CaseyAndKelly.Com

I made it to 32 weeks today!  This time last pregnancy, we were celebrating Casey’s 30th birthday in the NICU with Brady.  So far things are still looking good and the pregnancy is moving along uneventfully.

We had our 32 week appointment on Tuesday and everything looked great.  The baby is growing on schedule and the heartbeat looked good ranging between 120-130 beats per minute.  At my last appointment at 30 weeks, I had lost 6 pounds in the two weeks since the last visit but explained to my doctor why I had lost the weight and he completely understood and only encouraged me to try snacking when I felt up to it.  At this appointment I regained the weight and am now up 23 pounds in 32 weeks.  I definitely haven’t been overindulging like I did with Brady so I’m hoping that my weight doesn’t explode in the home stretch.  Although I did recently discover Thin Mint ice cream so I might be doomed.

One thing I found out at the appointment is when I could stop the progesterone injections.  I hadn’t been able to remember when my doctor originally said I could stop but thought he had said 36 weeks so I was expecting at least four more weeks of injections.  I was surprised when he said we could stop them at 34 weeks.  He said that at 34 weeks they don’t do anything to stop labor and that in Austin babies do fine born at this gestational age.  That means only two more injections for me!  Since my sciatica is bothering me and I’m achy, not having injections in my butt is going to be a relief.  Casey asked the doctor what the chances were of me delivering soon after stopping the injections and the doctor said he didn’t think they were increased and really didn’t know of any information supporting that it would happen (contrary to what people post on online message boards).  He said if I did deliver soon after, that means we can be confident in knowing that the injections did prolong the pregnancy and he was right in prescribing them.

My 34 week appointment is scheduled for 2/7, then I’ll have another at 36 weeks, and then at that point start weekly appointments.  I haven’t heard yet what position the baby is in or if we even need to start being concerned with that yet but if I remember I plan on asking at my next appointment.

Today I’m 31 weeks pregnant which is officially the longest I’ve ever been pregnant.  I always say that I had Brady at 31 weeks but in reality it was at 30 weeks 6 days.  So far, so good and no sign that I’ll be delivering early.  Not that there were any indications prior to the weeklong hospital stay prior to delivery with Brady either, but still nothing to suggest otherwise this time around either.

I’m still taking my weekly progesterone shots and have five more shots left to go.  My mom has been really helpful and has been driving up (or on a few rare occasions I’ve driven down to her) here to give them to me.  Luckily my shot day is the same day as my doctor’s appointments so those can be given at the same time since she has been watching Brady during my appointments.  After the first six weeks of getting them in the legs and being incredibly sore afterwards, we switched to the butt and it has been much easier.  There’s a lot more fat in my butt to prevent the shot from hurting there.

For my 30 week appointment last week, Casey was swamped with preparing for his trip to Virginia so my mom and Brady went with me to the appointment.  Since Brady has a case of white coat syndrome (even with vets that wear them), I was hoping by getting her used to my doctor and the environment that she’ll do better visiting the hospital when I deliver.  Unfortunately per her usual, she started fussing and carrying on as soon as they called me back.  She fussed as long as the nurse was in the room but as soon as they left she calmed down again.  This was my first visit without an ultrasound but they did use the doppler to check the baby’s heartbeat.  She was moving all around and obviously doing fine but didn’t want to be listened to for too long.  She even put her butt against my stomach creating this strange outline when I laid down on the table to express her unhappiness with the ordeal.

Brady started to get worked up when my OB walked into the room but calmed down when she realized he wasn’t there for her and there for me and baby sister.  She does a lot better when people don’t come right at her and she gets used to them which is why I think she gravitates more to men in most situations.  The visit was pretty uneventful and my doctor was very understanding of my weight loss due to the circumstances and suggested to try snacking when I felt up to it.  My appetite has since returned so I’m sure I’ve regained the weight that was lost that first week.  Brady was more than happy to say goodbye to the doctor and tell him she’d see him later and she told goodbye to everyone she saw after that.  As we were walking out into the hallway she even said to the receptionists, “Bye, girls!”

Since that visit she brings up seeing mama’s doctor, Dr. Phillips from time to time.  And when you ask her what Dr. Phillips does she talks about listening to baby sister’s heart beat and says ba-boom ba-boom.  I’m glad she’s talking about the visit so positively because after her visit, she was not impressed and seemed a bit traumatized about the unsuccessful attempt at measuring her.

