Seriously Over Due

I apologize in advance for the random scatteredness of this post. My mind is scattered right now so it's a good reflection! ok, so where did we leave off? My days and weeks and insanely long pregnancy are all running together. Right now I'm 41 weeks and 4 days pregnant but hey it's almost midnight so lets be honest I'm gonna make it to 41 & 5, and can I honestly tell you I NEVER thought I'd be THIS pregnant?!? I hate to say it but I still feel ok physically but mentally/emotionally I'm sorta loosing it.

Thursday was my 41 week appointment and Jared came with me for moral support. I was still only 1cm dilated and my OB did another membrane sweep which incase you hadn't deduced did NOTHING! She offered to do a c-section the next day (they can't do a standard induction because I've had 2 previous c-sections) but Jared and I agreed before we ever went in that because there is already a mass which could potentially hinder her breathing we want to give her lungs as much time as possible to develop as possible. Since we weren't on board with a next day surgery they kept me for a Non Stress Test. It was pretty boring, and gave Jared and I a chance to breath and discuss more what we wanted to do with this labor/delivery.

 After everything was given the all clear, we discussed when this little one would need to join us. I trust my OB and love that she takes into account my research, knowledge of my own body, hopes for the birth, and explains things from all sides so that we can make an informed decision together. Like I said Jared and I agreed that we wanted to allow this little bit to stay in as long as possible to which we discussed the risks of going past 40 and 41 weeks gestation, and that she was still ok with me trying to VBAC if I went into labor naturally, but that we can't medically induce because I've had previous c-sections, and it's just not safe to force unnaturally strong contractions with synthetic drugs on a uterus that has been previously opened (twice). We compromised and agreed for an extra ultrasound to check on the baby one more time.

In the mean time the girls' and I have done lots of walking, parks, the neighborhood, malls. I've been drinking weird teas, eating absurd amounts of pineapple and dates (look it up) and just about every other old wives tale there is to try to induce labor (except drink castor oil-I'm a little nervous about that one) The girls have enjoyed all the outings, and we even threw in a drive in movie this weekend to ease the constant activity. There was a double feature of Zootopia and Kung-Fu Panda 3 and with too many snacks was still only $20 for the whole family! STEAL!

A few laps around the gardens at Opry 

my little family and at least a dozen pillows in the back of the van at the drive in

Well This morning was a follow up ultrasound to check on our little girl. We all went as a family, the girls thought it was pretty cool to see their little sister on the inside of me and it was a basic, short ultrasound so I knew they could handle it. The tech we had was not the best, she didn't check as much  of the fun little stuff and was less informative than the others we've had. The mass is still there, but fluid levels look good still and blood flow from the placenta through umbilical cord was healthy. She took a practice breath almost right away which is a good sign and her heart rate was good. So with my doctors blessing I was allowed to leave and stay pregnant till at most Friday.

I'm scheduled for a c-section friday morning if I don't go into labor before then. So my sweet little family spent the day (seriously 6+ hours) walking with me so that maybe this little lady would come out. We hit a few stores, walked laps around a mall and then decided to join costco so we could walk laps there. The girls were TROOPERS and it made it SOOO much easier that Jared was with us. I had a few hours of contractions but after sitting down for dinner and then taking a short bath they've tapered off and here we are.

Right now I'm trying to wrap my head around potentially having to have a c-section simply because my body won't go into labor for one reason or another. It's easier to swallow after trying to labor or because your not medically allowed to labor but being cleared to VBAC and trying to go into labor and not is tough!

Her diaper bag is packed, although we may not get to bring her home from the hospital right away if she needs emergent surgery (which we are prepared to hear) My hospital bag is packed except the last minute toiletries, Hospital snacks are in the van, Stupid high tech baby monitor arrived today, and we put all the final touches on the nursery this weekend.

We're ready in every way possible.

Balance

Balance y'all...I'm not finding it!

I have been so blessed this pregnancy. Save a little scare early on with a short stint on bed rest, this pregnancy has been great. I've felt wonderful, been able to eat whatever I want, (and more) and genuinely my only pregnancy symptom minus the shrinking wasteline is that I'm tired.

Life has finally started to slow down after the roller coaster that was summer! We feel settled into the house, most of the unpacking is done, we're calling a hiatus on all things house until after the new year when we plan to tackle the nursery and a few organizational things we'd like done before baby.

We're figuring out (slowly) a new house schedule (wood floors need to be cleaned A LOT), gifting the girls' swiffer dusters has been major help and letting the dogs enjoy the huge back yard! Homeschooling is going well. I've loved tutoring Addiston's Kindergarten class this semester and we're doing well with staying on track at home. Addiston is starting to read which for me is a double edged sword. The girl is a bookworm and would happily sit and let me read to her for HOURS every single day, which I love. So I'm thrilled that she is picking up some more on her own especially after we had a small stint of stubbornness and she decided she didn't want to read, but now that it's clicking I'm a little sad to see her grow up just a little more.

