Changes to our Busy Week!

Ever heard the saying "Wanna hear God laugh, tell Him your plans."? Well, I've got to hear Him do some belly-rolling-chuckling lately! :)
 After looking over my last post, I will say, I got through the first half of my week as planned. I spent Monday in Geneva, and Tuesday we got a good report at Abi's neurology checkup. The EEG still showed some seizure activity, but only when she was provoked, not any "spontaneous" seizures, so that is good! He still adjusted her meds a little, but we get to wait longer between visits for now. I have some pics she wanted me to take during her EEG, but I'll have to add those later since, as we all know, I'm blogging from my comfy hospital bed!
So, Wednesday morning, started as normal. I got everyone off for their day, and Ellie and I headed to Dothan for her vet check-up and my regular scheduled  OB appt. I dropped her off at the vet and ran a few errands before my appt time. Once I got to the dr's office I told her I had been feeling a little funny the last week or so, and thought I may be having a few small contractions. Well, I had gained several more pounds than she was comfortable with, I had some spillage of protien in my urine, and my blood pressure was very high. She immediately sent me for an ultrasound in the office, and then on to the labor and delivery for some monitoring. They hooked me up to the fetal monitors, and sure enough, I was having contractions! (I'm currently 33 weeks) My blood pressures remained high and they did some lab work to look at my liver enzymes, kidney function along with some other things. (They told me they thought I had preeclampsia, but would do a 24 hour urine collection to confirm the diagnosis.)The dr on call did not like the preliminary lab results, so they gave me a steroid shot to help hurry and develop Kallie's lungs in case she needed to be delivered soon. One of the problems with preeclampsia is the blood pressure getting so high, it causes the mom to have seizures, so they also started me on a magnesium drip to help control my body from going into seizures since my b/p was staying so high. At this point, they were just going to keep me at Flower's and monitor me on the magnesium, but quickly decided to transport me to Sacred Heart in Pensacola. They have a high-risk ob group here as well as a NICU if she needs to be delivered early. So about 8 o'clock Wednesday evening, I was loaded up on the ambulance and brought to Pensacola.
Once I got here, (about 11:30 pm) it was very chaotic. The magnesium they had me on made me feel awful. Very glassy-eyed, yucky all over, flu-like feeling. Plus I was on continuous fetal monitoring, blood pressures every 15 min and continuous o2 sat monitoring, not to mention the catheter for my 24 hr urine. Ugh! I had tubes, plugs and wires coming out of everywhere. All the doctors on call were in and out of my room hourly all night doing different checks on me like temp, blood pressure, checking my reflexes and asking me lots of questions, so I got very little rest.
Thursday morning, Brandon's mom came down and stayed with me. It was pretty much the same routine, I got my second dose of the steroids for Kallie's lungs, doctors in and out, no getting out of bed, constant monitoring...and NO FOOD!! :) This little momma was starting to get hungry! But I tried to rest as much as possible and was actually able to nap a little. Late Thursday night (2am Friday morn), the night doctors came in and stopped my magnesium, my 24 urine sampling was complete and I was able to get up and shower and have a bowl of cereal. I started to feel much better. I slept on through the night, and Friday morning was much better.
Friday I was down to no IV, no monitors and only blood pressures every 2 hours. They told me delivery was not longer immediate, and that we could plan on staying here for a while to see how things developed. They moved me out into a regular room and Brandon finally got to come down here Friday evening! I was so excited to see him. It makes me realize how much we depend on each other for support, and it was really hard facing these things by myself. But we both know he needed to be home running the household and taking care of our other two sweet babies!
I'll stop here for now, but will continue to update on events as new news comes!

Catching Up!

Wow, I dont' realize how time really flies sometimes! It's been over two weeks since I last posted, and there's so much to tell! We really squeeze so much into each minute of everyday! Sometimes it feels like we are just rushing from one place to the next, just to get there and rush somewhere else, but life will HAVE to slow down soon, in less than two months to be exact! Yep the new baby will surely put the brakes on us some! Ok well, there's no really good place to start, sooooo let's just jump right in!

