Disconnected

My computer is in the shop for a long-needed fixin'. The Geek Squad told me it will be 2-4 WEEKS(!!!) until it's finished. That's a Really. Long. Time. To be without a computer. But my daughter decided to break all of the USB ports in my comp, so basically the only thing I could use it for was to get on Facebook and blog. Not even a mouse could be used and I sure as heck couldn't update my iPhone. Moral of the story: Long time without computer, but worth it. And my blogs aren't going to look fancy until I get it back because I am typing this out on my iPhone.

I just wanted to talk about my dreams this week. Pregnant women are known for their crazy, vivid dreams. I have had three within the week.

My first was basically my mind's version of Breaking Dawn. Like how I think/hope it will be made.

My second dream was very nice... Robert Pattinson and I were just hanging out (ya know, like normal) and he asked me to go to a movie with him. Just me and him. I said yes and then I woke up. (And yes, I know I'm married. But my husband could care less because I'm a crazy pregnant woman. As a matter of fact I told him about it and he could care less.)

And my third dream was that I got stuck on a ferry boat with an ex-classmate of mine and we fell in love by the end of it. No, I won't tell who it was. But he was very sweet in my dream and then I woke up and realized how gross the idea was. But it was sweet while it lasted.

There ya go, the ramblings of a crazy pregnant chick.

BTW, I'm 31 weeks.

Reminiscing

Oh man, has it been cold.  Sooo cold!  That kind of cold where your bones feel like they're going to break, your nostrils freeze, and no matter how high the heat is in the house you still always feel cold (especially on tile - I hate that!).

Last year at this time I was in Maui.  So depressing.  

It was the best trip!  We had so much fun.

And then in March my mom took Chelsea, Haven and I on a Caribbean cruise.

 Now, a year later, I can't help but wish I'd spread my tropical vacations out a little bit.

In some exciting news, I'm 30 weeks pregnant today!  Woohoo!!  Let the countdown begin!

One negative. One positive.

Right now I feel annoyed.

Annoyed and irritated.

Tired and tried.

Lazy and headachey.

So I'm gonna blog it out.

Con:  I have more cleaning to do and a lot less energy than yesterday because I got woken up about two hours earlier than normal.

Pro:  I had a LOT of energy yesterday, so my house already looks pretty great and my laundry pile is tiny in comparison.

Con:  It's freezing outside.

Pro:  This really has been a mild winter.  It didn't get cold until really late in the year, and we've barely had any snow compared to some years.

Con:  I'm 29.5 weeks pregnant and I'm starting to feel fat, slow, back-achey, and like this will never end.

Pro:  I only have a little over 10 weeks to go (hopefully less).  

And obviously, it's all worth it in the end.

Con:  Luke is back on overnights.  

Which means, less sleep for him, and he's grumpier in general.

Pro:  When this baby comes, he gets 6 weeks off work!  I love the FMLA.

Con:  My mom is still in the hospital in Rochester, and I miss her.

Pro:  She's doing so well now after her surgery.  I wouldn't want her anywhere except for where she's best taken care of.  And that's exactly where she is.

Con:  Sophie (the dog) just puked in the carpet for the second time in a half hour.

Pro:  Now I have a chance to clean the carpets again?  (Just trying to stay positive...)

Surgery Day **UPDATED**

My family traveled up to Rochester, MN on Wednesday night for my mom's big surgery on Thursday morning.  For those of you that aren't familiar, my mom has a rare cancer called Leiomyosarcoma - I talked about it a little here.  She has been fighting it for about a year and a half now.  She has gone through lots of chemo, clinical trials, biopsies, blood work, etc.  But never surgery so far - apart from the hysterectomy she had where they found her original tumor.  Long story short, all has been well recently.  Her chemo and clinical trial seemed to be working and she has always been ahead of the game.  She has regular CT scans to measure the size of her tumors to see if they continue to shrink, but this last one her pin-prick sized tumors had grown a little bit (not much, but any growth is bad).  The decision was made to go ahead and do surgery.  Her cancer was in a couple places - the original spot on her ureter (the tube that sends urine from the kidney to the bladder), and also on her liver.  