Jared's new job schedule still has us all confused. He works mostly 9:30-6:30 which is hard on the girls. By the time he gets home we have dinner and then start getting ready for bed. We do get to eat breakfast and dinner everyday as a family and I'm really enjoying this season of sitting and just chatting with the girls over meals before the new one arrives and we're distracted by crying and nursing schedules and lack of sleep. The girls miss having more play time with their dad, so we're trying to be intentional about carving out more weekend time as opposed to doing chores and running errands.

For the most part thats it in life right now. I'm in bed shortly after the girls every night, so Jared's getting in some reading, video games, and helping with dishes or laundry that I have left over from the day. But we're lucky to get in a run down of the day, much less a long talk. Luckily we have 2 date nights scheduled this month so we should get to catch up there, and we're taking a birthing class on saturdays, so long drives are anticipated!  I've text a few friends here and there but pretty much unless I see people at church or our homeschool community day I've been MIA to just about every relationship I have :(

Last Month our college friends came to stay for a long weekend and oh my word the sweetness of 5 little girls playing!

(Praise the Lord for having someone who REALLY gets it!)

Jared and Jesse were college roommates, Amber and I hit it off first semester of Freshman year. We were married within months of each other and had our first 2 (4?) children in the same seasons, we are now embarking on homeschooling together and are all food hippies. A decade of friendship in and we laugh at how much life we've done together and how in a few short months we will have 6 daughters between us!


Last week we went to dinner with dear friends to find out that they are having a girl less than 1 month after we are. I'm so glad for a friend to do pregnancy with and a built in friend for our little girl!

I know there are seasons in life and I'm glad things are running smoothly for our family and household but being an pregnancy-exhausted extrovert is hard. When you yearn to go to dinner with friends, or sit and catch up over coffee but really all you want to do is sleep, your mind and body are at odds with each other! I'm hoping I get a small spurt of energy before this third little girl arrives to catch up with some friends and family over the holidays. In the mean time I'm clinging to forced outings and pop-in visitors!

12 weeks

After 4 agonizingly long weeks of bed rest I ventured back to the doctor. I had spent too much time googling. Asked everyone who knew about the pregnancy to be in prayer for the SCH to heal, and lost too much sleep stressing about it. All while attempting to talk Jared through getting the house ready for us to move.

First thing I had my early glucose test.
I had gestational diabetes with Addiston and for each subsequent pregnancy they like to test me at 12 weeks that way if I do test positive for Gestational Diabetes I can start a special diet early and insulin if needed. It was 8 am I had been too nervous to eat breakfast and that sugary orange drink tasted nothing like the coffee I wanted. I completed my task and settled into reading the new Harper Lee novel. Finished my bloodwork and was passed off to Ultrasound.

I was able to spot the heartbeat myself, it was strong at 167. (old wives tales predict thats a girl)
Little one was bouncing around all over the place. Probably from that pure sugar drink I had just chugged.

After a thorough search and a few tears of joy the nurse practitioner (my OB had been called in to deliver a baby) confirmed that the SCH was nowhere to be found. I was released from bed rest and told as all pregnant women are "take it easy"

The next day we traveled to Cincinnati for my sweet grandmothers 93rd Birthday, at which we announced to my side of the family that we were going to round out the grandkids and make it an even dozen.


(Oh, and I passed my glucose test. No finger pricking for me this time!)

9 months

Today starts my ninth month of Pregnancy. I'm measuring a week smaller than I should be but I've held steady on weight gain and measurements this whole pregnancy so the doctors aren't worried. Here's a brief overview of this pregnancy.


4 months


5 months


6 months


7 months


8 months


9 months

In just 27 short days we will have another baby, and officially be a family of four.  I'm excited to meet our new little one, I wonder if she'll look like Addiston or have her own unique style and I can't wait to see what Addy thinks of her.

False Alarm

This past weekend we decided it was a good idea to make the 8 hour trek to Ohio. Leaving Thursday afternoon we ventured to Cincinnati where we had a layover at my parents house and I got my fill of Cincinnati food that I had been craving. Friday morning I got to go wedding dress shopping with my big sister, and while I can't post a picture (because those sorts of things are suppose to be a surprise) her dress is beautiful! Friday afternoon we continued our venture to Jared's family.



Saturday afternoon was Kara's (Jared's sister) Bridal shower. A ton of people came out, and she got a lot of really nice things!



