36 weeks

I went to my 36 week check up yesterday. Alli's heart beat is good. Dr. didn't check me this week. He said he'd do it next week. He didn't expect there to be a whole lot of change from last week to this, so he'll check next week. We scheduled the induce date for July 14 at 4am! EEK. I guess that gets us there early enough to get things rolling...(and I'm sure part of that is for the dr.'s luxury. haha). Oh well. I went over to have another NST. Alli continues to perform just as we hope she would. Last three visits she's had us out in record time. Who knows why that first time she was asleep for so long and it took 1.5 hours while all the others it only took the 20 min to get to see her active and get out of there. The nurse told me that I was showing that I was having some contractions...could've fooled me. I guess I have noticed the tightening in my belly but not really knowing what I was feeling, I assumed it to just be Alli pressing out or moving somehow.

This week will be my last week at work! Scary thought. My co-workers got me some wonderful and very sweet gifts. Just a few short weeks now and Alli will be here. She is coming at a good time. Ben has been having to do pre-plans at work where they go to each business in Smyrna and draw layouts of the buildings so that in the event of a fire the department has a detailed plan of what to do. The Lt. over this has been less than understanding and does things which don't make sense. He makes them repeat certain offices over and over again. So these guys have been out in the 90 degree heat from 8am-4pm for the last 1.5 months going from building to building. Ben needs a break. I'm not sure being up all night with a newborn is the break he wants...but its a break nonetheless. I wish I could give him a nice vacation. Oh well. One day.

Alli's mother = DORK

I've decided that I am officially a dork. haha Here's why. I've been doing some research lately on how to save money with a baby. I want to keep our budget as small as possible to help keep Ben from having to work because "we need $" and instead letting him work because he wants to keep his skills up...anyway. One of the things I've found is making your own baby food. When I found some cost comparisons I was sold! One site showed the following comparison:

1 jar of baby food veggies at 2.5oz = $0.59 : price per oz $0.23
1 bag of frozen veggies at 24 oz = $0.89 (not sure if you can really get them that cheap) : price per oz $0.04

Another perk is how simple it really is. Yes there is a great convenience to having baby food in a jar but I'm willing to give this cost savings experiment a shot because of how much food it will make and how much we'd be saving. The idea is that you take some fresh veggies for example: cut them into small chunks and steam them until soft. Place in a processor (finally a use for a 4 year old wedding gift) and puree. Add water if necessary to achieve proper smooth consistency for baby and walah! You can serve it then fresh or freeze for later use. Take an ice cube tray and fill each section to the top. Each section = roughly 1 oz. Place plastic wrap over tray and freeze. Once frozen, remove and place in freezer bag. Label and date. Veggies and fruit are good in freezer for up to 6-8 months!!! HELLO cheap food storage for kids! Once your child is ready to mix and match food you can have pureed meat, veggies and fruit.

Now obviously there would be instances where it is just simpler to have a jar of baby food so you don't have to worry about transporting frozen food. So I wouldn't keep Alli from being used to the taste of jar food as well. But I just thought this was an awesome money saving idea and I'm going to give it a shot...so I now = dork! haha

On another note, all is looking good for July 1...my official start date of maternity leave. Everyone is on the same page at work and my last night of work will officially be June 30. Sorry Caitlin..I hate that it's on your birthday! Then when I am cleared for work again (whenever that will be) I will come back and work 1 or 2 nights. Paul said he doesn't care if it is even just one night. If I am breast feeding...which I hope I am, then I will only want to come back one night. Even if Ben is home to be with Alli, I know it will be hard for me to sleep through all her feeding times. So I figure we'll work 1 night, 2 at the most, just to satisfy the "full time" status and then write my official letter of resignation and go PRN! I can't wait! As the day looms near, I get more and more excited. As nervous as I am, I am so excited to be a stay at home mom and I can't wait to bring Alli into the world.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful fathers out there. We love you Chris! Today was Ben's first official Father's Day. He got a set of hand filers/sanders...don't really know what they are and a vise for his workbench for when he's working in the garage....man stuff. haha I made him breakfast when he got home from work...nothing like scrambled eggs, bacon and toast! Yummm.

