Realizations

Back in January I was getting MJ dressed in the morning and noticing how big she is getting.  When I thought about it for a minute I realized that this is the longest that I have ever been without being pregnant since I became pregnant with M&M!  The biggest age gap between any of our kids is 3 years which means that Kitty was 2 years and about three months old when I got pregnant with Kay - and MJ just turned 2 1/2!  And later this month I will be taking Kay to kindergarten orientation!  Next year for half of the day I will just have one child at home which hasn't happened since M&M was a baby.

Still waiting...

Well, my due date has now come and gone and still no baby. At this point we are just glad that she wasn't born yesterday, which was Blondie's birthday. As of my midwife appointment on Tuesday the baby still hadn't dropped and I am definitely more uncomfortable than I have been at the end of my other pregnancies. The baby always seems to be up in my ribs, making it hard to bend over or even sit upright comfortably. Since my last 2 babies were 6 and 10 days early, I didn't think that I would last this long with this pregnancy. The frustrating part is that next week is the S. family reunion and assuming I have the baby before it begins on Wednesday, I am not going to be in much of a position to participate much. The other hard part is that I feel like my life is on hold until I have this baby - I can't really plan anything day to day and it would be nice to just know at this point when she will be coming. My only baby to this point that was born past the due date was Blondie - and she was only two days late (which would be today for this baby).

I have definitely gotten a lot of interesting questions at church the last couple of weeks about this pregnancy - How far dilated am I? Has the doctor checked me yet? Is the doctor going to induce me? Have my other pregnancies started on their own? When you consider that I use a midwife and have my babies at home, some of these questions are kind of silly (although to give them credit, most people don't know that I have my babies at home). I have definitely talked to a lot more people about it with this pregnancy than I have with my others though. So to answer some of the questions: I don't know how far dilated I am because I haven't been checked. Really there is no point because a woman can be dilated to 3 or 4 cm for several weeks before she ever gives birth. Plus, internal checking just increases the risk of infection - and who wants that? Yes my other pregnancies have started on their own and since I am still only 2 days late I'm not too concerned at this point. At my appointment on Tuesday my midwife said that if she were to guess the size of my baby right now, she would guess around 7 1/2 pounds - so we're not concerned about the baby getting too big. My kids have all been in the range of 7 lbs 6 ozs to 8 lbs 4 ozs.

So, while waiting for this baby I have gone to the temple a couple of times, taken the kids to see Toy Story 3 and set up the pools out back for the kids to play in. (And can I just mention that Monday morning is the best time to go and see a movie. We were one of only two families in the theater for the 11 a.m. showing of Toy Story 3. It was great!) I try and get a nap in during the afternoon because I'm not sleeping too well at night. I have been reading a lot and doing a lot of shopping to make sure we have everything we need. Plus it always seems that we're running out of something from the grocery store. I've done birthday shopping for Blondie and M&M and also done some shopping for M&M to go to YW camp on July 27th!! Blondie and Luke start school on July 26th - just over a week away. Kitty starts kindergarten the following week and I just found out that there will be no kindergarten buses this year so I will have to drive her to school everyday and then she will ride the bus home with the older kids. I'm not sure if I mentioned it in a previous post or not but Kitty got assigned to afternoon kindergarten. I tried to get her switched to morning, but they said that they had more requests for morning kindergarten this year than they ever have in previous years so some of the kids had to be put in the afternoon classes. So we'll just have to give it a try and see how we like it.

Jealous

On Saturday, the lady in my ward whose baby was due just 2 weeks before me had her baby. She was about 3 1/2 weeks early. I am a little jealous because now she doesn't have to endure the heat that has finally hit Utah. It was also her 6th baby and 5th girl, just like us. Now I am the next one in the ward who is due and it will come down to me and my co-den leader. She is due the week after me but is scheduled to have her baby by C-section the day before my due date. It will be an interesting transition for our den after our babies are born.

