Journaling Purposes: Close to birth

So I wanted to make sure I get this written down since I probably won't remember it in a year or so.

Yesterday I had my first "weekly" appointment with my midwives. They decided to check me at the appointment since I delivered Jarren at 37 weeks and 2 days. Sure enough, I was dilated! Much further than I was with Jarren at this time. When my water broke with Jarren I was only at a 2. When she checked me yesterday I was already at a 4 and 60% effaced! Sweet! She said his head was resting at a station -2, so he was still high and bouncy. That's how Jarren was when I went into labor with him too. After she checked me, she looked at me and smiled and said "Now you know all that pain and pressure wasn't for nothing!" It was so good to hear that, I was worried I had been in all this pain for nothing. Now I just have to watch for contractions!

Also, today I had my chiropractor appointment and when he adjusted my back it made a different noise when popping. It kinda startled me. After adjusting me he asked if I could tell the difference in the sounds of it popping, I said "Yeah! Is it a bad thing?". He told me it wasn't! He said it was a very good thing, that my body is preparing for delivery. He said that your body releases what is called relaxin, and the reason my backed popping sounded different is because it was easier to put it back into place since it was so relaxed. I wasn't sure what relaxin was so he explained it to me. He said your body releases it so that your bones and ligaments can separate for birth. So that the baby is able to make it out of the birth canal. He also told me it isn't long after you body releases this that you go into labor. I just kinda laughed, I still think it is never going to end. He told me to make another appointment for next week but that he doesn't think he will be seeing me again til after the baby is here. Anyway tonight I decided to look it up and see what I could find. I did find this link here.

Pregnancy

It's. Never. Going. To. END!



Thanks for letting me vent.

Eviction Notice

For Madden:

I am issuing a 30 day notice for EVICTION. Tenant will have 30 days in which he can either gather his belongings and promptly vacate the premises, or wait until the final day. After which, he will be physically removed from the property.

He's being evicted due to breech of contract and destruction of property. Expansions only to the FRONT of the house, within reasonable limits, were discussed. Not only have these limits been exceeded, but additions to the back of the house were also made!

Remodeling and gutting of the home was never approved, nor was changing the initial layout and base structure. And due to property damage, there are now leaks in both the upper AND lower levels of the home. On top of which, the landlord has received numerous complaints about nightly disturbances.

After 30 days from this day that he doesn’t comply with the notice will result in immediate and forceful removal at my discretion.

Love,
Mommy

Growing up!

Yesterday I had my 6 month check up at the dentist. They told me to go ahead and bring Jarren in to see how his teeth were doing, since he will be 3 in 3 months anyway. They said at this age, they usually don't let them do much since they are kind of scared of all the equipment. After I had my check up, Jarren got right up in that chair to "take a ride". He let them take pictures of his teeth and count them. He also got his teeth scraped and cleaned, then he let them floss. After the Dentist came to check my teeth for cavities, Jarren climbed back up in the chair to let the dentist blow air on his teeth and check for cavities.


I was so surprised by how well he did. He is such a big boy and growing up so fast. The closer I get to the due date of this baby, the more I realize Jarren won't/isn't my baby anymore. He is getting so big!


Also, neither of us have cavities :)

Big Baby!

Well, I finally did it! I switched from an OBGYN to Midwives. So far I love it! They have been so much more positive about me being able to do a VBAC than my doctor was. They gave me a lot of information and taught me some things I didn't know.

Also, I'm supposed to be 34 weeks according to my ultrasound I had when I was 20 weeks (33 weeks by estimated due date) and I'm measuring at 37 weeks! So it's a big baby! My midwife wanted me to get another ultrasound done to double check his size, but hopefully this means he will come early like his brother did. I'm so excited!

P.S. Thanks for all the votes and help, but I ended up in like 4th place. It was fun to be a part of the top 10 though!

I'm a finalist! Please vote!

It would be such a blessing to be able to win this. We are in need of a stroller especially since this baby is a spring baby, we will need it all summer!

