Amelia Island, FL

Dave and I had a really enjoyable time together this past weekend. The Elizabeth Point Lodge was a wonderful recommendation from a friend. It's right up against the ocean; the area is just a 30 minute drive from Jacksonville airport.

The island is as busy as you want it to be; if you want to golf or do spa outtings or shopping, all of that is available. There is a great 50 block historic district that has some really excellent (and inexpensive) restaurants and neat shops. The whole area pretty much looked like below. I love the spanish moss hanging from the big trees!
We chose to spend most of our time at the beach relaxing. (Having towels and chairs and umbrellas there made packing light and easy too.) The weather was wonderful - sunshine and upper 80s on Friday and 94 on Saturday. Thank goodness for the steady breeze to help cool things off! We even saw dolphins a couple of times each day; they were fairly close to shore. In the picture below, you can see one of them in the water if you look right above the umbrella on the far left.

I even woke up early Saturday morning to watch the sun come up. There's just something about having your morning coffee watching the sun rise over the ocean.... wish I could do that every day!

Pictures

Here's Cori receiving her gymnastic trophy at daycare. Apparently she is very good on the balance beam! (of all things!)Here's Benjamin from this week's ultrasound. He is measuring 3 lbs, 11 oz which is 81st percentile. He is also breech.My blood pressure has been good and I lost 2 lbs, so overall gain is 5 pounds at 30 weeks pregnant. Interesting. The insulin I've been taking has been helping my sugar levels.

Tomorrow we head to the beach at Amelia Island Florida for a brief weekend away - very much looking forward to it!

Clothes sale

Over the weekend I hit up Gymboree in Cranberry for their "box sale". As the employee explained to me, their store gets a lot of product; anything they don't sell, they box up and place into storage. (They don't send it to the outlet as the outlets get their own merchandise.) So this weekend, they pulled out their fall & winter boxes and held a big sale!

Nothing was over $9.99 and you got an extra 30% off, so pretty much everything was less than $7. And everything was sorted - boys on one side of the store, girls on another. AND they had everything sorted by size too - so you could go right to what you wanted to look for. Since it was fall and winter merchandise, I went for the sizes 4 & 5. But I soon found myself also grabbing some larger sizes because the items were priced so well, and the fashion would definitely still be "in" when she fit them... like $2.99 (less 30%) for plain pink leggings in a size 7 - she'll fit them in 2 years no problem!

Anyway, for $80, I was able to get 11 tops / sweaters, 4 pairs of pants, 1 skirt, 2 pairs of leggings, and a pair of pony-tail holders. The check out lines were really long, and the store said they'd be able to hold items until the next day and still honor the prices and discount. (plus you'd still earn Gymbucks!) So I decided to have the stuff held and came back today. When I went back I was also able to sign up for advanced notice of their next box sale. So if you're interested, leave me a comment and I'll be sure to let you know too!

Gestational Diabetes update

It's been a week since I met with the dietitian and started my modified diet for the gestational diabetes. While I do miss some of the sugar I used to freely have, what is more annoying is the glucose monitoring. It isn't very convenient to have to schedule when I eat and then be available an hour afterwards to test. Sometimes I have work meetings or am out grocery shopping, etc. The numbers haven't been that bad - my fasting levels are a little high and so was breakfast, but they'd be fine for lunch & dinner. Oddly enough, the more sugar / carbs I have, the lower my numbers. What can I say - I'm an anomaly!

Today I met with a fetal specialist to go over the numbers and talk about what will happen next. Basically they want me to start on insulin at night to help with the morning numbers. Right now I'll just continue with my modified diet and watching my numbers. In the next few weeks, I'll need some more ultrasounds to monitor the baby's growth. Then around 35 weeks, I'll begin non-stress tests 2x a week just to check on his activity. They will not let me go past 39 weeks, and if things start to get "worse" (high blood pressure, large baby weight, bad sugar numbers) they will do an amnio to check on lung maturity and then induce labor (which may be a c-section depending on baby's weight). But it's all a waiting game at this point because we can't predict how things will turn out. I'm fine now, and so is baby, so that is good.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go prick my finger again and test my levels....

Three Generations

Happy Mother's day!

Never judge a book by it's cover

I was a bit worried when the person I hired to finish the swing set installation came to our front door today. He was 90 minutes late (said he forgot that he had to take his son to work and didn't bring my number with him). And he had a lite cigarette with him and looked like he was a long time member of Hell's Angels or something....

BUT not even 5 hours later we had the finished product.... plus he corrected the multiple breaks in the beams without complaint or extra charge!