The young women in church today passed out brownies and ice cream to all the dads. All the women got was a bag of chocolate on mother's day. I think we should've got the brownies and ice cream. Oh well. All the men enjoyed it and that is what matters. I wish I could've stayed at home with Ben tonight and made his Father's Day more special but I had to come to work. We atleast got to take a nap together. Our days off are such a blur that taking a nap was a nice change. Ben is not someone who can normally nap but he makes an exception with me on Sundays.

Well this week looks to be just as busy as last week. Ben got called in to work a 12 hr shift at Rutherford co. in Murfreesboro tomorrow, works FD Tuesday and a 24 hr shift at Rutherford Co. on Wednesday! Bless him! Thursday I have my next Dr. appt and then I think Ben will want NOTHING more than to go see the new Transformer movie. He will go with or without me...so I better go. :) Friday Ben works FD and then Saturday he wants to go to the gun show and we have Caitlin's party at the gymnastics place. Busy busy busy.

6 nights of work left till maternity leave! Let the count down begin!

35 Week Update

I'm late posting this...but here it is. I had my check up this week and everything continues to look good. Sugars are good...Non-stress test results are good. Alli is active and that makes me happy. I am dilated to 1cm. woo hoo. haha..I'm not sure if I should be dilated more than that or not but dr. says its good so...its all good.

We are keeping everything on track for the next ultrasound to be at 38 weeks on Friday July 10. That ultrasound will tell us her weight and make the decision of whether we proceed with the estimated induce date of Tuesday July 14. The possible dates are July 14 or July 20. I think we're planning more for the 14th.

Ben started working with Rural Metro this week and all the nurses at the hospital are glad to see his return. He knows how to schmooze the nurses. :) Ben is also keeping steady work with Rutherford so we have truly been blessed. This has allowed us to knock some major chunks out of our debt and really getting ourselves prepared to be losing my full time pay. So the Lord is truly blessing us for everything to work out just right and we are so excited!

Less than 1 months now! I'm really starting to feel the countdown. Soon Alli will be here and then we have a whole new set of adventures awaiting us. Can't wait!

Work Update

The most recent drama that I've been dealing with at work is how we are going to make everything work out with the short term disability for my maternity leave. The admin over HR here at work suggested back in january that I keep my short term dis. so that I would get paid while off with the baby. I didn't even know our short term dis paid for that. So we kept it. I told her though that we didn't know if I would be returning full time after the baby. She said it was based off what my work status is prior to my leaving for maternity leave. So I didn't think anything of it. Ben and I recently decided that my last day of work would be June 30 so that I would have about 2 weeks to get readjusted back to a day schedule in preparation for the baby. Knowing that I wouldn't be returning full time, my boss, asked me to turn in a letter of resignation from my full time position with effective date of July 1. Once I thought about this, I realized that this would probably terminate my ability to receive short term dis. So after a lot of frustration and worry this is what the admin of HR told me to do.

"I spoke to the benefits person @ St. Thomas and she advised that we do not change your status from full-time to PRN until you return from maternity leave. Reason being, PRN have no benefits. What she recommended was that you take your leave, come back and work a few shifts, then change your status. That way, you are still classified as full-time and eligible for benefits while you are out."

Ben and I are both satisfied with this compromise. This ensures that I will keep my full time status while on maternity leave and that I won't have to pay back any of the short term dis payments due to some kind of confusion over my "status." I just have to make sure that my boss, Paul, is aware of what Genni and I have discussed. Paul really has no choice other than to agree with what we've decided because I'm still full time until I turn in that letter of resignation and they can't fire a pregnant woman without a major lawsuit on their hands. So now instead of being done working full time on June 30, I will have to work a few nights after my maternity leave. This will all be based on when my doctor releases me for work again. Short term dis pays up to 180 days. I know Ben would love to get the full 180 days but I don't see my doctor writing my short term dis for that long! So probably 12-14 weeks. We'll see. I'll talk to him at my next doctor appointment and see what he says. I don't really want to work a couple night shifts with Alli only a few weeks old but I'll do what I have to do to get the money. It just means that Ben will have to be off work those nights or we will have to rely on some help from family for one week. Ben and I were thinking one week of work would suffice to fill their "quota" of working a few shifts before turning in my notice of PRN status. So anyway...one stress checked off my list...

34 Weeks - OH big baby

We had our 34 week ultrasound today. We did get a good profile shot of her. The ultrasound tech doing the ultrasound today was learning a new computer and wasn't as personable as the usual one. So we didn't get that many print outs. We (I) were anxious to see how much Alli is weighing now, since I've only gained 1 lb in the last 2.5-3 weeks. Alli is up to a whopping 5 lbs 15 ounces! She is almost 6lbs!!!!!! Oh my goodness big baby! Dr. DeRoche isn't worried about the weight. He says that it looks to be mainly in the belly as her belly size is in the 93 percentile and overall she is in the 65 percentile. He said this is to be expected and doesn't want to do another ultrasound until 38 weeks. Dr. Riley seemed to be a little more concerned about her size (as I am). He asked when the next ultrasound is and we told him 38 weeks...he kinda chuckled and said, "if you make it that long." So I think he may want to check her sooner than this. We will keep an eye on things and see how both doctors feel in a few weeks. 38 weeks would put me at the week of July 8. Anyhoo. We had another NST today and she passed with flying colors...meaning she had plenty of active periods and we didn't even have to drink a soda! So we'll see what happens over the next few weeks.

Ben met with Danny at Rural Metro. Danny did offer him a part time job. Ben will be making the starting Paramedic pay there with a review after 6 months and a possible $1-2 pay increase. This is a great relief. Now Ben will definitely have some work if things with Rutherford County slow down. Ben is averaging 3 - 24 hour shifts for them a month. So if Ben could pick up 2-4 with Rural Metro...life will be gravy!

NST

I learned yesterday what NST stands for. After waiting FOREVER to see my dr (he had a woman in labor), he checked the baby's heart rate (hovers around 140) and then told us we would be heading over the the hospital to have a NST. We asked him a few questions which had been on our minds since he told us he will probably deliver me early. He said we aren't talking weeks...so that's good. This will give her the time she needs to continue to develop. He is thinking only a week in advance. So we asked why he wanted to take her early. Part of it is to make sure she doesn't get too big and another part I think has to do with concerns that the fluid surrounding the baby can sometimes deminish with gest. diabetics. They had a lady in my same situation come in this week for her check up and found that the baby didn't have enough fluid around and they had to immediately send her over and enduce her. I think she was 2-3 weeks early. So this is another reason why the frequent ultrasounds are necessary. I have one next week and Dr. Riley will review it afterwards.

So we headed over the the hospital and I sat in a triage room for my NST or Non-Stress Test. They wrapped a fetal heart monitor around my belly and another monitor on top of my uterus to check for contractions and that was it. I laid there for what was supposed to be only 30 min. and ended up being at least an hour. Ben was so bored. They wanted to see an "active" period on the baby. Basically they wanted to see the baby's heart beat jump up. They also wanted to see if my uterus was contracting any. They didn't mention anything about it so I'm assuming that no it is not. We couldn't get Alli to be "active" since she's my little night owl. Dr. Riley wanted them to give me something to drink to get Alli moving. I told them that caffeine was a sure fire way to get her stirred up. So they gave me some diet coke. I'm not a fan of diet anything because of taste. But my dr appointment was at 11am and all I'd had all day was breakfast so I was starving and thirsty. So maybe that made it more appealing but I drank it very quickly without any problem. Not 5 minutes passed before that girl was going nuts! She was flipping so much that the heart monitor kept losing her heart beat. At one point her heart beat went up to 180. I think they got what they wanted. We kept laughing at her.

