We’re having a baby… and daddy’s deployed.

I’m seven month pregnant now. It feels like it’s just flying by. I actually feel better this pregnancy than I did with my first two, and I’m pretty sure I have my first two babies to thank for that. I run after them constantly. The result is a slightly fitter mommy, and I haven’t gained a whole lot of unnecessary weight. I’m tired, but honestly, what pregnant lady isn’t tired? My kids are acting up, but once again, what kid doesn’t act up when they can sense their world is about to change yet again? My dogs are being horrible, for proof, just look at my dog shaming post. 🙂 But overall, I really can’t complain.

Blue Eyes is excited for a baby brother. He keeps telling me we are naming the baby Silver. Not exactly a name I would pick for my kiddo, but at least Blue Eyes is happy at the idea of another baby. I’m not sure he quite understands that the baby will be born as just that, a baby. I’m pretty sure he thinks the baby will be Snow White’s size, and they’ll be able to play right away. I feel a little bad for the surprise he’s about to get.

I’m pretty sure Snow White realizes something is about to happen. All she wants to do lately is snuggle with mommy. We also found out she needs some testing for her hearing, so I’m hoping to have all of that worked out before the baby gets here. They think it’s a really simple fix, like needing tubes in her ears, but as a mommy, I will feel better knowing how we can take the next steps to help my baby girl in growing.

Now that it’s obvious I’m getting close to the end, I get never ending questions. Was this baby planned? Are you going to keep going? You can’t have just three you know. Do you have a name? How are the kids handling it? How’s your hubby doing with it? Oh your husband is deployed? Will he be back in time? He won’t? Oh you poor thing… you should have planned better…

Here’s the deal, don’t tell me we should have planned better. Every baby is a blessing, and even if it’s not the “ideal” time, I’m so excited to have this baby. To hear people act like this baby is an inconvenience is offensive and rude.

And it’s not poor me. I signed up for the military life when I signed papers to enlist. I didn’t expect to marry a military man, but I knew what I was getting into, unlike a lot of wives, I knew what it would look like. I count it lucky that he’s been gone as little as he has. Since having kids, he has rarely been gone. He was gone for two months right after Blue Eyes was born, and since then only little periods here and there. He’s made it to two of our kids births, and every birthday so far. That’s rare for a military family. I count my blessings.

Yes, I’m afraid.

Who wouldn’t be? I don’t want to be alone when I have this baby, and God willing my mom will be here in time. But I’m not so worried about me being here alone as I’m worried about my kids. Thankfully I have made some great friends here, that I know will take care of my babies until a family member or myself can be home.

Yes, I’m sad my husband won’t be here.

But tears won’t help me. What I need is to be as organized as possible. To find out if there is a chance of being able to FaceTime the birth, or if I can have someone available to send him pictures through email as soon as possible. Finding ways to let my husband be here, even if he can’t physically be here. After all, it’s his baby and he’s got more to adjust to when he comes home than people realize. He was gone most of the pregnancy. He didn’t get to see the ultrasounds. He didn’t get to see my belly grow, or feel the kicks. His gender reveal was a picture I set up with the kids so he had something cute to see. He hasn’t gotten to buy the baby clothes, or put sheets on our well loved crib. He hasn’t had the time to prepare that I have. He left with two kids and he’s coming home to three. Talk about scary!

No, I’m not strong.

I do this because I have to. I’m not strong. I break down, and cry. Blue Eyes has become very sensitive to mommy’s crying, and tries to take care of me. But it doesn’t make me weak either. It shows my babies that I’m human, that I miss daddy as much as they do. And that’s okay.

Would I do it again?

Yes! A million times yes. This is my baby and I can’t wait to meet him. This is our last baby as far as we have planned, but that makes this pregnancy all the more important. Hopefully people can understand that. And maybe it will help someone else who is giving birth alone.

Poor little blue eyes

Blue Eyes feeling sick

If you can’t tell we have a favorite shirt for Blue Eyes right now. It fits perfectly.
Little Blue Eyes is sick…. He’s had a fever that we think is from teething, well at least we thought that until today. Today Blue Eyes went down for a nap, and work up puking. He puked all over his room and then daddy went and got him, only to have him puke again in the livingroom. So what does daddy do? Bring him in to mommy of course! Mommy pulls off his clothes for a shower when of course, he pukes all over mommy. As if I didn’t feel huge and gross enough, now I smell like baby puke. Ick. The good news is, once little man was in the shower he started feeling a little better. Daddy was a superhero and washed blankie while mommy and baby showered. Afterwards though, all Blue Eyes wanted was to cuddle with daddy. On and off all day Blue Eyes has been whinny and cuddly. I think the puppies know he’s not feeling well either because they keep coming and checking on him. They also keep checking on me, I think it’s because I’m not moving as well as I was. Baby girl needs to get here quick! lol