In 2 weeks and one day I will be officially 37 week and will be able to have my baby at home as scheduled. So I have to hold out until then, but then I'll be ready any day! For the most part I have been feeling good and I've been able to keep up with the things I need to do. Sometimes I just have to force myself to get something done and somehow I find the energy to do it. Probably my least favorite thing to do at this point is when I have to been over to pull weeds in the garden - very uncomfortable. I also have trouble sleeping some nights when my heartburn gets bad. That is definitely one thing I am looking forward to once this baby is born - no more heartburn!

The kids' last day of school is this Friday and then we don't really have any pressing obligations until school starts up again the last week of July. I'm going to try to get the kids in swim lessons to give us something to do and help the time pass by a little quicker - and so the kids don't drive me crazy being bored at home...

Since M&M is moving on to middle school next year, she won't start school until the end of August. It will be nice to have her around to help out with Kay and the new baby for a few weeks without the other kids around. She will also be able to help get Kitty ready for kindergarten and help her catch her bus to school. We have been assigned to afternoon kindergarten this year and I'm not too excited about that. I asked if there was anyway we could switch to morning like we had requested, but I was told that this was an unusual year because just about everybody wanted morning kindergarten so they had to just randomly pick students until the classes were full. We have always had morning kindergarten in the past so it will be a different experience for us.

Updates - 5/22/10

Yesterday I was able to plant some corn and watermelon before it started to rain (again). Last night it POURED most of the night so hopefully that helped the garden instead of hurt it. I was a little afraid of what the weather would be like for the soccer games today, but it was mostly sunny skies - a little on the chilly side for the spectators, but perfect temperature for the players. M&M's field was pretty wet with a few puddles here and there on it, but Luke's field was relatively dry. Both of the games had pretty evenly matched teams and they were exciting to watch - and both came off with wins today (Luke 4-2, M&M 2-1). Luke's team (which I am coaching) is still undefeated; M&M's team lost their first game last week, 0-1. It has been a fun season - only one game left to go!

DH got our peach tree planted today. Hopefully it will do well and grow quickly. It was way too wet in the garden to do any more planting today so the beans, onions and carrots will have to wait another couple of days. Amazingly we have some onions and carrots that survived from last year so I'm not in a huge rush to plant more right now.

I have been craving a lot of different foods today - fruit, hamburgers, and now homemade ice cream. Luckily I have had everything I needed to satisfy the cravings - we are about to try some homemade chocolate mint ice cream here in a few minutes.

:-P

Pregnancy Update

Well, today I am officially 3/4 of the way done with my pregnancy, but unfortunately I have probably the hardest and most uncomfortable part ahead of me (not to mention the hottest since we are getting closer to summer now). The biggest difference with this pregnancy over my others is that I am just so tired all of the time. If I could, I would just lay in bed all day reading and/or sleeping and not do anything else. Unfortunately, that is not such a great thing to do when I have a husband and 5 other kids and a house to look after.

My feet and ankles are definitely noticing the extra pregnancy weight and not liking it at times. Last month when we went to the zoo and then I had to rush to clean my house in 2 hours the next morning and then had soccer games and Kitty's birthday the day after that, my feet/ankles were in so much pain for about a week after that. I felt like I had sprained and bruised both of my feet/ankles - it especially hurt to walk down the stairs (which is impossible to avoid in our house).

My feet/ankles are also not starting to like the warmer weather. Our church building is always super hot inside and I can just feel my feet expanding while I'm just sitting there for 3 hours through classes and Sacrament Meeting - not fun!!

There are times when I feel like this pregnancy is flying by and other times when it seems like it is crawling. And then there are times when I feel absolutely huge and other times when I think I look pretty small - especially for this being my 6th pregnancy. I finally broke down recently and updated some of my pregnancy wardrobe. So many of my pregnancy clothes are just plain out-of-date and frumpy looking, plus I wanted some more springy items to wear since my last couple of pregnancies were done by the middle of April. I have actually found some really comfortable maternity clothes this pregnancy and I love wearing them. I would definitely recommend pants and capris from Kohl's, T-shirts from J.C. Penney's, and skirts and shirts from Motherhood. Luckily I had some gift cards from each of these stores so I haven't actually had to spend much of our own money on the items. At the same time I have found some really ugly "new" maternity styles that I just can't imagine looking good or fitting well on any pregnant women - that would be just about any shirts from Kohl's and most of the jeans/capris at J.C. Penney's. I also wish it wasn't so hard to find some cute maternity skirts and dresses. Most stores hardly carry anything in skirts and dresses and those that do usually only have black or dark gray colors. Thankfully I found a couple of really cute skirts from Motherhood that are super comfortable - I just wish they weren't quite so expensive... I have found a couple of tutorials online about making maternity skirts, but so far I just haven't found the time to get to the fabric store to pick out some fabric and try making some.

