I meant to be posting about all my visits

I really wanted to post about all my visits with my midwife, so that people could have an understanding of what went on, and how it's different then visiting with an OB (because it's WAY different) but I've been pretty sick the past couple of months between nausea and exhaustion.

I'm 19 weeks tomorrow, almost to the half way point!  Yay!  I'm finally feeling mostly better although the exhaustion is still plaguing me.  My back is also starting to cause problems, and I'll need to see my chiropractor soon, but I keep putting it off because I just hate getting out.

I had my last visit with my midwife September 18th.  It went well.  My midwife and both of her assistants were there.  We talked about nutrition, and how to try and get more calories in me, since I've been unable to eat enough calories in a day.  I haven't been losing weight, but my weight gain is also slower than either of us would like.  I did my urine test, which showed that I had blood in my urine, have for the past couple of months, but I have no infection, which my hospital doctor tested for when I went in there for a check up.

We talked about how I'm sleeping and feeling, and she took my blood pressure, measured my uterus and we listened to the baby's heart beat which was 156 bpm.  My next visit is on October 18th, and I'll be almost 21 weeks then.

I have my mid term ultrasound at the hospital on October 25th, and then on the 26th I'm heading down to FL.  I'll be down there until November 19th.  I'm excited to be going home.  When I get back here, I'll be almost 26 weeks.  Time always goes by faster down there too, so my 3rd trimester will be coming up fast then!

I'm feeling a lot of movement with this baby.  It started early too, around 15 weeks this time with flutters, kicks starting right before I made it to 17 weeks.  Now I'm getting some pretty good kick/punches and turns.  It's awesome.  I love feeling the baby move around inside me.

On a non-pregnancy related note Michael is up for reenlistment.  He's going to reenlist to go to Fort Campbell, Ky.  I'm anxious to get a report date, but he's been unable to meet with anyone yet.  I'm hoping it'll be soon though, because I'd like to know what's going on.  (I know, I know totally unrealistic considering it's the army).

First Midwife Visit

I had my visit with Christine on the 17th of July, the day before I drove down to FL.  It was good, we went over the basics, I got my pregnancy and postpartum binder with all its great info and we talked finances.

We did all the initial fun stuff, weight, nutrition, and Christine went over the labs I picked up from the hospital to give to her.  All looks well on that front too. :)

I have my next appointment in 5 weeks.

I'm almost 9 weeks now and still exhausted, and still nauseous.  I'm hoping the nausea will go away soon because I cannot function like this.  Sigh.

I've been meaning to post....

I have, I swear I have, but it's been hard, I've just been soooo exhausted.

I did want to take some time to document my OB intake appointment.  It went pretty much how I expected. There was a lot of talk about Trinity hospital.  I did not mention that I was planning a homebirth, or that my primary care giver for my pregnancy would be my midwife.  I wish that hospitals were more receptive to women's options, and that's why I advocate, but it's an unfortunate truth that they are not receptive.

I went and got blood drawn, and gave my urine sample and talked to beneficiaries too, and all in all the whole thing took about an hour.  I have my first actual OB appointment on July 12, I'll be 7 weeks then. The week after that I'm going to FL, and I'll be scheduling my first midwife appointment with Christine for when I get back in the beginning of August.

Today I went to EAMC

I went to self-referral and told them I was pregnant.  They asked me if I'd had the blood test yet.  I said no, so that's the only thing I got done there today.  Of course it turned out I'm pregnant according to them too. ;)

Next week, on Wednesday (the day before I turn 5 weeks) I'll go back to EAMC and do my intake appointment and they'll do my prenatal labs and give me all the info on Trinity, of course I don't need it,but I won't be telling them that.  It'll just be easier on all of us not to.

I got my maternity clothes from Old Navy yesterday.  I love them too, and I'm looking forward to getting to wear them!  I love maternity clothes and I love the way I look when I'm pregnant.

All my girl cousins' are in Nashville right now.  I miss them and I really wish I could be there with them.  It just wasn't in the cards.  They look like they are having an awesome time though and I'm loving the pictures that they are posting on facebook!