My picture was chosen as part of the final 10 in a "belly bump contest" I almost didn't send in the picture, but did last minute kind of as a "what the heck, might as well" thing. Well to my surprise I had an email this morning telling me all the details. I need all my friends and family to go to http://www.babygizmo.com/vote/ and vote for me. It's the picture of Jarren resting his head on my stomach. Only one vote from each computer, they track the IP addresses. But hey, if you have more than one computer in the house, feel free to vote on each of them ;)

I'm so excited and nervous. I'm happy to just be in the final 10! The voting ends on April 2nd, so please send this info onto your friends and family, or even if you would like to post this on your blog to all your readers, I would be ok with that :)

Love you all!

EDIT: APPARENTLY WE CAN VOTE EVERY 24 HOURS. So please vote for me whenever you can until April 2nd when it closes. :)

Freezer Meals (Once a month cooking)

Hey, anyone out there know some good freezer meals? I'm looking to prepare and freeze some meals before the baby is born so that Jake can cook for them if I'm too tired or busy with the baby, etc.

I'm going to make breakfast burritos and bean & cheese burritos, because Jake and Jarren love those. So I can buy in bulk and make a bunch and freeze them. This way the two of them aren't living off of chips and cookies. I mean honestly, those of you that know Jake, know that it would be sugar all day everyday if he could have it.

So any ideas? Cheap and Easy preferably :)

P.S. Check out my photo blog, I just did a newborn's pictures and it made me WAY baby hungry. I'm ready for this little guy to be here!

Maternity Pictures

I decided this afternoon to set up the tripod and use the self-timer. We wanted to get some maternity pictures. Here are a couple from the shoot that I love.

I couldn't decide which I liked better between these two, so I know they are the same picture, but I love them both.

And last, my two handsome boys.

Potty Training...Yikes

We have been trying to potty train Jarren before the baby gets here. He isn't working with us really well and I'm starting to get frustrated. I really don't want to have 2 children in diapers and it would save us a lot of money if he would just do it.

In the last couple days he has pooped his pants 3 times and peed in them twice. UGH! I'm lucky Jake has been here for the poopy ones because I just don't think my prego stomach could handle it. Just the smell sends me running. He will tell us, "big boys potty on the toilet" and "I'm a big boy" but still won't TELL us if he has to go, we have to time him with the timer.

I found a potty chart online that I'm going to try to use with him starting tomorrow. We will see how that goes. Any suggestions on how to potty train a stubborn boy??

Baby Stories

I was laying on my back trying to show Jake what the baby does at 2am. That of course is his play time, waking me up and everything. Anyway, he goes CRAZY. It feels like he is doing flips while punching and kicking me at the same time. So I was laying on my back and Jake lays down, lays his head on my stomach and tries to freak the baby out by talking in a really deep but loud voice. Well it worked! The baby fired back by kicking him right in the face. It was pretty funny. I could not stop laughing. When I finally calmed down enough to let Jake try again, the baby kicked him right in the nose. That was it, I was done, I could not stop laughing long enough for Jake to continue. It was hilarious.

Our friends had their baby this last Thursday so we went to go visit them in the hospital, we took Jarren to see how he would respond to the baby. He did really well! He wanted to help hold him and give him kisses and everything. It was really cute. He even started calling him "Ma-hen" (Madden), even though we haven't decided on a name completely, apparently that's the one Jarren is sticking with. I tried to explain to him that it wasn't the baby from mommy's tummy and that this baby was Asher. He looked at me with a puzzled face and said "Asher? No Ma-hen." It was pretty funny trying to explain it to him.

We need to post some pictures to update. I'm hoping to do some maternity pictures with Jake and Jarren sometime soon so maybe we can post those.

I married a...

So the other day after class I asked Jake what he learned about that day. (In psychology) He told me that he learned about persistence. So joking around I said "Oh, so you learned about me" and looked up at him smiling. Without missing a beat he said, "no, we learned about nagging yesterday." and started laughing.

I married a comedian everyone.

The Count Down

13 more weeks and I'll have another one of these...

We are finally in the last trimester!