(the ureter are those yellow tubes connecting the kidneys and bladder)

The original plan was to remove the tumor on her ureter and hopefully reconnect the ureter to itself, and then to take a small section of liver.  Worst case scenario, she would lose a kidney.  

Done and done. 

Nope, that didn't happen.  What was originally estimated to be a 4.5 hour surgery turned into about 7 hours.  My family - Myself, Officer L, Haven, my sis, Uncle, and Grammy all sat in a small waiting room* for around 11 hours, give or take.  We ate two meals during the waiting period, and Haven didn't get a nap in until around 6 p.m.  The really nice thing was that the nurses updated us every two hours, and when one surgeon would get done with his part of the procedure, he himself would come in and let us know how it went.  

This is us lounging around our waiting room.  Haven watched multiple movies, Chels read, Gram snoozed, L and I played on our iPhones, and Uncle Mike was in and out of naps.

All updates seemed to be very positive.  Although more difficult than they perceived (hence the length), she remained stable during the entire surgery - the only issue they faced was loss of blood at one point where she was given 3 units to replace it.  The tumor on her ureter was larger than they thought - it was about 4 inches long and an inch thick.  It was also attached to her appendix, so they just removed that.  They reconstructed the ureter with a section of bowel because too large of a piece of ureter had to be removed for it to be re-attached to itself.  The liver section was removed without a hitch.

After the surgery, she was sent to a recovery room and unfortunately was in "quite a bit of pain" which made her blood pressure go up.  They called this a vicious cycle, because being in pain causes blood pressure to rise, so until they got her pain under control her blood pressure would remain high.  An hour and a half in recovery and they finally took her to her room and let us see her!  When we went in her room, her first words were, "I feel like I got hit by a mack truck."  I snapped a pic of her while we were in there, but I am pretty sure she would kill me if I posted it.  She had tubes everywhere - oxygen, a drainage tube coming out of her nose from her stomach, and her port** had an IV in it.  She was very drugged up at this point and went in and out of consciousness while we were talking to her.  We didn't stay long and hugged and kissed her goodbye so we could sleep.  

L and I both had to be back home in the morning for different things - L had to be in court for an old case he was on, and me for a funeral of a classmate.  We hopped in the car and made it home at around 1:30 a.m.  Phew!  Long day.  

My mom will be up in Rochester for about a week to recover.  The next morning after surgery I was able to talk to her on the phone and she was talking and laughing.  The nurses have been making her get out of bed and walk 4 times a day.  She says it's very difficult on her and makes it difficult to breathe, and when she gets back to bed she falls asleep from exhaustion.  She also has to sit up for parts of the day and this is uncomfortable for her.  The doctors want her to do deep-breathing exercises to make sure she doesn't develop pneumonia.  This morning (day 2 after surgery, 1/15) she has been nauseous and has thrown up once, so they gave her nausea medicine, but she will have to keep walking throughout the day.  Overall, she's a trooper and I'm so proud of her.

Let's all pray that this surgery was a means to an end.  

No more cancer.  

COMPLETE HEALING!  Please Dear Lord.  Amen.

*We were sooooo thankful for our little private waiting room.  We had been in a previous waiting room with 20 other people that was crowded and not very comfy to say the least.  We somehow managed to get a waiting room with a closed door (great for 2-yr-olds wanting to escape), a TV, a couch,  a table and chairs, and computer!!, a microwave, refrigerator, sink, and room to spread out.  We somehow kept this room to ourselves almost the entire day.

**My mom had a port surgically inserted just beneath the skin by her right collar bone.  Her IV can then be inserted painlessly into the port instead of constantly sticking one in her arm.  

**UPDATES**


 Mom is feeling better today (1/16). She's been doing her walking with a little more ease. She has thrown up once (which she said made her feel better). The throwing up may have been caused by her drainage tube being removed too early which resulted in bile sitting in her stomach. Her heart rate is more steady now. It was consistently in the 90's and above before today, and now it's consistently in the 80's! PTL!