So this weekend, we don't have a lot to do tomorrow, I want to do some school with the kids, and at some point make a trip out to Barnes & Nobles to hopefully exchange a manga and then I promised the kids some books.  I want James to get chapter books, and I'd prefer Jade gets a chapter book too, but James is going to start doing book reports in 3rd grade so I want him to get used to reading longer books.  I'm glad that my kids are so interested in reading.  It makes me happy.

On Sunday we're going to go over to Michael's aunt Theresa and Uncle Kenny's house and we're going to spend the day playing outside and in their pool!  I'm really looking forward to it!  I think it'll be a fun day!

4 weeks

I am officially 4 weeks today!  I really cannot explain how happy and excited I am to be pregnant!

I took this only 10 days past ovulation.  I had gotten a very very very faint line the day before and the morning before taking this digital test.  To be honest I was surprised to get a positive, and to get it as quickly as I did.  I'd say it took somewhere between 30-45 seconds for this positive to pop up!

So I learned I was expecting SUPER early.  I had a cute idea on how to tell my husband too.....although he didn't get on facebook when I thought he would so pretty much everyone found out before he did, and I wasn't able to tell him he was going to be a daddy.....again......until the day after Father's Day.  That's okay though he was excited and shocked.  We were so sure it wasn't going to happen!  The timing was just off.  He's also pretty convince this baby will be a girl!

So here's my 4 week picture, yes I know I look fat, sue me I have 4 kids already so it's hard to get off all that baby belly!

I'm going to go next week to EAMC to do my first intake with the hospital.  I'll go there, get in the system, get my 20 week ultrasound and then I won't go back.  They'll at least have my records for the pregnancy though in case of a transfer.  I'm going to make an appointment to see Christine when we get back from FL. I'll be about 8 weeks then.

Today was a good day.

Today I found out a close friend of mine is also pregnant!  She's due around the same time I am also, which makes it hard for us to be each other's support but I'm super excited for her as well!

I got my prenatal vitamins in the mail today, yup I buy my vitamins online.  They are called Rainbow Light, and I chose them because there's no crap in them.  They also have Red Raspberry leaf and ginger in them, which should not only help with preparing my uterus for labor, but the ginger might help with morning sickness.  Oh and it's got probiotics too which is a major plus for me!

We only got one lesson of school done today, instead of school because I needed to go grocery shopping but we should get two done tomorrow.

I also plan on taking the kids to Barnes&Nobles tomorrow so I can exchange a manga I bought online, because I bought the wrong volume.  I'm hoping they'll let me exchange it for one I don't have yet.  Then if the kids are good tomorrow, really hoping they are, I'll be buying them each a book.  Because I don't think kids can ever have too many books.  Neither can I actually!

I have been super exhausted today, I'm hoping that won't be a regular thing, I have way too much I have to do during the day with school and cleaning.  I've been able to keep up with everything since Michael left two weeks ago, I don't want to be brought down by this!

I need to get on posting my homeschooling schedule and photos of the kids new curriculum!  I have it on facebook, just need to download the pics and upload them here.

Things going on in my life, which, if you're not at all interested in me may seem quite boring but here they are.


I recently did a facebook friends purge.  I was very upset to do it, because I hate losing friends, but for about a month now several people (as in more than one) were sharing information from my facebook.  Well, what's the big deal you ask? It's social media right, it's meant to be shared.  Well yes, of course it is.  To a point.  But when it's used to completely slander a person, when a post is copied and pasted, instead of shared in the correct manner, and you are then made fun of as the copy and pasted post is posted on the wall of someone who hates you, well that's just overboard and pointless drama making.  I detest drama.  After I removed said person from my friends list, I found out it was still happening.  Without a sure method of finding out who was now sharing my info, I ended up just purging my list of all who it might have been, and their close friends.  I did the close friends mostly because I thought it would cause less drama.  No one would have to try and choose sides and such.  I apparently was wrong, but there's no going back now and I once again feel safer posting on my facebook wall.


Homeschooling is going well, although long past the time I wanted our school year to go.  We're, as I speak, working on lesson 117.  The bad thing about having to "make up" time is that we end up doing lessons all weekend as well as throughout the week in an effort to get the school year over with.  I'm really hoping to try and get it over with by the time we're going to drive down to FL for James's birthday, but I'm not sure if we will.  There's a 170 lessons total, and I'm only trying for one lesson at least on the weekends, and two lessons a day throughout the week.  We have 53 lessons to go.  If we managed to do two lessons a day, every day it'd take 28 days.  Not too bad, as we have 35 days until our birthday.  I'm not sure when we're going to head down to FL though. 


