Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving!

Lauren is feeling better. She still has a cough and it doesn't sound good, but she's back to her normal self otherwise. Today she did a lot of playing and running around.

I made an apple pie today in preparation for tomorrow. We're going to go over to Katrina's house. We're planning the big holiday meal for around 2. Katrina is making the turkey and stuffing, I'm making fresh cranberries, the green bean casserole and the pie. Another friend is bringing the yams and mashed potatoes. I'm really looking forward to all the good food tomorrow. And I'm happy that we're doing it all early so that we can keep nibbling into the evening.

Ben has been keeping himself busy with the cars. He had to go into work this morning and then he spent part of his day running errands. This evening he's been working on his brakes again. Lauren and I went over to Katrina's house for pizza tonight, but we came home early since Lauren was being a bit difficult. But she's eating now and watching cartoons so hopefully the rest of the night will be quiet. I'm just going to sit and read and try to get to bed before it gets too late.

I hope everyone has a yummy Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'll try to get lots of pictures so I have some new ones to post.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Lauren is sick.

I noticed on Saturday that she didn't feel great, but after some tylenol and a good long nap, she seemed to be doing pretty well. Yesterday, though, she just looked like she felt miserable and she definitely had a fever. At one point it was 103.1, but we gave her some motrin and stripped her down to her diaper and within a little while it was down to 100.4. She's mostly been sleeping since yesterday afternoon. She's been drinking water, but she started throwing up last night and threw up her medicine this morning. She did eat a waffle a while ago and just asked for a sandwich. I'm hoping she'll hold it down for a while so I can give her some medicine later. She's got a sore throat and a cough to go along with the fever. For now I'm just keeping an eye on her and doing my best to keep her comfortable and I'm letting her sleep as much as I can. If she gets worse I'll call her doctor in the morning to get her in.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Baby Shower, San Antonio

Things have been going well since Ben got home.

We all got our flu shots to prepare for visiting the NICU after Natalie's surgery. Saturday was my baby shower. My friends Katrina and Katherine hosted it for me. Katrina had the most delicious and cute cake made, and my friend Amy made a gorgeous diaper cake that everyone talked about.


Then on Sunday we loaded up our cars and headed down to San Antonio. The drive takes just less than three hours. We got there and had dinner then went to Victor's house where we were staying. Monday morning we went to the hospital for my 11 am appointment. Things haven't changed that dramatically, she's a little bit bigger, the swelling increased a little bit, but nothing is happening too fast and the doctor said I could come home for two more weeks and I didn't have to stay down in San Antonio until then.
My next appointment is on December 2nd, so we'll load up again and head back down on December 1st. Ben worked Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week and he'll have to work this coming week Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Thanksgiving we're going to my friend Katrina's house. We've done Thanksgiving with them the last two years and it's been a good day. The rest of next weekend will be spent getting things here at the house ready for Natalie's return and getting our things together for San Antonio again. We'll be down there for about a month depending on when she decides to make her debut and how long it takes her to recover from the surgery.
I am a little worried about Christmas this year, I feel like there's a good chance we'll kind of miss it all together. I want to keep things as normal as I can for Lauren, but we probably won't be home yet, and I guess anything other than home isn't really normal. She's been doing so great with Ben, though. She just adores him and she's really glad he's home.
Ben has been working on the cars a lot since he's been back, I think he missed the grease and frustration. He's out putting cruise control in his car right now. I read the book "Twilight" this week and today I'm going to go see the movie with my friends Katrina and Mandy. Then I'll have the next three books in the series to read. Hopefully I'll do it a bit slower, though, and that can help pass the time down in San Antonio.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

He's Home!

I picked up Ben today a little after 2 pm. We had to head straight over to the base for my OB appointment. Lauren really had a good chance to play with Daddy and we are back home now.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Quick Update

Today's ultrasound went well. My amniotic fluid levels are back down to a normal number. Her ventricles are measuring about the same as they were last week and she's gained a little bit of weight. I go back next Wednesday for a regular checkup, then I'll get all my care down in San Antonio.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Ben's coming home!

I got an email from Ben this afternoon. Looks like he will be home next week. His commander said he could expect to leave next Monday or Tuesday, so that should put him back here sometime Tuesday-Friday depending on the flights and stuff.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

San Antonio and Austin

Last Thursday I picked Lissa up in Austin and we drove to San Antonio. Ben went to high school with Victor, and Victor owns a house in San Antonio that we arranged to stay at. We spent the night on Thursday and bright and early Friday I went to the Air Force hospital down there. My appointment was at 9 am and it would have taken me about 3 hours to get there if I had to drive from my house, but it only takes 20 minutes from his place.