I’m having a really hard time lately accepting the fact that time marches on and life hasn’t stopped just because I’m mourning.  It feels like everything in my life has changed and turned upside down and will never be the same again.  I’ve been reading through old posts and am so thankful that I used to post more frequently so I can remember little details or stories I might have otherwise forgotten about Stoli.  It’s hard to read and know that no new memories will ever be created.

I’m still working on my tribute to Stoli.  Casey bought me Photoshop Elements for Christmas so I’m still working on getting pictures and videos together and getting everything edited.  When the tribute on here is done, I can work on getting new pictures framed and finally getting an album/scrapbook of pictures together.  I kept putting it off assuming (and hoping) there would always be time another day.

I found this sweet picture of Brady and Stoli from this summer that brought a smile to my face before making me cry.  I just hate that she’s gone and I’ll never get her back again.  The finality of it all is unbearable.

For those that read my other blog and saw my update today, I will be posting about it on here too but am still trying to formulate my thoughts into a more deserving post for my baby Stoli.  I don’t want to write something that’s rushed or pictures aren’t included or I forget something.  I’m devastated right now and it’s intensified by the pregnancy hormones.  Right now I don’t know that I will ever be the same again.  But since I’m spending a lot of time potty training right now and writing about it on my Austin mom blog, I figured I’d share the happenings on here too.

We’ve been trying to potty train Brady unsuccessfully for the last year.  I have to admit full effort wasn’t put into the earlier attempts but we thought we were doing the things that everyone was telling us worked for them and their kids were picking up so easily.  But each child has a different personality and with that comes a different potty training style.  Without a doubt, I can say potty training has been one of the more challenging tasks so far.

We had everything for Brady – a potty chair, a potty ring, books, stickers, candy, panties, everything in hopes we could convince her to want to potty on her own.  While she liked all the fun stuff like stickers, it wasn’t enough for her to sit on the potty.  She hated sitting on the potty so much and would writhe around and scream like she was terrified of it.  We tried using a little step stool and a potty ring to see if that would be easier on her but she didn’t seem to like that anymore than the small potty.  Other people suggested just sitting her on the big potty or turning her backwards on the big potty so she could get used to it and eliminate the step of transitioning her from small potty to big potty in the future – that didn’t work either.

At her 3 year well child check appointment, the pediatrician seemed disappointed that we weren’t making any strides with potty training.  We hadn’t been particularly agressive in the past because we had heard from other people (we’ve talked to a lot of people about this if you can’t tell) that if you try to force potty training before a child is ready that it will just be delayed so we were continuing to allow Brady to call the shots.  Based on her personality, we decided an intense, aggressive approach to the potty might be what would get things moving in the right direction.

A couple of my friends had been talking about shutting themselves into the house one weekend and doing a potty training boot camp to really kick things off with the potty training.  So, for the three day, New Year’s, weekend we did just that.  There weren’t really any manuals about how to do such an intense period of potty training.  Saturday morning when she woke up we took off her diaper first thing and set her on her potty.  We had a gate up and kept her confined to a small area of the bathroom and hallway.  It was tight and uncomfortable quarters for all three of us but we camped out with a basket full of books and prepared to spend the day in there.  That first day was an epic battle of wills.  We started out at 9am and even with a 2 hour nap she managed to stay dry and not go potty at all until 6:30pm.  Of course, she waited until Casey was outside talking to our neighbor across the street before she went.  But once she saw all the praise I gave her and rewards she received after going to the potty, that was a reward in itself.  She didn’t want to stop talking about it and wanted to tell as many people as she could including a call to Nana and Papa to share the good news!

Sunday was still a bit of touch and go but after the self esteem boost from Saturday night’s peeing, Brady figured out what to do and knew what was expected of her on the potty.  Maybe this potty training thing wasn’t so scary after all.  She was definitely digging the cool new panties she got to wear!  We still spent long stretches waiting for her to go but once she did, it allowed us all a bit more room to roam between trips to the bathroom.  There were still accidents but many more frequent (willing) trips to the potty as well.

Monday brought our first trips away from the house and Brady did great and stayed dry on both trips out.  Since then she’s been making great progress and can stay dry all night, through naps, and while running errands.  And some of our errands are 2-3 hours long.  I’m so surprised at the strides she’s made in such a short period of time but we’re not done yet.

Going poop is still a work in progress and not one she’s particularly motivated about.  She’s been telling us about her poops as soon as she goes for several months now and is even more timely in telling us now that it’s in panties but she doesn’t want the poop in the potty.  I’m hoping this will get easier and she’s had one success so she knows what to do but isn’t quite there yet.  Her first success was rewarded with a big Brobee doll and ice cream with sprinkles so we’re hoping that continues to be a motivator.  We’ve heard pooping on the potty is much harder and doesn’t necessarily come at the same time as peeing so we’ll continue to be patient.