In the last two weeks, Abi has started her soccer season. She's never played before, so she's having to learn everything there is about the sport. It is quite comical to watch those little 6&7 year olds get out there and chase after that ball. They just run and run and run, their energy seems to be never ending. So far they have had a couple practices and played two games. Won one and lost one. (Ok let me back-track a little here....Abi has had a few pretty bad nose bleeds in the last few weeks, and we don't know if it's the change in the weather or her sinuses or what...but anyway.) At the last game one of the other players kicked the ball and it hit Abi square in the nose. The first thing she did was grab it and look at me and say, "Oh my nose is gonna bleed!". She came and sat with me a sec, but then was right back out there. No longer than her feet had hit the grass, the same little boy kicked a pop up again and it got her in the jaw. She turned and looked at him, shrugged up her arms and said loudly "Seriously?, Again?" All the parents died laughing!!! She is a trip and most definitely tough! So far she seems to love playing soccer though, and I enjoy being a soccer mom! :)

 Disregard Brandon's "beverage" cans in the background!, but here's Abi ready for her first game!

I have finally started on the nursery too! I have had my bedding and paint colors picked out for a while now, just haven't gotten around to getting it all started. This week I painted all the trim, and walls, as well as two pieces of furniture, a chest of drawers and a night stand. We still have to get the carpet cleaned, so that's why the furniture is still pushed up together in the middle of the room. Here's a few pics to see the progress. It's far from finished though. Still have lots of setting up to do!

 Chest of drawers BEFORE the makeover!

Room before. The room is full paneling! 

 And AFTER!! I used three different colors. As you can see a light pink, a dark pink and a pastel green. Both the doors and a wall are green, two walls are light pink, and one wall is dark pink.

My fave, is the furniture. It turned out better than I thought! I still have to get the new drawer pulls put on though!

Oh, and here's one of my first FINISHED projects! A rag wreath for the closet door.

Brandon has also gone on his first business trip with his new job. The company he's working for is putting him through their management training program, so for the next 9-12 months, he'll periodically be gone for meetings and "schooling". He spent a week in north Alabama in different cities seeing different stores and plants, and all other kinds of stuff. You know, he came home telling me about it, but I didn't really follow the whole convo! :)

What else? Well, we had our latest visit with the baby doc, scheduled my c-section (Nov. 9th) and got to tour labor and delivery at Flower's. This will be my first delivery there, and even though it's scheduled, and I'm able to plan for it, now that it's "on the books" I'm getting kinda nervous! The dr was so funny, we are rotating through some of the other drs in the practice, so it wasn't "my" dr we saw this time. It came time to talk about scheduling the surgery, and he said "So I see your due Nov. 6th. You want to plan this for the last week in October?" I said "No way! I'm in nursing school and I actually need her to stay in there an extra week!" He was absolutely shell shocked. He had the deer in head lights look! He said most women are begging us at 35 weeks to start labor or do the c-section. He told me I'd never make it to the 16th, so we compromised for the 9th!
I also started back working my 32 hour weekends, so Brandon and the girls get to enjoy Saturdays and Sundays together. (But this Sunday afternoon is my baby shower, so I'll get to be off and take the girls with me! We are super excited!!) It's hard to miss out on their fun times, but it really makes it easier that I'm home every night during the week to handle the hustle and bustle of school night routines, and now soccer games, and all the other prep work that goes in to each school morning, not to mention the endless dr appts, that will only get more frequent from here on out. It won't be like this for long...that's what me and Brandon keep telling ourselves!

And oh my goodness, I almost forgot...This past weekend, my sister got married! I was a full weekend with Friday night rehearsal, and Saturday we had a bridal luncheon, finishing touches to the ceremony site, and finally that evening, the wedding! We had a little scare with the rain, but the weather cooperated at just the right time, and her outside ceremony was perfect! But, where was my camera during all of this? Yep, on the kitchen counter. I could have kicked myself, I went out and left it for the festivities Friday AND Saturday. Oh well, we'll just have to wait on the photographer to send her the prints! They'll be much better than mine anyway! :)

I know I kinda skipped around during this post, but I wanted to get it all down! Hopefully I won't wait so long between blogs next time! Lots to come in the coming weeks. Next week will be especially busy. Nursing school is back in full swing, so I'm in Geneva on Mondays for clinicals, then Tuesday me and Abner will be headed to Pensacola for her appt with the neurologist, Wednesday I'm back to Dothan for an OB appt, and a trip to the vet, Thursday is class day, and MAYBE Friday I can finally get that carpet cleaned! :) Wow! What an eventful week ahead, and I'm not even done with this one...I'm tired just thinking about it!
Happy Friday everybody!