Pregnancy related.  I honestly did not think it would happen.  The timing was sooooo off that I was pretty much convinced we wouldn't get pregnant and we'd lose our window to have more kids.  Apparently God had other plans. :)  I am so early though, and while I've pretty much told everyone BUT my husband I'm hopeful this pregnancy will stick.  I've just felt that God had more plans for our family.  More children ready and waiting to be added.  Our family is looking forward to the new addition we'll have, and hopefully so will my husband if he'll ever call me!


For those that don't know, my husband left for Korea June 6th.  He's gone for a year long hardship tour.  We'll be trying get him to do the 60 day early report to Fort Campbell, so that we can drop it down to a 10 month hardship tour, and that will have him coming back to the states (to Fort Campbell) when new baby is about (assuming baby is born close to my due date) 4-5 weeks old.  I will be in no condition to move us though at that point, more than likely, so our plans of my moving us from here to Campbell by myself, won't be happening.  I'll need Michael to drive as I still won't have had my 6 week check up and cleared to drive yet.

I think that likely catches everyone up on my doings.  I'll be adding some pictures soon of the new curriculum for the 12-13 school year, and I'll type out the plans I have.

I hope everyone has a blessed day!

Here I am again.....

I'm not dead I promise.  We've had a lot going on this year already!  Moving from one house on post to another, finding out that my husband was going to Korea, sending him off, and now we're busy trying to play "catch up" with school from the time we had to take off to move!

Now we have another big announcement!



Looks like our family will be expanding! :)

We're looking forward to it!  I've always wanted a large family and God has blessed me greatly with the children he's sent me.  I'm planning another home birth, and I'll be attempting to not find out the sex this time around.

As for guesses, I'm guessing to go into labor on February 26, 2013, in the afternoon, probably around 2:00 or so, it'll be a girl and she'll be around 10lbs. :)

Looking forward to updating on this coming school year, if we can ever finish out this school year, and on my pregnancy!

I know I know!

I'm a bad blog poster.

Although I do have two blog ideas, so you'll be getting two updates here soon, well, this one and another, well possibly one more.

I'll reserve this one for what's been going on in the past month since I'm a horrible blogger and have left everyone hanging for an entire month!

We finally have our new house, we moved to another neighborhood and into a bigger house.  I'm happy to have more space, and things are definitely looking up in this house.  I don't wake up sick every morning, which is a plus, but I'm still dealing with the CFS.  I've been trying hard to keep up with all the housework and I finally have the school room set up, so at least James is getting to do his work as we are still working on finding all of Jade's school work which has gone missing in the massive amount of boxes.

Today I'm feeling very blah, and a little under-appreciated.  I feel like people around me don't think I try hard enough, and that I fail myself constantly.  I need to get out of this blah mood.  I've been off and on reading my Bible this morning, and that's helped some, but I'm human so I'm failing miserably.

I think this Mommy needs a break.  Well, there's some pics of my new house, which you may not be able to see if you're not on my facebook....if you can't well, you can attempt a friend's request, and I may or may not add you. :)

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3103385383020.160624.1215797750&type=3&l=0ee46a38a1

Mold

There was a pipe leak in our house, and it caused water damage and mold to grow in our front hallway, and in the area of the leak, which also contains our heating and a/c unit.  Since then we've been getting sick and we jumped at an offer to change houses when housing decided to tear out our hallway.  Well that was decided in the middle of December.  Here we are at the end of January and I'm still in this house that makes me sick, and still incapable of doing school with the kids because our school stuff is all packed away.

Yesterday we went to a friend's birthday party, and today I can barely move.  The sickness in this house only seems to make my CFS worse.  I wish with everything I have that I was able to move more, able to do more.  I wish that just going out to a simple birthday party didn't make me incapable of doing anything for days after.  I HAVE to make chicken tonight so the meat doesn't go bad, and yet, it's going to be very taxing on my body.  I want to cry and scream in frustration, but what good would that do me?  I feel trapped inside this body that looks healthy but is not.