It's a...

Well, the poll results were 50/50 for a boy or a girl - which means that half of you guessed right and the other half guessed wrong. The baby appears healthy and developing on schedule. It pretty much confirmed our due date of July 14th - yes, our third July baby. I just hope that it comes before that date - and definitely not on the 15th or the 30th!!

I decided to cook up a little surprise for the kids to keep them in suspense for a little while as to what the baby is. I finally decided to make some cupcakes out of white cake mix and then color it either blue or pink to let them know the gender. I then covered them with chocolate frosting. So here is a picture of one of the cupcakes:
Yes, that's right, another girl!! It was fun watching the kids' reactions. When Blondie was handed her cupcake she immediately started saying, "Yes! It's a boy!", while M&M looked at her and said, "No it's not." This was Luke's response - "What! You've got to be kidding me!!" Baby K was just excited to be eating cake with chocolate frosting! M&M is still hopeful that the ultrasound was wrong and that there is a chance that it could still be a boy - even though the ultrasound tech was able to get a pretty clear view more than once during the ultrasound.

So, while the kids (and DH and I) were somewhat surprised by the result, we are really glad that we found out now so we have time to let it sink in and get excited before the baby comes in July. Plus this will give us time to think of another girl name!!

I can honestly say that I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would end up with a family of 5 girls - especially since I have always been more of a tomboy! There must be some reason unknown to us that Heavenly Father is sending us all of these girls!! In one way it will be nice for Baby K because she and the baby will be just over two years apart and should have fun playing together - like Blondie and Kitty do.

Boy or Girl?

Well, for those that don't know yet, we are expecting baby #6!! I am about 20 weeks along right now and we just got the ultrasound scheduled for Thursday - 2 days from now! I told DH after Baby K was born that if we decided to have any more kids, I wanted to find out what the gender is in our 20 week ultrasound. I am done with the surprises and want to know up front if this baby is the boy that I thought that Kitty and then Baby K were going to be...

There are a couple of trends that we could end up following - our family trend of having girls or the extended family trend on my side of the family where the last three babies that have been born have been boys.

So, you have 2 days to cast your vote in my poll on the right. Let me know if you think we are having a boy or a girl. I will post the results after we find out on Thursday!!

Pregnancy update - Week 39

I went to see my midwife yesterday and my uterus measured a centimeter less than last week which is a sign that the baby is dropping more. Unfortunately he/she was also posterior so my midwife suggested that I try more pelvic tilts to get the baby to turn (especially when labor starts). She said that in Mexico the midwives believe that babies don't like the cold so they tend to turn their backs to the mother's back when the weather is cold. My midwife has noticed in her own experience that there tend to be more posterior babies in the winter time. I suggested that maybe I need to walk around the house with a heating pad on my belly...

Getting ready for baby...

The last couple of weeks have been busy around our house trying to get things ready for the baby. I finally got our bedroom cleaned up and set up the bassinet/changing table pack-n-play that we have and I have bought some new clothes for the birth day. I have bought both boy & girl things so we are prepared for either one. With Blondie I had only gender neutral things out for the birth but at this point I like to have both genders & then I'll either take back the things we don't use or I'll save them to give away as gifts. I also got some new flannel blankets made - both boy & girl again. There was a great sale on flannel at the fabric store a couple of weeks ago and I found some really cute fabrics. I pulled out all of our baby stuff from storage last Saturday and I've cleared out enough space in our bedroom so that we can set up the birthing pool in there again. I bought a new infant car seat/carrier because our previous one has gone through 4 kids now. When I pulled it out of the box the other day Luke made the comment that I really must think that we're having a boy because the car seat is black & gray! (Actually, the seat that I got doesn't come in any "girly" colors.) I've also done my birthday shopping for April already so that I don't have to worry about it once the baby is born. Both my mom & DH's mom have their birthdays this month & Kitty will be turning 3 on the 17th!

