head into my shirt and stayed like that for the entire time. She would peek for a second every once in a while and then quickly close her eyes and hide her head again. It was kind of sad but also kind of funny at the same time. Joel and the kids all got to eat the traditional french fries before the fireworks started and we all had a good time. The kids were all pretty tired on the way home and Btynlee's foot was really hurting so Joel took turns giving everyone a ride in the stroller and Summer got to ride on his shoulders. By the time we got home that night most of the kids were asleep in the car and the rest of them fell asleep as soon as they got in their beds. It was a pretty fun day.

The Month of June

It seems like June was such a long hard month. Brynlee was so miserable and depressed about not being able to use her legs and play in the water. None of us went swimming the whole month except for in the little pool for Kyla's party. Brynlee was grouchy, bored, and whiny about not being about to do the things she wanted to do. Despite all of the hardship there were a lot of really fun moments. We got to celebrate Kyla and Brynlee's birthdays, we had a baptism, celebrated Father's Day, and got to spend time with some family and friends. Overall there were a lot of great things that happened this month.

 My friend Eugenia and her family spent the night on the last day of the month of May so the kids got to start the month of June by waking up and playing with the kids for a little bit before they had to head home. Brynlee had a half day of school that day and then was officially done with school for the summer. We went to an end of the school year picnic at her school that Saturday.

I bought a cast protector for Brynlee's cast right before Kyla's birthday party. It was supposed to completely keep the water out so Brynlee could bathe and shower with it on. When we used it for Kyla's party it let a little bit of water in so I was a little hesitant to let her soak her foot in the pool. She just had to sit on the edge of the pool and watch and it did protect from splashes. When Brynlee wanted a bath a few nights later she put the protector on and I made sure it was on tight. She only put her foot in the water for a little bit while she got in and out of the tub and she tried to test it out a little bit as she was getting out. As soon as she got out of the bath I could tell that the bag was full of water and Brynlee's cast was soaked. We had the blow dryer on it for hours and her poor foot was miserable. I ended up having to take her back into the doctor's office the next day and they had to cut off her old cast and put a new one one. This time Brynlee picked pink with orange stripes. She only let her family and a few other people sign this cast. She signed her dad's name for him. She insisted that she wanted to keep her old cast. Annalyn keeps using rubber bands to wrap that old cast around her legs and she will grab Brynlee's crutches and run around with them. She loves to pretend that she has a broken foot. 

Right after we took Brynlee in for a new cast, we went to the library and the kids picked out some movies to watch. Then we came home and put the movie in to watch only to discover that our TV was broken. Someone (no one would admit who) obviously threw something at it and the screen was toast. Everyone was pretty upset about that and we went most of the month without a TV. The kids were all whiny and upset about that for a while. Summer was super mischievous that week and got into a brand new thing of foundation that I bought at the store and rubbed it all over her body. She pretty much ruined the dress she was wearing. Those were not the best days.  

I was determined to make the weekend better after the crazy week. The girls had all been begging to have a lemonade stand so we were able to make that dream come true. I took Annalyn to get groceries and to the dollar store for some posters and the girls helped me make cinnamon rolls. The neighborhood across the street was having a community yard sale so we took our lemonade and cinnamon rolls over there to sale. The girls made their signs all by themselves and I love how they turned out. They ended up selling all of their cinnamon rolls and then calling it a day. Joel's sisters Jaime and Joy were both down for the weekend and they came and bought some of our treats. We went to visit them and spent the rest of the day in Melba and we had fun spending time with everyone there. We went back there on Monday evening and saw them again before they had to leave.

Joel bought a wagon and revamped it so that I could fit Brynlee in it and still go for walks to the park. It worked great. Joel went camping on a "survival campout" with the boys from church. They built a shelter to sleep in and they didn't take any food because they were going to live off the land and catch fish. They ended up starving and Joel took everyone out to chuck a rama on the way home. While Joel was gone I took the girls to the park and then my sister Alesha come over and made slime and gave all of us a nice facial. Kyla wouldn't put anything on her face but Summer loved it. It was good to have some girl time.

For Fathers' Day we made Joel a candy gram card and let him sleep in for as long as he wanted. The kids all had cards and hugs for him as well. He is a pretty great dad and we love having him around. For Family night the next day we took a drive to get snow cones and sat by the river to eat them. Joel loves snow cones. 

My mom came over and helped me reorganize some of the girl's closets and get ready to move Brynlee upstairs. As soon as Brynlee could walk on her cast and was walking up and down the stairs with ease we decided to make the move. She is loving having her own space upstairs. Joel fixed up a bed for her and my mom came over another day and helped me to reorganize Kyla's room and we moved Summer into that room. Annalyn will eventually have the baby in the room with her but for now she gets to have a room to herself as well. Then Joel helped me to take out our old entertainment center and we bought a new and bigger television which Joel mounted to our wall. Annalyn and Brynlee both got to pick out new blankets for their beds which was pretty exciting for them. 

We went to the library several times for their summer reading program and had fun doing the activities they had for us. We also went to the free lunch program that they do for the community once and the kids had a good time doing that. They gave away a few prizes and my kids got super lucky and everyone but Brynlee won a prize. Kyla got the big prize at the end which was a big bucket full of gardening things. Each of my girls painted and decorated two different plants that they got to take home and they got a free book. Trying to carry all of that stuff was next to impossible and by the time we got home I had dirt all over my shirt and all over my van.  

My mom took Brynlee and Kyla birthday shopping for their birthdays this month and they both had a blast doing that. My mom went to the mall and got a wheelchair for Brynlee because she was still on crutches at the time. They also both had their yearly check-up and Kyla had to get shots. She cried and was unhappy about that for several days. The doctor made the girls put on gowns this time and they were both unhappy about that as well. Summer really wanted to wear one though and kept trying to take off her clothes while we were there. She really wanted a turn for a check-up. It was kind of funny. Brynlee finally got her cast off at the end of the month and then got sick for the next few days. 

We went to the park several times. Joel even came with us for Family night a few times. Summer loves to look at the ducks when we are there. It is one of her most favorite things to do. I went to parenting class, a RS activity, and book group. It is always nice to have time to spend with other adults during the week. I got a new teaching partner at church. We got cherries that Annalyn helped me to pit. We had a movie night at a friend's house and watched "A Wrinkle in Time." We caught tadpoles at grandma and grandpa Hirtle's house and Annalyn brought some home to keep as pets. Joel grilled some food for us a few times. By the end of the month I was 31 weeks pregnant and starting to feel it. Annalyn and Kyla spent a lot of time playing pretend and they liked to play in the hose outside. Even though we didn't get to do everything we wanted to do this month, we still found lots of fun things to do and had a good time.