I may have overdone it with the shopping and shower helping because towards the end of the shower I started to have contractions. I have had these a few times so I more or less ignored them and continued doing whatever I wanted. Oops! Probably not the best idea, because my contractions continued and got stronger and closer together. After 6 hours Jared and I decided it was time to throw in the towel and after a call to my doctor and consulting some of my mom friends we headed home.

Hoping to make it the whole 8 hour trip Jared stocked up on sunflower seeds, coffee and some strange sort of energy drink (the one that promotes his favorite video game) after about 2 1/2 hours in the car I turned on the heated seat and as luck would have it that helped slow my contractions. 90 minutes later we felt safe enough to stop at my parents house for some rest.

Sunday morning we headed South and when we finally arrived home I was still having contractions, not regular but still pretty strong, some friends came over to watch Addiston so we could both go to the hospital per my doctors advice.



After a few hours and a few tests, we were told I needed to take it easy and that a 16 hour road trip at 35 weeks pregnant probably wasn't my best idea! I'm doing much better now, still the occasional reminder that I'm carrying another human around and need to slow down but in our panic of Isabella joining us early we did get a few things done!

Mothers Day

Once again it's been too long since I've posted!
This pregnancy has seemed more exhausting than my pregnancy with Addiston, which really isn't surprising considering I spend most of my time chasing her and not resting! The hardest part of this pregnancy of lately has been craving food that I was raised on. Jared says that Cincinnati is like a food cult, we have Skyline, LaRosa's, Grippo's, Frische's, and other "northern" foods. I wanted a steak hoagie the other night, called a few places and went in one, no body in the south has even heard of a steak hoagie! You can't get goetta her to save your life-nobody knows what that is either (it's a breakfast dish) and legit skyline chili is out of the question! At least I can get that in cans, it's not exact but it beats a blank.

We've been crossing lots of things off of the "get-done-before-we-have-another-baby" list which has taken up most of our free time. We've taken several car loads to good will trying to clear out space for the new little one and we're well underway on her room, my dad should be coming down soon to finish up the painting (he's a pro-so we figured we'd let him do it) and then all that's left is putting it all together.
We have officially decided to name Baby Girl #2 Isabella Grace Miller. Both of Jared's grandmothers names are Ella and we wanted to incorporate their name into our little one's name. No we are not insane closet Twilight fans, we just like the name! And Grace has always been one of my favorite middle names. Addiston is so sweet trying to say Isabella, the Isa never comes out but the Bella part always does, and in the process she looks as if she's going to vomit, sticking her tongue out all the way while saying bell. It's so funny, we laugh every time we ask her what her little sister's name is.

On Fridays I have a Mom's group that I attend at our church, this was our last meeting before summer and instead of having a formal meeting we decided to drop our kids off at church and head out to get pedicures for mothers day. I'm so grateful to have these women in my life. Most of them have more children than I and older children. They have been through the same sicknesses, trials, and are such a comfort in my life. Addiston had become friends with many of their kids and asks to play with them on a regular basis. Most of the time we find this sweet, but when she was asking for a little boy names Gavin "davin" the other night at chick-fil-a Jared decided she's too young to play with boys.
Addiston is doing quite well potty training, we ask her to sit on her big girl potty every time we need to change her diaper and are using cloth diapers more often so she can tell when she's wet. She always tries to go only is successful about 50% of the time but hey she's only 23 months and is doing great, so we're happy.

Our sweet friend Nathan, who I've mentioned before, got engaged two weeks ago, and asked Addiston to be his flower girl, luckily she's got a while before the big day. Addiston LOVES Nathan, and will have her aunt Kara's wedding under her belt so I'm sure she'll do great.

We're in a great routine right now, Addiston's super playful and we have a great balance between her playing with us and playing by herself. Her favorite thing to do is still read but swinging is a close second. We try and go on walks in the evening when the weather is good or we don't have plans and she loves those.

I had my 28 week appointment and learned that I do NOT have gestational diabetes this pregnancy! Hooray! I was told that I had a very high chance of having them this time so I was shocked when the nurse called and told me I didn't, I am however anemic, so I need to take an iron supplement, so no big struggle here.

In other news one of my best friends came to visit a few weeks ago from Virginia and it was so good to spend some time with my dear Kari, she gave me a book "heaven is for real" and somehow I found the time to read it in two days, it was so sweet, and I loved that she told me that I'm going to have an entourage waiting for me in heaven. Today ironically enough would have been the due date of the baby that we miscarried last fall. It was strange to see in on the calendar, but Jared made this mother's day so special for me and Isabella has been doing summersaults all afternoon, reminding me that I indeed have another miracle growing inside me. Addiston actually telling me Happy Mother's Day and saying "love you mama" was the sweetest thing I ever could have asked for, but her daddy got me spa certificate and a new make-up mirror just in case her sweet blessings didn't cut it.
Yesterday I was a wedding coordinator to another friend Lindsay, she was a beautiful bride and the whole day went smoothly even with a few scattered showers. Her photographer offered me a job at the company she and her husband own as a part time wedding planner/coordinator, so who knows maybe I'll go to a few weddings before this baby is born and put my OCD tendencies to good use!
Well it's a little girls bed time and she's trying to lick the ice cream on her pajamas, so I think I'll go cuddle a bit before I crash myself!