She still hates sitting up and doing her breathing exercises, but they are getting easier and she seems to be able to breathe deeper than before and can sit for longer.


(1/17)  Mom is feeling even better today.  She actually texted me, which lets me know that she's feeling more like her old self.  She was able to get up and take a shower - gotta be nice after 5 days laying in bed.  And (without getting into too much detail) they think her bowels are starting to wake up - a very important detail in her recovery and vital to her getting out of the hospital.  But, like I told her, I'd much rather her be in the hospital where she is in good hands than at home because I miss her.  It WILL be really nice to have her home though.


(1/18)  Mom is doing well today.  She is able to have clear liquids today - water, ice, popsicles. She's alert, talking, and walking.  She says her pain is at a 3 or 4 today.  And she is still intermittently napping throughout the days.


(1/19-present)  Not much new to report.  She has been feeling much better.  You Facebook friends of hers have probably noticed she has been on a couple times, so she must be feeling more normal.  She has been able to get in the shower regularly which is very nice for her.  She will probably get out of the hospital on Saturday or Sunday - was originally supposed to get out Thursday or Friday, so she will be staying a couple days longer than planned.  My Grandma Bev will drive her home, and then she will stay with my Grandma for about a week to avoid the dogs at home.  (Goldie, the newest pup, loves to jump up on people.  Not such a good thing when you have a long incision up the middle of your stomach.)  We are very excited for her to be back in town so we can go visit her!


(1/21)  She came home!  Yay!  The hospital let her out and she made the 3.5 hour trip home with my grandma and arrived "home"* yesterday at around 2 p.m. Haven and I went over to see her last night.  We ate** and talked and then I helped her get settled into bed and then we chatted some more before Haven and I reluctantly*** went home.  We plan on going back over and helping her out for the next few days as it's hard for her to walk and she has to keep her catheter in for another week. 


*I say "home" because she is actually staying with my Grandma for about a week to avoid being around the dogs, who like to jump on people.
**Haven, Grammy and I ate Chinese, and my mom sipped on chicken noodle soup.  She has barely eaten anything since having the surgery, both because she wasn't allowed to at first and second because she has no appetite.
***Haven threw a fit when we had to leave because she had been so excited to see her "Ma" (my mom) and "Mimi" (my grandma).

Anniversary getaway.

After Officer L and I stuffed ourselves at our favorite restaurant, we picked up Haven from grandma's* and headed over to Wildwood Lodge for a little overnight getaway.  

Haven was so excited to go to the hotel we'd been talking about and of course to go swimming!  There's something special about swimming in the middle of winter, with snow pouring down outside of the windows.  The water was warm like bathwater, and the hot tub was nice and steamy and filled with bubbles!  Haven absolutely loved it.  She's developed a new vigor for swimming since the summer.  She was a little nervous this summer to do anything but sit on the steps.  But not this time!  She wanted to "swim" back and forth between L and I, jump in from the sides, and even dared to go "underwater"** a couple times.  

After we finished swimming, we headed back upstairs and got in our warm, cozy pj's.  Isn't there something special about getting cozy and warm after swimming?  It's sooo nice.  I was jealous of Haven's footie pajamas.

We tried to find something on TV that was both entertaining AND 2-year-old friendly.  That's hard to do, which means we had to watch kid tv until H's bedtime.  It was a fun family-time, that couldn't have gotten much better until....  Knock, knock, knock!

A man appeared with this:

Warm cookies and cold milk.  Perfect.

Haven convinced us to swim one more time in the morning, and after that we packed up and headed home.  After a stop at the Juice Co. of course. ;)

*YES, I am a big wimp about leaving Haven anywhere overnight.  L knew I would just worry about her the whole night so he was nice enough to include her in the hotel stay.  But hey, at least we went to dinner by ourselves. ;)

**"Underwater" to Haven is different than underwater to the rest of us.  She put her face in the water up to just above her lips and thought she was pretty smooth.