One advantage with this birth is that my parents now live nearby so my mom doesn't have to try and time her flight to get here before the baby is born. The disadvantage with them living here in Utah though is that they are also closer to my younger brother who is attending BYU-Idaho. My parents are on their way up to Rexburg today to attend his final choir concert and then will be going up again next week for his graduation. So, I'm not supposed to have the baby today, tomorrow, or next Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (are you listening baby?!?). ;) Other then that, any day should be good (and preferably before the kids go back to school on April 14th)...

For those of you that want to send gifts for the baby, the one thing we really don't need is blankets! I can always use cute clothes & shoes & our crib sheets are getting pretty worn. I could also use some covers for my boppy pillow and a new mobile for the crib (our old one is broken).

It's a...

GIRL!!!

Wish a warm welcome to baby girl #4!

We had the baby early this morning, April 1st, around 5 a.m. It was my quickest labor so far and my midwife barely made it in time. Everything went well though and we are resting now. We haven't decided on a name yet and will post pictures when we get a spare minute...



Or not... since it's April Fool's Day!!

New poll

I thought it would be fun to add another poll to my blog to vote on when you think the baby will be born. This is how my births have gone so far:

M&M - 12 days early
Luke - 1 day early
Blondie - 2 days late
Kitty - 6 days early

I had a prenatal appointment today and everything is looking fine with me and the baby. I measured about the same as I did last week but my midwife said that the baby's head isn't really low down yet.

So, vote on when you think the baby will be born as well as what you think we are having! Read this posting for possible tips on the gender: Pregnancy update - 37 Weeks!

Pregnancy update - 37 Weeks!

I am officially 37 weeks today (if due dates are at all accurate) and can now give birth at home with my midwife. 37 weeks is that "magic" date where all of a sudden the baby can most likely survive at birth without any breathing complications. One book I was reading recently said that the baby is usually full-term by 35 weeks but the medical community adds 2 more weeks to that to compensate for due dates possibly being off.

So, I've decided to put a poll on the website to see what everyone thinks we are having, so please vote (and please only once per person). I will give you a little info on the pregnancy and previous pregnancies to see if it influences your answer at all. This is the first pregnancy I have had where I haven't thrown up at all. I was the most sick with M&M, second most sick with Blondie, third with Kitty and with Luke I was only sick for about a week. We found out the gender of babies one & two (M&M & Luke), but before the ultrasound my guesses were boy for both. With Blondie I was pretty confident that she was a girl and I was pretty confident that Kitty was a boy. :) So, I have been about 50/50 for my guesses so far. I must say though that with M&M's pregnancy, since it was my first, I didn't really have anything to compare the pregnancy to & DH really wanted a boy first. So I think it may have just been wishful thinking more than anything else that I thought M&M was a boy. Kitty's pregnancy was just different from the rest of them & we were very much surprised when I found out that I was pregnant. I didn't really have a lot of "morning sickness", but I did start out the pregnancy with severe back & neck pain which laid me up for a couple of weeks - to the point that I finally went into the doctor to get checked over and felt like I should take a pregnancy test to rule that out. They gave me some prescription pain medications & the next day I got a phone call saying, "Congratulations! You're pregnant!" That quickly put a stop to me taking the prescription pain medications...

So, good luck on the voting! If you have any questions you want to ask me before you vote, feel free.

Pregnancy update - Week 36

Well, I think the baby dropped yesterday. While this doesn't necessarily mean that I will give birth anytime soon, it's definitely a sign that things are progressing & getting closer to the birth. I am excited about this mostly because I can sit up & bend over more comfortably and can breathe better. Over the last couple of weeks the baby has really been pushing up on my rib cage and making some things very uncomfortable to do - especially driving or sitting in the car.