As a side note, I think I've discovered that I'm allergic to goldenrod. Our back acre is covered with it; while it looks beautiful, I'm a bit tired of sneezing blood and coughing up a lung daily for the past week.

Feeling low

It would be an understatement to say that it's been a rough week. I'm feeling really over-whelmed and a bit down. I'm sure that part of it is "hormones" but I have to say that most of it is situational and all the bad news that happened this week. It's definitely starting out to be a not-so-happy third trimester....

Right now I'm most down about being diagnosed with gestational diabetes. This is a condition of high blood sugar that occurs only in pregnant women and usually goes away once the baby is born. It's due to the large amount of hormones I'm making now that help the baby grow. The hormones make it hard for insulin to work the way it normally should. Right now my pancreas(which is the organ that makes the insulin) is working 3x as hard as a non-pregnant person's. And it's struggling to keep up. (My fasting glucose level was actually really good.)

So what happens now is that I have to meet with a maternal fetal specialist at Magee who will place me on a very strict diet. Apparently on the menu are a whopping choice of meat, some veggies (gag - pregnancy aversion), peanut butter and string cheese. Kiss everything else good bye. Basically I'm going to starve the last 3 months I'm pregnant. Oh, and I get to prick my finger 4x a day and take my glucose readings and fax them to the Magee specialist who gets to see if I'm"normal" or if I have to go on insulin. Which at this point I'd rather do... I'm used to the shots thanks to IVF and I'd rather give myself a shot than prick my finger 4x a day.

High up second on the list is news we got about my father-in-law. We found out that he can't be around the kids for 6 weeks after they receive a vaccine. Since the vaccine is a live virus, when his white blood count is so low, there is a high chance that he can contract that virus. Thus the 6 week isolation from the kids. Which I understand, and of course I want him to be well and safe. But considering that Ben will get a shot in the hospital, and then at 2 months, and then every month there after (I spread out the shots), this means that grandfather and grandson may not meet for a very long time. Which just makes me sad.

The day I found out about the gestational diabetes, I came home to find that the play set that we spent so much money and time trying to assemble... well, thanks to the high winds we had, it blew over and cracked. Time and money aside (which is still hard to swallow) we have so much going on during the upcoming weekends that repairing it and finishing it on our own is out of the question. Thinking about it literally makes me want to cry.

Work has sucked this week, and Cori has been extra whiny. Finances are extra tight. We were hoping drop down to 2 days a week for daycare and now it looks like we may have to jump up to 4 days a week. I'm tired. Scratch that - exhausted. This kid is beating the punching the hell out of me. And I'm experiencing a bunch of other not-so-pleasant pregnancy symptoms that would be TMI for here but they all suck. I can't drink and now chocolate is off the menu. I just feel really low.

Easter princess

While Corinne does look beautiful, I'm not sure if I'd recommend a silk dress to any other toddler moms! (If it wasn't a hand-me-down I most likely wouldn't have purchased it myself)

what a week....

It's been an exhausting week. I was in my second favorite city - Denver - for a few days this week on business. I really do love it there! Amazingly, when I was inside the airport, I bumped into a very good friend of mine who lives in Los Angeles! What good luck to see my friend Jen since I've not seen her in a year & a half.

Something that I did learn along the trip is that I'm suddenly feeling very pregnant physically. I dropped my book mark on the plane and spent a good portion of the 3 hr flight trying to retrieve it. I just can't bend and reach like I used to be able to! 12 more weeks to go, and I guess this is normal, but it's somewhat disheartening. I guess I just forgot about this part from last time?

I'm really tired as of late, and sleep is starting to get not so good. I can't seem to get comfortable. Plus I learned I failed my 1 hr glucose tolerance test; tomorrow I'm supposed to take the 3 hr one, and am not looking forward to chugging extra sugary disgusting syrup on an empty stomach and then getting blood taken repeatedly. I'm a really hard stick when it comes to giving blood and without any fluid in me to plump up my veins, this is going to be extra painful.

Not sure if we've announced officially too, but baby's name will be Benjamin Robert.

Happy news to wrap up this post - my father in law came home from the hospital today after his first round of chemo. He tolerated it very well during the entire week. His WBC numbers aren't coming down as fast as they'd like, but we are still very hopeful. We did learn that his diagnosis changed yet again (thankfully his prognosis is still very positive). Apparently Bob has mantel cell lymphoma. He had cancer in his lymph nodes for a while unknowingly; it broke through all the layers and released into his blood stream, which is how he got the leukemia (cancer of the blood). It is going to require massive lifestyle changes over the next 6-12 months while he recovers, but most importantly is that he is being treated for it. Thank you to everyone who has been asking about him and praying for him!! Please keep it up!

overall update

It's been a busy weekend here as Dave assembled the swing set in pretty much awful rain & windy weather. Special thanks to our friends Mike on Saturday and Matt on Sunday for helping out. We made it through step 39 of 57 (no exaggeration) and are hopeful that some work this week and finishing up on Saturday will allow us to be totally done. Otherwise we'll never get it moved from the driveway and inside of the garage!