Merry {Belated} Christmas!

A very belated Merry Christmas to you all!  

Here is our Christmas card in case I wasn't able to send you one.

Also, you've got to check out Photojeania.  They're the best.

If you click on 'families' OR 'babies and bellies' you'll see some old pics of us on there.

3 Years

Today is my 3 year anniversary.

3 YEARS!!

Wasn't I just in high school?  How is this possible?

Anyway, it is, and I couldn't be happier.  3 years (so far) with my best friend, and working on baby #2.  We decided we're going to try for another 77 years. After all, you don't hear about people being married for 80 years very often!

Officer L has a job that often takes him away from important events.  So today, we are apart.  

We decided to exchange gifts this morning before he left for work and I am really feeling outdone...

I got him this for us to play together:

And this:

A 16GB Flash drive.


I know, totally not romantic.  But I knew he really wanted the flash drive, and I thought if I got him something we could do together that would be nice.  Because, let's face it, I don't play any of our other games with him.


So, I thought I did pretty good, until he whipped out these bad boys:

That's right.  Beats by Dr. Dre.

If you don't know what they are, they're just the best headphones made.  Period.  I've always thought they were really cool, but never thought I'd actually own some.  

Officer L really racked up some cool points with that gift.

And since we can't spend today together, he informed me that on Friday, we will not only be having dinner at our favorite restaurant, but staying at a hotel afterwards.  Babysitter all lined up!  What a fantastic man I'm married to. 

New Baby Wants

Since "Baby Yellow" (as Haven has affectionately nicknamed her) is officially a girl, there aren't that many things I will need to buy to accommodate her.  But there are a few odds and ends that I wouldn't mind if they dropped on my doorstep. ;)

Item #1.  

The first thing I know I want is a double stroller.  

I love my mall outings with Haven and that would just be impossible without a double stroller in a few months.  There are many options when it comes to double strollers, but the one that keeps catching my eye is the 

Graco Quattro Tour Duo Stroller.

I know I'm a nerdy mom (I was already told so by a certain two friends of mine...), but check out all the cup-holders and the storage underneath!  Big sister Haven can sit up big and tall in front and little Baby Yellow can snooze in back.  And it's a pretty color.

The only problem is, I have a different brand carseat from when Haven was born and I might need to buy a Graco carseat as well if I want it to attach... Ugh.

BUT when I looked into the stroller that is compatible with my carseat (see above), I saw that the pricetag is close to $1000!  It would be less expensive (by almost $700) for me to buy the Graco stroller AND the compatible carseat AND the carseat base for the car than to buy that one stroller.  SHEESH!  And the reviews for that stroller aren't even that good.  

Needless to say, I'm not sold.

Item #2.

A new diaper bag.  

I loved my old diaper bag, and it was a gift from my bestie.  But after a couple years of wear-n-tear I think I need a new one.  I found the coolest brand of diaper bags - Ju-Ju-Be!  

I'm pretty sure I want this color, called "Shadow Waltz."  I didn't get very many girly things when I had Haven since we didn't find out the sex with her, so I am drawn to the pink lining.

And here's the inside:

So cool!!

Item #3.

A co-sleeper bassinet.

As a nursing mommy, I know how difficult the middle-of-the-night feedings can be - absolutely exhausting.  With Haven I just got a pack-n-play that doubled as a bassinet.  Not only did it seem like the "mattress" was incredibly hard and uncomfortable, but I had to climb out of bed every time Haven needed to eat.  It doesn't sound like that big of deal, but getting out of bed multiple times during the night seems almost devastating when it's actually happening - not to mention the hormonal rollercoaster you're already experiencing after giving birth.  Yuck.

All that to say, I heard about these great little inventions called co-sleeper bassinets.

It's made to line up flush with the side of your bed, so that when little one wakes up all I have to do is roll over and grab her - never once getting out of bed.  Woohoo!

There it is, my list of wants.  I guess we'll see if my dreams come true. ;)