More articles on autism

Here are two somewhat disturbing articles on possible causes of autism. If you are currently pregnant or planning on having kids in the future, I would definitely read these. One is on a possible link between ultrasounds & autism and the other is on a possible link between pitocin during labor & autism. One thing is definitely clear to me and that is that there has been a HUGE increase in autism rates over the last 20 or so years in ALL industrialized countries - and these numbers cannot be justified by the explanation that there are better tests available today to diagnose it. Another disturbing trend is that a good portion of these children come from families that have high incomes and are well educated - who have the best obstetrical care money can buy. While I personally don't think that having one ultrasound during your pregnancy around 20 weeks will harm your unborn baby, this first article does make me question the use of multiple ultrasounds throughout pregnancy & especially ones in the first trimester when the baby's brain & neurological system is initially developing.

Questions about Prenatal Ultrasound and the Alarming Increase in Autism by Caroline Rodgers from Midwifery Today website

ATTN: Researchers- Look in the first environment, the womb from Autism Today website

Pregnancy update - Week 34

I can't believe I only have 6 weeks left - actually we're hoping less than that. I'll be 37 weeks at the end of this month so I can have the baby at home anytime after that! M&M was 12 days early & my only late baby was Blondie who was 2 days late. Regardless, I hope that the baby does not end up sharing birthdays with Kitty on April 17th... I'm also hoping the baby will be a little early because the kids will be off track March 20-April 13 and it would be nice to not have to worry about school for a few days after the baby comes...

My midwife came over to our house today for a prenatal visit and things are looking good. I usually go to her house but she was going to be in the area & she leaves tomorrow for a 2 week trip to Africa. I've been measuring about 1-2 cm bigger the last couple of visits and she said the baby feels like it's probably close to 5 lbs right now. Hopefully this all means that my due date is a little off and that the baby will come early. :-> The baby was really active while she was here and she had a hard time finding the heartbeat because there was so much other noise going on inside.

One great thing with this pregnancy is that my blood pressure has been pretty low. Today she measured it at 114/66 - which I think is the lowest it's been for any of my pregnancies. She thinks part of it is that she came to my house where I was relaxed and in my own environment. That definitely could be part of it because I always seem to get the "white coat syndrome" when I am at a Dr's office. My weight gain has also slowed down since I started exercising in January. I've been trying to do aerobics 4-5 times a week and have been successful except for the week when I was sick with the flu. I've only gained about 3 pounds over the last 7 weeks.

Overall I feel really good except for occasional heartburn & occasional sleepless nights. The baby definitely has an active period in the evening between dinner & bedtime and sometimes the kicking & moving around isn't the most comfortable. I also have periods where I can't sit very comfortably or bend over because the baby is taking up so much space - but that's to be expected at this point. I'm definitely getting excited & nervous about the next couple of weeks!! I don't think it will hit me that this is my 5th child until he/she is actually here!

Favorite movie

Last week Blondie had a doctor's appointment and had to get some immunizations which she wasn't too happy about. She did great for them but was pretty emotional afterwards. After we got home and had some lunch she was still complaining about her arms hurting so I gave her some Tylenol and took her downstairs to watch a movie. I asked her what she wanted to watch (thinking she would pick one of the kid movies we checked out from the library) and she immediately said, "I want to watch you exercise..."

Just the day before this I finally broke out one of my pregnancy aerobic tapes and started trying to get myself into shape. I haven't felt up to it much this pregnancy. Finally back in December I started getting some of my energy back and haven't been as tired as I was the whole first half of my pregnancy. Then with Christmas & our trip to Florida though, I've been too busy to think about exercising. I finally decided last week that I need to start doing something or I'm going to have a horrible time losing any weight after this baby is born. The funny part is that I wasn't planning on exercising that day & ended up doing it thanks to Blondie. Blondie & Kitty both love it when I turn on my exercise video - so keep up the encouragement girls!

It's a...

baby!
Sorry, you'll have to wait until the baby is born to find out what it is. I went to my appointment with my midwife on Wednesday morning and she was able to call the hospital and schedule my 20 week ultrasound for us for the next day. So we went in on Thursday afternoon and everything appears to be just fine with the baby. We told the tech upfront that we didn't want to know what we were having (we haven't found out with any except the first two). Luke was asking part way through if it was a boy and we told him to watch the monitor to see if he could tell. The tech then told us that she hadn't even tried to look because she was afraid that she would accidentally give it away (i.e. saying, "There's his/her hand").