My father-in-law starts his chemo tomorrow. I'm so nervous for him; he feels perfectly fine right now but I know he is going to feel like sh*t shortly. The doctors initially diagnosed him with CLL but it turns out that he has CML - chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. Basically a different white blood cell is the culprit.

But CML has a much higher risk of returning so they are much more aggressive in it's treatment. Thus the 7-10 day stint in the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, and the probable harvesting of bone marrow stem cells once his treatment is done. Basically he will undergo a week of chemo in the hospital then have 2 weeks off to recover, then go back into the hospital for another week of chemo, 2 weeks off, rinse & repeat for about 5 sessions total. He has to stay in the hospital because the chemo cocktail he is on is so severe that they need to watch that his organs don't shut down, and the risk of infection is so great.

We're looking into the possibility of switching from publicly donating our baby's cord blood & stem cells to privately banking them for future use for our father in law. If his oncologist says it would help, we'll shell out the few thousand dollars without a blink of the eye. I've been putting my genetics hat back on since all this has happened, and it's super interesting to me as 95%+ of patients with CML have a genetic mutation between chromosomes 9 & 22. (It's called the Philadelphia gene if you want to google it for your own geeky enjoyment.)

Fortunately it's an acquired mutation meaning it happened somewhere along his lifetime; he wasn't born with it, and thus can't pass it down to his children in the germ cells. All the juicy science details have made me miss science so much again and made me realize how much knowledge I've lost from not using it. I used to do cancer research at Pitt; some days lately I feel like my knowledge levels are all about toddler behavior & the Wonder Pets.

The nursery is pretty much done with the exception that I need to get an end table to next to the rocker. Poor second child, already suffering at my lack of effort this time around. Funny how you can pour your heart and soul into the whole nursery thing the first time around (as well as other things) and then when it comes back around again, you realize that you don't need to go all crazy. Pictures as requested:

Happy birthday weekend to my dear husband who is in his 40's, from your trophy wife who is still in her 30's! :)

I'm late in mentioning (as April is mid way through already) that April is national infertility awareness month. And it's been 4 years (as of April 9th) since we lost our twins. A friend of mine also experienced a late 1st trimester loss around the same date this year, which made sad news slightly more so. So please keep in mind & prayer all the women and men who struggle with wanting a child so much and not being able to have that child so easily.

I'm off to Denver again this week. And I'm entering my 3rd trimester with 5 lbs gained total, good pressure and only mild swelling. Thank you God!

6th month

Sometimes it feels like time passes slowly in this pregnancy, and other times it goes by fast. I'm now in my 6th month and have 15 weeks left. At times it feels like the end can't come fast enough. While my blood pressure and weight have been good, I'm starting to succumb to a lot of the "minor" things like my back aching, swollen feet and carpel tunnel. This morning my right hand and lower arm were numb for a few hours. I didn't think this happened this early when I was pregnant with Corinne, but apparently some of it did. (Thank goodness for blogging as I can't remember what happened a few days ago let alone years ago!) And the whole "not gaining weight" thing - HA! I feel like I've now exploded out now. Thursday's OB appointment will tell the tale. I also wanted to take a minute to publicly thank my friends Sara and Robyn who so generously donated their baby boy clothes to me. THANK YOU!!!! We spent a few days last week going through everything they gave us (along with the gender neutral stuff I have from Corinne). It's unbelievable the amount of clothes we have!! I had to clear out items in the closet and dresser to fit the clothes we have and they still do not all fit. I need to figure out where we're going to put everything. Not exaggerating, this little boy can crap himself 3x a day and need 4 outfits a day and won't wear the same thing for months and months. We have enough clothes under 9 months that I don't plan to buy a single thing. I actually need to tell one friend to not loan me the boy clothes she was going to because I don't need them. I hope it doesn't sound ungrateful, but we really don't need any clothes under 9 months for this little one. I know that people will do what they want to do, and that is fine, but I worry that we won't get to wear things on him at this rate.

Sat at the Zoo

Saturday we went to the zoo; while the weather was initially a little chilly, it turned out to be a perfect day to visit the animals. They don't care for it too hot (I totally agree!) and when you go early, they are more active. Here are the three Amur tiger cubs playing with their mama and each other. The cubs are huge for 7 months young. When we left 4 hours later, they were all just laying there sleeping. Trust me - go early!