I got there at about 8:30 and found the OB clinic. I had an ultrasound at 9 am. Mostly this was just so they could get the latest pictures of the baby and to see if anything had changed since my last ultrasound. The ultrasound tech did the initial ultrasound, then the Maternal Fetal Physician came in and did the ultrasound, then he brought in the other two Maternal Fetal Physicians and they all went over the images. Then I went down to another building and had my fetal MRI. I've never had an MRI before. It was fine, but laying on my back for that long did make me a little bit woozy. I didn't realize it was going to be so loud, even with earplugs, it was loud. I can see how people could freak out in there. After the MRI, I went back upstairs to meet with the doctor from the OB clinic again and with a doctor from the NICU. But, I got up there right before 12, so everyone was going to lunch. I went ahead and grabbed lunch in the hospital cafeteria and headed back upstairs again. Once I got up there, I met with the doctor from the OB clinic and the NICU, and they let me have Ben call in. We put him on speaker phone and we all talked for about an hour and a half and had most of our questions answered. It was really good that they did that, so far everything that Ben had heard had been through me, and this time it was straight from the doctors. Once we finished there, I went to another floor to speak with the neurosurgeon. That was about half an hour or so. He went over the procedure with me and the risks and possible complications and answered all my questions. By the time I got out of there, it was almost 4. I had been planning on being done by 1 and heading up to Austin. Instead, I spent about 7 1/2 hours at the hospital. Oh well.

So the MRI didn't really tell us anything new. The swelling in her ventricles has increased. There's no genetic reason for it, and as far as they can tell she didn't have a stroke that caused it. It's just one of those random things. When they measured her ventricles, they measured really swollen. I guess anything up to 1.1 is considered mild, 1.1-1.5 is considered moderate, and anything over 1.5 is considered severe. We're measuring at 3.0. So that's really a lot of swelling, but they are able to see cerebral cortex tissue surrounding the ventricles, so that is really good news. That means the brain tissue is there, even if it's being a bit squished right now. The other thing that concerned them was that my amniotic fluid levels are measuring high. That means I'm at risk for preterm labor. I don't think I'm going to go into labor soon. They want me to go this Friday to get another ultrasound at the hospital here to check the fluid levels again, and then on the 17th go back down to San Antonio so they can check on me. Since I'll have the baby down there, they want me to stay in San Antonio as of November 17th until I have the baby. Thankfully our friend said we could live at his house during that time, he'll be in Iraq anyway and has no problem with us staying there. That's a huge load off. And Ben is being sent home sometime between November 10th and 20th. They are working out the details now. We're waiting anxiously for the exact date, but it is soon anyway.

We left San Antonio just in time for rush hour traffic and hit Austin just in time for crazy Halloween going out traffic. It took 2 hours to go 80 miles. We got home at 9:30 and missed trick or treating. Lauren is too young to really be upset about it, but I did feel bad anyway.

The next morning we got up early and dropped Lissa off at the airport in Austin. I had a fun weekend planned. I met up with 8 girls from around the country that I know from an online celebrity gossip site. Some of them I've been talking to for over 2 years, and 2 of them I have met before. We met for brunch on Saturday and went to a place called South Congress Cafe, then dinner that night at the Iron Cactus. Sunday morning we had brunch at Chez Zee. Most of our meeting was organized around eating, and all the food was really really good. Lauren was an angel and charmed everyone and I had a lot of fun. It was good to have something to distract me over the weekend and it really helped me to just go do something fun. We came back Sunday evening and have gotten back to our normal routine.

Last night we stayed up late to watch the election results and listen to the speeches. Actually, Lauren fell asleep right as CNN projected Obama's win. I heard of celebrations in the street in quite a few cities, but my neighborhood stayed pretty quiet. I guess Texas wasn't into celebrating an Obama victory.

Lauren has been doing really well with potty training lately. Today she made it through lunch out with a friend and then a shopping trip to WalMart without an accident. I think we'll keep her in diapers overnight for now, but I feel like she has the daytime figured out pretty well.
Related Posts with Thumbnails

Our Videos

Latest Video of Lauren:

Video of Lauren walking:

Lauren's First Steps:

Our 5th Anniversary Video: