Another baby shower!

My sisters, Shauna and Kelly hosted the cutest, farm animal baby shower for me on Saturday! Here is a picture of me with my cake, which matched the invitations, napkins and everything else......so cute!!! The shower was at my Mom's house, and I got to see so many friends and family, and Casey was showered with so many wonderful gifts....this kid is already spoiled! Even with gestational diabetes, I managed to have a piece of that cake....YUM!!!! Shauna and Kelly did a great job, I had so much fun!

At Shauna and Kelly's baby showers this summer, we were all 3 pregnant... now I am the last one! But, just a few more weeks to go. I can't wait for Casey to meet with cousins!

Before heading to the west side last weekend, we did a hospital tour, and asked a million questions. We are really happy with Kadlec so far. Then we headed to a meet and greet with Dr. Matta, who will be Casey's pediatrician, and her nursing staff. We were very reassured that we can call anyone for help, any time day or night. The Kadlec labor and delivery nurses, our pediatrician, or the lactation specialists at the hospital. Dr. Matta gave us a huge book by the American Association of Pediatrics, on every topic in the world, as a reference book.

Friday night we headed to my parents house and had a big family dinner with all the siblings. Dad made carne asada (I doubt I spelled that right!), he is the best chef EVER! Saturday was the shower!!! We also visited with Ryan's parents and Aunt, Uncle and cousins! We had homemade chili and played cards. Sunday, we had breakfast with Liz and Roxie and headed back home. We had left Josh and McKenzie home, with our neighbor feeding them, which worked out great. Tobie got to come with us, because he is old and spoiled.

This week, I have another appointment with the diabetes nurse, and an ultrasound! I can't wait to see how big Casey has gotten, and maybe get a better idea of what our birth plan is going to look like. I am racking up even more questions for our OB. He is great, he lets me ask everything in the world, and answers very thoroughly. I am new at this, I need lots of answers, lol!

Updates

Well I have gotten pretty far behind.....so here are the baby Casey updates!

Last Saturday, I had a fabulous baby shower in the tri-cities, thrown by my good friends Kelly and April. Kelly went all out with so much wonderful food! So many people came to it, and I had so much fun and we got so much wonderful Casey stuff!

I was retested at 32 weeks for gestational diabetes, since Casey is so big, and I flunked my test! So I was sent to the diabetes learning center to learn how to control it. I am testing my blood sugar 4 times per day and following the diabetes diet, counting carbs. It's not much fun, but it's for a good cause:)

I just had my 34 week appointment, and got my swine flu vaccine. Dr. Smith put me on meds to keep my blood sugar lower, because even following the diet exactly for a week...my blood sugars were still high. He did say Casey's growth is not from the diabetes, he is just a big kid! He is in the 90th percentile for his head, abdomen and femur! If the growth is due to diabetes, we would only see a large abdomen. He said Casey will be 10 pounds if I go to 40 weeks! He will see me weekly now, and at 36 weeks, another ultrasound. It sounds like, at 38 weeks, I will probably have a c-section, due to being diabetic, on drugs (prescribed!!) and Casey being large. It will be safer on Casey and me! But you never know, he could come anytime!

Last week Casey was doing somersaults, and flipped himself to breech. It was pretty uncomfortable and apparently he thought the same thing, because he flipped back to head down the next day! The Dr. said he still could flip back breech, but we won't try to flip him manually, it would just be another reason to do a c-section.

Next week will be an exciting week! Wednesday is a stress test and Dr appointment, Friday is our meet and greet with the pediatrician and our hospital tour....and we head to the west side, for another baby shower thrown by my sisters! So much to look forward too!

Casey's Room

We worked on getting Casey's room set up last night. This is the changing table/dresser combo. It has so much storage! And when he no longer needs a changing table, we can take that part off. I LOVE this glider/ottoman.....its so comfortable! I sit in here with my laptop or with a book, because the glider feels so good on my sore hips and joints! We put up the valence, his bedroom set is "Country side", which was discontinued, so we got in on clearance!

We don't have a mattress yet for the crib, so we havent finished putting his crib all together. That huge box is full of hand me down clothes we have gotten from friends and family, we are so lucky!

You can't really see them, but the light switches and outlets all match the bedding set.....they are adorable! We have so many generous family and friends, we have gotten lots of baby stuff! Also, I love a good deal and have found some great sales and things on craigslist and at stores. His room is really coming together! I can't wait to hang up pictures and things, but I haven't quite decided how I want them to go. I love decorating his room...I told Ryan we should have lots of kids, so I can decorate lots of rooms, but I don't think he agrees! Especially because all the manual labor falls on him...he worked really hard putting all the stuff together! Luckily we painted early on, so I helped with that! I love the contrast of the 2 blues with the white wood trimming.

Well, I am off to do my labs.....I am sooo hungry, can't wait to be done with the fasting!

32 weeks

We went in for my 32 week check up and ultrasound. It's always neat to see Casey, he is always so busy! His HR was 154 and he weighed 5 pounds 6 ounces.....holy big boy! The Doctor is going to test me for sub-clinical gestational diabetes (like maybe my other tests were wrong). So, I get to do another 12 hour fast and a few more blood draws tomorrow on my birthday. Oh boy! He said regardless of the outcome, I should eat like I have GD, and see if that slows his growth any. So, no birthday cake for me.....like I need it anyways! He told us all the risks associated with having a baby "large for gestational age", and we will have another ultrasound at 36 weeks to check his growth. I am now at 2 week appointments. I didn't care for the Dr I saw, so in 2 weeks I am going back to one I have seen and really like. At my Dr's office, there are many Dr's, and so I am trying to see everyone, so I will know who delivers Casey! There are a few I really like, but the Dr yesterday was in too big of a hurry to answer all my questions. I have questions and I like answers!!!

Last weekend was Ryan's birthday, mine is tomorrow. We are only 7 days apart. So we celebrated both our birthdays last weekend since it was his weekend off. We went out to dinner, went to a pumpkin patch, met up with some friends and got our maternity photos taken! It was a fun weekend.

We are planning to work more on Casey's room and start hanging things up, organizing and getting ready for him!! He will be here before we know it!

Shopping Deals

2 blogs in one day?! See, I am trying to stay off my feet!

I went to Albertsons today, to save some serious money on groceries. Here is what I bought:

8 boxes kellogs mini wheat cereals
1 box keebler crackers and cheese
1 box special K crackers
4 bottles low cal gatorade
3 big cans progresso soup
One dozen large eggs
1 big pot roast (we just made on in the crockpot.....so good!)
Big bottle of Welchs grape juice
1 coppertone 50spf baby suntan lotion (will be good for next spring!)
1 coppertone 50spf sport suntan lotion ( Ryan needs this even in the winter!)
2 jars prego spaghetti sauce
1 box pantyliners

I had a fistful of coupons and some doublers...shopped for sales, and all this cost $26.57 and I saved $82.63!!! And I now have a gas rewards of 10 cents off/gallon. Shoot, you can barely get 8 boxes of cereal for $26 these days....so I was pretty proud of my savings.

I also hit up rite aid for free toothpaste, and electrasol dishwasher gelcaps for $1.25.

Last week I bought 3 jumbo bags of huggies pure and natural...for about $1.25 total. That's what I call a steal!

Busy Week

This past week has been very busy, very tiring! I woke up Tuesday very sick, with a throbbing headache and sore throat and general feeling of awfulness. I called my Dr, as i was told by him last week, any of those symptoms warrant a phone call. I was told if I spiked a fever to go to urgent care. Luckily, nothing over 99.5! I stayed home from work Tuesday and Wednesday, and went back Thursday feeling better. Chamisa headed home to Pullman after her 4 weeks in the tri-cities....hopefully I did not send her back with my germs. Friday I was not feeling so hot again, with another sore throat, sinus pain and cough. Melissa and BJ arrived late friday night, and i could not even get out of bed in my tylenol PM stupor. Saturday we headed to the Kennewick dog show, where we met up with Nicole. Despite not feeling so hot, McKenzie and I finished our rally advcanced title, with 4th place. Josh and Ryan earned their 2nd leg towards their rally advanced title, with a 1st place! Nicole and Tango finished their rally excellent title too! BJ and Melissa came to the show to visit, until they headed off to the wedding they were attending. Ryan and I ring stewarded in the afternoon, as our club, the Columbia Basin Dog Training Club was hosting the obedience show. Then we went to dinner to celebrate our wins, and crashed at home.

I woke up at 5am Sunday in really bad pain, that I thought was maybe round ligament pain, accompanied by awful lower back pain and extreme pressure in my lower abdomen. It did not get better with tylenol, and i told Ryan as we headed to day 2 of the show, that he may have to show McKenzie for me. McKenzie is not an easy dog to show in obedience, and Ryan hasn't worked with her as much, and she was in rally excellent for the first time! Neither the dogs, nor Ryan and I have practiced excellent....so I told Ryan to not worry and just have fun with her. They did awesome considering the circumstances, and managed to get McKenzie's first leg of her Rally Excellent title! Woohoo! To top it off, Ryan and Josh finished their Rally Advanced title and moved up to Excellent. Nicole and Tango took another 1st place in excellent!

When we got home, I laid down with more tylenol and a hot water bottle. The pain and pressure just seemed to intensify, and as we laid in bed watching the Seahawks, I started getting extremely sharp pains that lasted a few minutes, then backed off.....I thought they could be contractions and they HURT! I called the on-call Dr, but after an hour of no return call and more pain, we headed to the ER. I was immediately taken by wheelchair to labor and delivery, and hooked up to a bunch of machines to monitor Casey's heartbeat and contractions. After a bunch of uncomfortable tests and waiting, it was determined I was not in labor, Casey was NOT on his way yet (whew!) and the pains were not even contractions. It was round ligament pain like I thought, from completely overdoing it the day before, and from coughing and sneezing and stretching the muscles. The nurse mentioned on how active Casey was on the monitors, and said she had never seen a 29 week old THAT active. I laughed and said i was a little nervous about what that means when he is born, and she agreed I should be scared, LOL!! Everyone at L and D was so nice, and my Dr came to see me (he did not call me back because he was delivering 3 babies....good reason!) and all said it was a good thing to come in and get checked out. I had 5/6 of the symptoms of pre-term labor...

I am so glad my busy little boy is staying put. I am so lucky to have Ryan, he worked his rear end off this weekend to try and make things easy on me, and convinced me to go the ER, and held my hand the whole time. And how lucky am I that he likes this dog obedience stuff too?? He is amazing and I am so very lucky to have him. He will be a great Dad to Casey, he already is!!

A Big Boy!

Ryan and I went to our 28 week check up and ultrasound on 9/16. It was so neat to see how big Casey has gotten, and boy is he big! He is topping the charts at 99% on stomach size, 97% on leg bone length and he weighs 3.5 pounds! The average is 2.5 pounds, and the Dr was laughing quite a bit at just how big he is. He said our ultrasound at 10 weeks puts the estimated due date as correct, otherwise he would have moved the due date up several weeks! I was quite terrified, as he said he is on track to be nearly 10 pounds at birth, but he did assure me they will monitor his growth by ultrasound, and his lung function, so its quite possible they will induce me several weeks early! His heartbeat was 144, and everything looked good. I failed my 1 hour glucose test for gestational diabetes, but passed the 3 hour test, so no diabetes for me!

This weekend I stayed at Shauna's house and got to visit with my all 3 of my cute nephews! I also got to see my Aunt Barb from Tennessee, who I haven't gotten to see in several years! We had a big family dinner at my parents Saturday night, definitely always fun. I brought my 3-D ultrasound pictures, my Mom thinks Casey's profile looks like me, lucky kid!