The tigers were right up against the viewing window which was really cool to see. Cori said "They're gonna get me!" and it was a bit awesome to be so close to them, even if separated by glass. We also got to see feeding time for the penguins. It was really neat and Cori loved it.

Look at that expression of happiness! Cori's favorite is always the fish though...

The sea lions were as playful as ever, and no crowds made for easy viewing up close.

As you can see from the smile, Cori had an awesome time. She was zonked out in the car not even 2 minutes after we left the parking lot. We can't wait to go back!

An Enemy Returns

Recently we got some news that threw us for a loop; an old enemy returned and hit closer to home. My father in law Bob (who is THE very best father in law in the world) was diagnosed with leukemia. He was feeling fine. An annual physical and blood work showed that his white blood count was very high. A normal person's WBC (white blood count) is between 4,000 - 9,000. Bob's was 134,000.

That number alone would put him into the moderate to advanced stages. When someones WBC is double what it should be & they are diagnosed with leukemia, they don't do anything. But with numbers this much higher, rounds of chemo are ahead. Fortunately today we got some good news that the CAT scan showed normal lymph nodes.

Bob's specific diagnosis is chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). His prognosis is good once the chemo is completed. We are hopeful and praying none the less. As I mentioned, leukemia is an old enemy. Readers may recall back in 2007 that my friend Karen lost her husband Joe to leukemia. We participated in the Light the Night walk which raised money for leukemia research. I plan to do the same this October.

We appreciate any prayers and good thoughts you can send to Bob. He is doing well physically and mentally right now, but we know the road ahead will be rough. And please let Bob's story be a reminder to you that regular physicals & blood work just may save your life! Please see your doctor!

Welcome Spring!

I have to say that for the first full day of spring, it was pretty awesome outside today. Actually we were lucky enough to have really nice weather for the past 4 days in a row! Lots of sunshine and warmer weather. Which has meant lots of walks, playing outside at school, and daily trips to the playground. The fresh air and the activity have done wonders for Corinne and it's been a nice change of pace for us too.

Tonight we walked around the neighborhood for a while and met some neighbors. Everyone seems really nice, and there are a TON of kids in our plan. It's nice because there are about 60 (of 66 total) homes so it's not too small but not overwhelming. Most of the kids are younger too - kindergarten age or less, so that is perfect for making friends. (No doubt it will spell trouble in about 10 years or so, but we'll handle that then....) And I was invited to the development's book club which was nice.

This past weekend we also visited my mom for an early birthday dinner which was really delicious. Cori helped me blow out the candles and ate a ton of icing (which she calls "cake") and it was pretty funny.

Sleep training has been going much smoother (knock-on-wood). Without wanting to jinx it, that's all I am going to say. But it's been much better / smoother and Cori sleeps through the night until morning without waking which is wonderful.

I've been having some pregnancy insomnia and am starting to get uncomfortable sleeping. I can't seem to find a good position. Plus baby boy just keeps punching away at me most actively at night. And I'm starting to experience some minor swelling in my feet and aching in my lower back. It feels too early for this to be happening but I guess my body has other ideas!

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!

Corinne is a European "mutt" thanks to the background of her parents - Slovak, Hungarian and Polish from her Mom and German, French and English from her Dad. Oh, and I can't forget the 2.5% Native American from her father's side. She isn't Irish in the least. But we still wish "A St. Patrick's Day Blessing Upon You".

Sleep has been a little better the past 2 nights. She shows some anxiety at the end of our bed time routine. It's like she knows what is coming (us leaving) and she's taken to stalling - asking for more book stories, extra hugs, etc. I feel badly that she is anxious but am really trying to project a calm, loving attitude to her during the time. We tell her we'll check in on her in a few minutes, and we do. I know with Ferber you only go in after set times when the child continues to fuss, but it seems that Cori is comforted to see one of us check in after 5 minutes or so. We don't go through the gate (thankfully she has stopped opening it and throwing things) but just tell her we love her and we'll be back, go to sleep, etc.

It only takes about 12-15 minutes and she is asleep. And she's been sleeping through the night straight. She will wake up and fuss but has been able to put herself back to sleep right away. Last night a bad dream woke her up as I heard her say over the monitor "I want to go home!"but it was quiet again within a minute. We'll see how tonight goes as she only napped 30 minutes at day care today.

Sleep Training Update

Apparently I made the mistake of saying how well sleep training was going because it came back to bite me in the butt. While Monday was awful, and Tuesday & Wednesday were great, Thursday and Friday were back to not good. They weren't awful, but they weren't great either.