Anyway, I get to do this all over again next week... and the next...and the next... Next week will be really boring though because Ben will be on the trek. So at 9:30am Friday morning I have ultrasound, blood sugar check at Dr. DeRoche, follow up with Dr. Riley and then hospital for NST. WOO HOO! I can't wait for my insurance to see all this! This all makes me so thankful for Ben's job. The Lord is and always has truly blessed us. I just don't know how else we could do all this.

Tomorrow is the baby shower and I am totally excited! Marilyn's gift came in the mail the other day and we set it up!! Slowly but surely we are getting there. 4 more weeks of work...I can make it..I think.

Busy Week

As soon as I get off work tonight, I'm going home to sleep for a few hours and then I have to get up and clean clean clean. We have company the next few days. Daniel and Meagan are coming in town with Nate and Knowlton. They will be staying in our spare rooms and I have badly neglected the house with how tired I've been from the pregnancy. Thursday morning we have an appraisor coming to look at the house so that we can finalize our refinancing. I can't wait to knock $100 off our mortgage! So I want to spend Wednesday cleaning to get the house prepared for Thursday when everyone comes in. Then Thursday at 11am I go to my weekly doctor appointment. Friday will be uneventful because Ben is working but then Saturday is the baby shower. I am so excited! I can't wait. After the shower we hope to hang out with Daniel and Meagan some more. Don and Ashley should also be coming into town so we hope to see them some too. Then I'm unfortunately back to work on Sunday. I'm dreading next week because Ben is leaving to go on the youth trek Thursday morning through Saturday morning and I will see very little of him on my days off that week. I also have an ultrasound that week that he is going to miss because he will be at the trek. June will go so quickly for us and before you know it...Alli will be here!

Some good news: Ben heard from Danny, with Rural Metro, this week. Danny wanted to know how many days Ben would be available to work if Danny hired him back on part time. So now Ben has a back up in case Rutherford co. doesn't come through for us with enough work. Ben is meeting with danny Tuesday to determine pay since he would be driving all the way to Winchester to work for them. We are hoping he will get mileage compensation but he may not. The upside is that they get extra pay on duty whenever they do a patient transport to nashville. So this would make up for some of the drop in pay from what he makes in Rutherford. We'll see.

Hospice

Grandma Love has been in the hospital for the last week and a half and we finally know the result. Looks like congestive heart failure and pulmonary fibrosis. Grandmother is so frail and so tiny. After fighting her cancer so long, I don't think she has much left. This was confirmed by an email my aunt Janice sent tonight to the family.

"Saturday night, I had quite a long talk with Mother. She said that she didn't understand why she wasn't getting better--she'd had a blessing from Bro. Crook and Daddy. When I asked her if she remembered what the blessing had said, she said no and we talked about that. We talked about the conditions that she has and what the usual results are. We had a very good talk and I tried to give her information about her situation. I also reminded her that Bro. Crook had said that Heavenly Father said it was her decision to go and that he would help her know the right time.

Today when the Dr. came around with the test results, he said that the next step would be to transfer to a hospital in Shreveport to see a pulmonary specialist if that's what she wanted. She said that, no, she thought she would not do that. Then(according to Carolyn & Dad--I only heard part over the phone) she shared a beautiful testimony with Dr. Bolger and told him of our beliefs of what comes after this life. He had tears rolling down his cheeks as she did this. So, she has decided not to seek further treatment."

So grandmother will be released from the hospital to come home. Home health and probably very soon hospice will be taking care of her 24/7. Janice doesn't think grandmother has much longer. Now that grandmother has made the conscious decision to give up the fight, I'm pretty sure she will die before I give birth to Alli. Grandmother has lived a good life and has fought her illnesses long enough. She shouldn't have to suffer much longer but I regret that I probably won't be able to see her one more time. In fact I don't see her lasting long enough for me to even make it after Alli is born. I guess we'll see what happens.