My big test is on Tuesday and thankfully one of my friends is going to be up there with me! I’m so excited that we should be licensed by the end of the Tuesday! I’ve been going back through taking practice tests over and over so that I feel ready again. My friends that have already passed say I should be good, but you’re always going to worry about something that you really want. I also need to go back through my kit and make sure I have absolutely everything I can possibly need. I also need to try to find a black shirt that will fit for one day. I am NOT buying a overly large shirt for one day. And then it’s test time! As soon as they say pass, I’m okay with this baby arriving. I’m sure everyone else is ready too. I remember when I got to this point with Blue Eyes, I seemed to cry over everything and I was so uncomfortable that I’m sure I made everyone else miserable. :0) We’re at the final countdown though. I’m down to 16 days. It seems so near if you look at the number, but when you wake up to waddle to the bathroom every night, it feels like forever. I can’t wait to reach my toes again, or be able to get down on the floor with Blue Eyes. I can’t wait to be able to put the kids in the stroller and take all of our pups to the park again. Poor dogs, they get exercise but not like they used to. On the nice side, I have had a lot of hobby time since I can’t move around too much. I also get to spend way too much time on pintrest. Oh my goodness are there some hilarious pins about pregnancy! It’s entertaining if nothing else.

Weddings, ER visits and Night-time Games

A good friend of mine got married yesterday. Congrats to her and her husband! She looked so beautiful in her mermaid dress. I went back and forth for a while on if I should wear a maternity dress or the dress I have from before that still zipped. I hated feeling and looking frumpy just because I am pregnant, so I did decide to wear the other dress. The only thing I wish is that it had been a little longer, it was really hard to chase my baby boy while wearing. Without the belly it’s perfectly fine, but not with. :0) It was nice to be around other grown ups, but I’m thinking that next time we will find a sitter for one little boy. I do miss interacting with grown ups without a little boy’s help.

The wedding was on a golf course so it was a little hard on the legs. They had carts ready to shuttle people back and forth with was amazing. I don’t think I could have lasted if they hadn’t. During the ceremony little man was so good until they turned off the music. Then he says really loud “Uh Oh” and started crying. It was funny and embarrassing at the same time. Hubby was amazing about playing with Blue Eyes. They caught a lizard and thought it would be a great thing to show mommy. Unfortunately mommy was at the table and the lizard escaped underneath the table and started to crawl up one of the guests legs. It was hysterically funny, but thankfully it was re-caught very quickly.

Some time down the road poor little blue eyes was chasing his new found friend and took a tumble. After the tumble he would put weight on his foot and collapse. Daddy and I both checked his foot out and he didn’t flinch when we touched it, but something was obviously not right. I felt bad, but we had to hold him for the rest of the little bit we stayed at the wedding. To make it even worse we decided to take him in and even with him screaming bloody murder, they decided to take almost 40 minutes. Thankfully the Doc we really like was on duty and once he got taken back he was seen very quickly. They took some x-rays and for now it looks like it’s just sprained. They said they would have the x-ray tech take a look when they came back in on Monday. My poor little Blue Eyes has bruises all over his foot. It was close to two am by the time we left for home.

Thankfully Blue Eyes slept in today because of it. I think for the first time in his life, he slept till almost 10am. We got a call from his God mama asking if we’d like to see a movie, so Blue Eyes and I scrambled to get dressed and left. He loved the magic scenes of the movie, but the rest of the time he just wanted to run. Thankfully the theater was not very packed and we had about two rows of no people. It was nice just to be out of the house. Little man was ready for a nap when we got back so I got some more time to relax. The rest of the day we played all kinds of games and Blue Eyes found his blankie.

At bedtime he was super ready to go to sleep. He’s gotten to where he’ll lead you to his bed, but sometimes he just doesn’t want to sleep. He took his bottle and went down easily. But I didn’t think to take our older two pups out of the room. I figured they would be happy just to sleep. Sure enough about twenty minutes later, I hear giggling and puppies running about. I cracked the door to see two happy puppies running in circles and one giggling baby chasing them. I put Blue Eyes back to sleep and made the pups leave the room, but I failed to notice Bear had snuck into the room. Again about ten minutes later I hear Blue Eyes and this time Bear is howling over and over. I cracked open the door to find a completely naked Blue Eyes thinking mommy is going to let him get back up. I see Bear sneak out and so I took a minute to re-diaper little man and look for the missing one. Bear loves to hide under the bed, so pushing it out, I see a shredded diaper. I picked up what I could and stuck Bear in his kennel. Blue Eyes cried when I put him back to sleep, but it was now close to 930, way to late for little boys to be up. Tomorrow Daddy is going to have to help me pull out the bed all the way so we can vacuum and carpet clean where the diaper was. Well, now we know, bedtime comes and we must do a through check for puppies before we put Blue Eyes to sleep.

Migraines in Pregnancy.