Saturday Corinne was at Um-ma's house, so we can't count that night. Tonight, as I type, I'm listening to her scream again like Monday night. Another awful night. I actually think this might be worse. AND she keeps opening the baby gate; if this keeps up, we're going to have to shut her door and start locking it from the outside somehow, which will scare her to death.

I knew this wasn't going to be easy, but this absolutely sucks. What the hell do I do now?

Halfway

Today marks the official half way point of the pregnancy - 20 weeks down, 20 weeks to go. I'm feeling good for the most part aside from some out of the blue nausea and occasional insomnia. I'm still down 10 pounds from before I got pregnant, but I'm not sure how much longer that will last. Here's a "belly shot" from this morning - I actually think I look more pregnant in the shot than I do in real life. I still have co-workers who tell me they had zero idea I was pregnant as I don't look it at all. Here's a comparison shot of 20 weeks pregnant with Cori (in which I gained 40+ pounds over all).
Yesterday my OB put me on pelvic bed rest because the placenta is covering the cervix. This is cause for increased risk of bleeding and premature labor should any stress be applied to or, um, inserted into the area. There is a chance that the placenta will move away from the cervix as it grows, but in my case, it started out fine and is kind of growing "downward". I know this because it happened with Cori's pregnancy (it's fairly common) and resolved itself by 20 weeks. Now I'm in the opposite case.... it started out fine but is going the wrong way. The important part is that the baby is fine, and I'll have another ultrasound in 10 weeks to see if it changed. Worst case scenario - I stay on pelvic bed rest and have to have a scheduled c-section.

But today has been a fun day - I found out that I got a really, really nice bonus from work for the work I did last year. It will afford us the ability to get Cori a nice swing set for the back yard. I'm leaning towards one of these two:

The first one is at Costco, but Cori has always been afraid of covered slides. It looks really well constructed though and I think would be fun.

The second one is at Toys R Us - this would allow me to buy gift cards at Giant Eagle and earn some big time fuel perks!! No covered slide to worry about, and has a nice sand box area which would be fun, but do I really want to have an uncovered large sand area for wild animals to do their business in?? I'd have to find a way to cover it.

We also started up sleep training this week. While Monday was horrible (is there a stronger acronym for horrible??) - full of tears and screaming and distress - the past two nights have been a complete 180 degree difference. Last night even Cori didn't make a single whimper or tear when we tucked her in and left. We've been leaving her door open with the baby gate preventing her from exiting her room, and the hall light is on low and I think that is the big difference. It seems to really comfort her. I just know I am super thankful that it's been going better, and I hope it continues that way. It makes both of us very happy.

Speaking of happy, tomorrow I'll be a puddle of happiness. I am having a spa day with my friend Sara. 2 hr massage, spa lunch, manicure and pedicure. And some much needed girl time - I can't wait. I'll be trying out a new spa near my house (well, new to me) called Osiris Wellness, so I can't wait to report back!

Meet our son!

That's right - it's a boy! It's been 24 hours since we found out and I'm still getting used to the idea, as much as I suspected it. Most importantly, he is healthy and growing well. He was moving and grooving around in there a lot. The tech kept asking him to slow down so she could get his measurements; he already doesn't listen! (which is fine, as long as he sleeps!!) Heart rate was 136 bpm.

I'm a bit worried since Cori really wanted a little sister so much. I'm hoping she will bond just as well with her little bro. We showed the ultrasound picture to her yesterday and told her it was her little brother. She replied "No, that's a doggie!" Ha ha - kids!

Now comes the hard part - names. Dave and I are pretty much worlds apart. We had decided on Benjamin Robert when we were pregnant with Corinne. Since then, I've gotten a really weird fear that people will call him "Big Ben", and since we live in Pittsburgh... And it isn't really the whole controversy about Ben Rothelisburger the Quarterback. It's more that calling our son "Big Ben" sounds really "Yinzerish" to me - esp living in Pittsburgh. Like, why not just call him IC Light or Primantis? And as much as it would drive me crazy, I'm not sure I'd be able to possess the stones to tell someone "please don't call him that - his name is Ben" etc. But I hate nicknames that people give to others, especially when the person may not be old enough to say "please don't call me that" etc.

I know it will all work out fine in the end. We're trying to explore other male name options, but I suspect that we'll end up using Benjamin since that is really the only name we can agree on. We shall see.

In the mean time, I've gone through 18 bins of Cori's clothes to put out all the gender neutral stuff. I cannot believe all the clothes that girl had!! Next up on the "to do" list is to finish setting up the nursery.

Welcome March

Thank goodness February is over!

That is all (for now)