The measurements were all right on for when my due date is. The baby was being kind of shy with its head down really low and its face towards my lower back. It also had one hand up by its face the whole time so we weren't able to get any good profile or face shots.

We had the kids there with us and I had a hard time trying not to laugh at their comments (try lying flat on your back and not moving your stomach when you laugh). At one point DH was talking to the kids about the "water" that the baby is in inside of me and he asked the kids if any of them knew what it was called. Blondie piped up and said, "Crater Lake?" We then had to explain to the tech what she was talking about and it took a minute or two for me to stop laughing on that one.

The ultrasound tech really liked this picture because it looks like the baby is making the sign for I Love You with its right hand.

According to their best estimates, the baby weighs about 13 oz at this point and the head measures about 2 inches across. It's amazing to me that the baby can be so small still and yet I feel such big kicks and movements every day.

Pregnancy update - Week 16

I had my midwife appointment on Wednesday and we were able to hear the heartbeat!

I have also started exploding this past week and can no longer comfortably fit into "normal" clothes. So I've had to break out the maternity clothes which is a sad thing because unfortunately, most of them are huge and the pants practically fall off of me. Speaking of maternity clothes, does anyone know a good place to buy petite sizes in maternity pants? I have been to numerous stores trying to find some new maternity pants for myself and the pants are all about a foot too long for me - no joke. Why is it that the makers of maternity clothes think that once women are pregnant, they are all the same height (and really tall apparently)? And I don't even consider myself particularly short - I'm 5' 5" - which is pretty close to average height for women. So, any help in finding some "average" size pants would be greatly appreciated!

Pregnant or not??

I went to see my midwife about 2 weeks ago and we weren't able to find a heartbeat. It was a little disappointing, but don't be alarmed by this news - I have what is called a retroflexed, or retroverted, uterus which means that it is tipped back towards my lower back (not the normal position). Because of this it makes it hard to hear the heartbeat early on. Since I was only 11 weeks at the time, there is no reason to be concerned at this point (and the same thing happened when I was pregnant with Kitty). My midwife was able to tell that my uterus is growing and I definitely feel pregnant. DH just likes it when I can finally hear the heartbeat so that he knows that I'm not just imagining things...

I think that I was feeling the baby move last night which is exciting. At this point it can be hard to tell if it is actually the baby or just my own body but I'm pretty sure that I was feeling the baby last night. I have been lucky enough to feel movements very early on with all of my pregnancies. It's certainly an amazing feeling having something living moving & growing inside of my body.

BTW - The baby is supposed to be about 3 inches long from head to its rump at this point (and all of the organs are formed by now)...

Luke's turn!

On Friday, September 28, Luke received the Principal's Pride Award for "participating in all classroom discussions". That's a nice way of saying that Luke likes to talk!

I try & help out in Luke's classroom 2-3 times a month and I had just been in on Wednesday to help. One of the mom's of a kid in Luke's class had just had a baby and the teacher had him tell the class about it. Then she had the kids come up to the front of the classroom who had show & tell for that day. Luke was one of them & he had brought his soccer uniform to show the class. After he showed his uniform & told the class a little about his team he said, "Oh, and my mom's pregnant." I was standing just off to the side waiting for the teacher to give me some work to do and all the kids turned to look at me. After the kids were sent off to do class work Mrs. Bray came up to me and told me why Luke was getting Principal's Pride Award. We both had a good laugh about that! We had just told M&M & Luke a few days earlier that I was pregnant and I guess hearing that another mom had had a baby made Luke remember our news... Mrs. Bray asked if I was okay with Luke announcing that and I told her that we wouldn't have told Luke if we weren't ready to share the news yet :) We both them commented on how different he is personality wise from M&M (she is definitely not a talker at school).

M&M & Luke have both announced the news to their primary classes - so I imagine we will start having people ask us about it soon...