Sleepy Blue Eyes playing with Uncle’s Shoes

Had another migraine last night. You’d think I’d be used to them by now. It seems like it’s always worse when pregnant though. They monitor little miss thing, which I’m grateful for; but they also wait almost a full hour before they’ll do anything about my migraine. Being as I already took what I could at home, and my head is still pounding, it’s rough to sit there and know you won’t have help for another hour. The good news is little miss has a strong heartbeat and the contractions were just practice ones.
My normal doc was on call last night, so thankfully I didn’t have to fight to get help. He knows my history with migraines. They tried one med and I ended up getting sick and it didn’t do anything. Almost four hours later they were able to figure out that the maternity ward couldn’t get the meds I needed and I had to go downstairs to intensive care. Blue Eyes thought the wheel chair was the greatest thing in the whole world. Thank goodness he was so good. He just played with his chickies with daddy, ate goldfish and watched Cinderella. When they finally got me the right meds, they made sure my headache was on the downside before letting me go.
I really don’t understand why everyone is so scared to treat pregnancy migraines. Especially when I have a history of them, and there is a list of approved treatments in my record. It always takes several hours, but at least they do eventually treat them. I’m looking forward to trying something new after pregnancy. I’ve tried several different preventatives, but unfortunately I’m one of those people who can get a side-effect that makes it so I can’t continue taking the meds. I’ve heard that acupuncture, the chiropractor and botox have all become major break throughs in treatment for migraines. I know they aren’t necessarily traditional methods, but I’m at the point where I’m willing to try. There has to be something healthier than medications and living with constant headaches. I do know that while I was on Herbalife for weight loss, I found that the multi-vitamins helped a lot. I’m not sure what makes them different from other vitamins, but I may have to try it again, see if it really helps. I just didn’t want to risk health while pregnant.
Like I said before, Blue Eyes was a champ. He ran around with daddy in his Dino Hat and made the ladies melt. They loved his little hat and that he ran around roaring. Blue Eyes was even nice enough to come cuddle with me this morning instead of insisting I get up at an early hour. When he did finally wake up, he poked mommies belly and giggled like crazy. His new favorite toy is BIL’s new shoes. He loves to put them on and try to walk around. He’ll tell me bye and head to the door like he thinks he’s going somewhere.
On a happy note? The asthma/allergy doctor finally got approval for a home breathing treatment for Blue Eyes. They should deliver it sometime today. That means I have other options beside midnight runs to the hospital because he’s struggling to breathe. I’m excited to see how this thing works and hopefully it will really help little man. He’s been doing pretty good lately, but I think that’s partly because the weather cooled off (shockingly) and the allergy levels have been at 6.9 instead of 10.2. I never thought I’d have to monitor allergy levels so closely, but if it’s above an 8 I don’t even dare let the cool breeze in. We use air filters and air conditioning. And little man gets kept inside.

Just an Update

I am down to 8 weeks before my test. I should be finishing up school any day now. It’s been hard since finding out Blue Eyes has asthma. We’ve been in and out of the hospital with him, and they started him on allergy shots. I feel terrible but they really do help him. Central California is bad for asthma and I’ve been trying to keep him inside on high allergy days. that’s really hard on a 1 year old, so if anyone has any good ideas for entertaining I’d love to hear them! Especially since I’m getting bigger and it’s harder for me to move around now. Baby girl is due in two months and I do not feel ready at all. I’m grateful to my sister for giving me hand me downs. She always had better taste in clothes than I did. I don’t have to worry about clothes for a while anyways. :0)
So the next 8 weeks will be studying and trying to get ready for the baby. I’m sure my days will be filled with that and Mr. Blue Eyes. I’ve also gotten back into crocheting and I’ve sold a couple little projects. I’m excited about that. I always forget how much I love seeing a completed project go to a good home.

The holidays are chaotic, and it’s all MY FAULT!

 

Everyone agrees the christmas season is one of the most wonderful of the year. There’s something almost magic in the air, and even if you hate snow (like me) you can’t help but be in awe of the crisp chilly mornings. So in all the holiday cheer, how did I let myself get so overwhelmed?

It seems to happen every year. Last year for christmas I was nine months pregnant and just the effort to decorate a tree was exhausting. This year I’m three months pregnant, and the chaos is starting to roll in with the mist. The piles of laundry, the toys on the floor, the dogs tore apart yet another stuffed animal. I found dishes in Mr. Blue Eyes room, apparently the dogs stole them and dragged them in there. The playpen still has traces of kix and you can’t even see my kitchen table.

So taking a deep breath and venting to my hubby more than once, I’m finally calm enough to enjoy the holidays. My house is full of clutter, and the laundry is still folded on my bed, but I feel calmer. Mr. Blue Eyes is enjoying some macaroni while I take a moment for myself.

So what that my hubby isn’t here to help get ready for vacation? I can find peace in packing, for me it’s all a mind change. Instead of rushing around throwing things in a bag, I cuddled with Blue Eyes through a couple cartoons, and loaded the dishwasher. I had to stop to pull out all of Blue Eye’s toys that he snuck in there, but it made me laugh. Then Blue Eyes and I tackled the laundry. He’s figured out how to pull clothes out of the washer, but he hasn’t figured out that mommy wants them there. That resulted in a tickle fest and a giggly baby.

The pups are still asleep, but that’s fine with me. I’m not quite ready for their energy yet. I’m sorry to our house sitter if the house isn’t spotless. I really did try, but I’m not going to let chaos take over my holiday season. It’s time to take things a moment at a time. Maybe Blue Eyes and I will even decorate some cookies or something…

Please leave any chaos free ideas you have. I have trouble relaxing when there is a lot to do.