Our Christmas Eve was pretty laid back.  My grandma watched Brady while my parents, Casey, and I went to the early Christmas Eve service at their church.  When we got home we enjoyed the Honeybaked Ham (that I waited 45 minutes in the cold for the previous day) and some of the traditional Christmas fixin’s.  Afterwards we let Brady open the gifts in her stocking to help spread out the gifts and hopefully not overwhelm her on Christmas Day.

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After Brady’s appointment, we came back to the house and let her open the two remaining Gabba dolls (she already had Plex and Brobee from the live show) before packing and preparing for our trip to San Antonio for the rest of her birthday through Christmas.  Although it was three days before Christmas traffic was still pretty brutal but we managed to make it to my parent’s house by about 3.

As soon as we got unpacked I got Brady’s cake prepped and in the oven so she could open presents while it was still light out.  The unwrapping of the presents was a little overwhelming because there was just so many but I think she enjoyed everything she received.  Especially the Barbie Jeep decked out with balloons from Nana and Papa!  At first she wasn’t sure what to think of it but after a little time, we couldn’t get her out of it!  She loves pushing the pedals and making it go (in drive or reverse) but she doesn’t want to steer at the same time yet so she just lets it go on its own til she hits a fence (or some other roadblock – tree, house, patio, etc) and someone has to reposition her or tell her to shift gears.  I’m so glad that the weather cooperated that day and was in the low 70s so we were able to spend a couple of hours outside before it got dark.  I think this is definitely the start of birthdays being something Brady looks forward to from now on!

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Brady’s now 3 years old!  When did that happen?  How am I the parent of a 3 year old?  It really is crazy!  Each year that she grows older I ask myself how I became the parent of a child that’s x number of years old.  Time goes by WAY too fast these days.

On Brady’s birthday, Casey got up early and brought back donuts for us (Brady’s favorite).  Then after getting ready, we allowed Brady to open one of her birthday presents.  It was a beanie baby version of Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba.  She was instantly in love and brought it with us to her 3 year well child check later that morning.

This appointment was the first appointment we’ve had since transferring pediatricians.  While I adored our previous pediatrician, I hardly ever saw her when we were in there, her office is a 30 minute drive, her waiting room is tiny, and she’ll be on maternity leave when I have baby number 2.  All of that together, meant (for me) it was time to transfer somewhere closer to home.  Since it’s possible this baby could be premature like Brady resulting in lots of pediatrician visits and even if she’s not there’s still a lot of visits during that first year, I didn’t relish the thought of wasting at least an hour each visit for driving on top of the visit.  And with a tiny waiting room and no separation for well and sick children, that just didn’t sit well with me with the possibility of a preemie.  That’s not to say I’d be opposed to transferring back if things don’t work out with the new practice but for now, we’re staying where we’re at.

That first visit was definitely stressful.  Brady already hates going to the doctor.  Not so much the office itself, but being examined and in such close proximity to someone she considers a stranger.  While she did manage to get on the scale and weighed in at a healthy 36.9 pounds (90th (ish) percentile).  We weren’t able to get an official height because she had a meltdown  but from what we could tell Brady was 41″ tall putting her in the 94th percentile.  She’s definitely staying consistent with being a tall girl.

The pediatrician we saw seemed nice enough and is encouraging us to start Brady in some mommy and me type classes in the interim while we start looking for a preschool.  She thinks that some of Brady’s stranger anxiety could be alleviated from better socialization.  Casey and I’s homebody tendencies aren’t doing Brady any favors and I’m going to have to break out of my comfort zone for Brady’s sake and continued development – which I’m totally okay with.  I’ve already looked into some classes to take her to, narrowed down local preschool options to three, and joined a mommy group in the area.

I know I promised these oh, over a month ago and here they finally are!  Pics of baby girl Tomlinson set to make her debut (hopefully) in March 2012!

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Just migrated the site to a Rackspace Cloud Server. Now with more swap file.

Still no pics scanned from my ultrasound.  I did have them all (I think 8 of them) scanned but apparently the way I scanned them wasn’t right and the files were all huge and scanned in black and white.  I was going to edit them in Gimp a little bit and that can’t happen yet with the current settings.  I haven’t forgotten though – it’s still on my to do list.  For now, if you want to see a 20 week ultrasound picture of baby girl number two, check them out on my Austin mom blog.