We meet again

ok I know its been a long time since my last post, sorry, I'm pregnant, I was insanely ill, yada yada yada, we've all got our excuses. My sister-in-law ever so subtly facebooked me and; anyhow, I'm here now and because of the current state of my house and my life am unsure as to when my next post will be, so I'll just catch ya up on all the recent details of our lives!

First and most importantly...It's a Girl!



Our dear friends Jared and Sarah Jo threw us a gender reveal party, where we revealed to everyone that baby Miller #2 is a Girl. I'm thrilled! There was a slew of food that I was able to eat: rice, tater-tots, cottage cheese, pancakes. I ate more that night than I had in the last 20 weeks, then I got sick the next morning! I as every mother in the world would say would have been happy with either sex but I semi-secretly wanted another girl.



Our girls will be born in the same season of the year so we can do hand-me-downs and save a little cash. They will exactly be two years, one month and one week apart. I know this because we opted to schedule a c-section for this pregnancy. So on July 18th 2012 we will officially be a family of 4!



My Feburary gift came in the form of a trip to a friends house where I sat in a living room and held her sweet new girl, twenty-seven hours old, and studied her features, ran my fingers over the cowlick of silky hair that hugged her perfect head, and inhaled the rare opportunity to experience the miracle of really new life. I speak fluent newborn, you know. And I could have sat in that room holding that baby Nora all day.



Other than that you missed:

A visit from Grandpa


St Patricks day (green food and clothes)


Somebody's getting curls!


She is going to be a flower-girl this summer


I was giving myself a pedicure one afternoon during Addiston's nap and when she woke up wanted to match mama, after one foot she spased out and refused to let me near her with a polish brush. Oh we she can rock the one foot pink look!


She loves afternoons out with mama




and had her first tea party with a friend.


Jared built me a table for valentines day!

we've always done homemade gifts for V-day and this year I was sick and slacked off and made him a glorified card and he went all out! (gotta love those amish roots)

Progress:


I started to eat normal food about 20 weeks and have finally started to gain weight! I'm not going to be frequenting any chinese buffets any time soon but I'm content with my normal american meat and potatoes. My doctor is happy with the progress I've made but I have some catching up to do, I'm still about 5 pounds behind where I should be. The baby is measuring about a week smaller than she should be but shocker Addiston is barely on the charts and I'm not exactly going out for the WNBA any time soon so no worries there.

Life continues to race by, we're been getting the house ready for the new little one and spring cleaning/lawn sprucing all month. The weather has been beautiful and I'm really liking that the Month of March was more like summer than winter Thanks Nashville.

Pregnant

Sorry it's been so long since I've had the chance to post, as many of you know by now we are expecting!

We are thrilled beyond imagination and have been trying to wrap our heads around everything that has been happening. We were hesitant to share our news too quickly because of my miscarriage a few months ago but were finally able to go public a couple of weeks ago after we completed the first trimester! I am 14 weeks pregnant, due July 25, 2012.

Around 8 weeks I was diagnosed with hyperemesis which is basically morning sickness of the devil! I've been on zofran ever since and while that helps me eat and retain nutrients it carries with it migraines and drowsiness as if being pregnant didn't cause enough exhaustion! Ha! I have been SLOWLY getting better, timing my meals, learning what I can tolerate and trying to sleep as much as possible! My sweet husband has done most of the laundry for the last two months and I'm so thankful that the whole family is perfectly content eating cereal for dinner multiple nights a week!

I promise to come back more as I regain some energy, for now I just ask you to pray that the hyperemesis fades quickly (it usually lasts about 20 weeks) I'll leave you with some pictures of what you've missed!


Addiston Enjoying the tree, and our family Christmas photo.


Addiston in her first Christmas performance!


My grandma helping her open a "special present"


My Grandma's reaction!


Reading her new book!


Opening Presents at my parents.


Enjoying her favorite toy of the season-A new slide!


The Miller family finding out the big news (#1 Sister ornament)


Jared's family visit-Breakfast at Loveless Cafe


Riding the antique carousel with Grandpa Miller


My parents visit-in a giant rocking chair with Grandpa Boyer


My life most of the past two months!