A Day of Gifts

This post title and format of this post comes from Tammy T's post the other day. She happens to be reading the same book I am, but apparently applying it better than me!

I felt pretty down at work yesterday, just tired as usual, just usual prego stuff, moms out there know what I'm feeling. Then I started recognizing gifts:

checking the mail and first, discovering a refund from overpayment on insurance premium that will cover groceries. Then opening a card from a friend we haven't seen in a while to discover well-wishes, Bible verses, and a gift card to treat ourselves to a date!

At Bible study last night, one I almost didn't attend because hubby had a few extra hours at home last night, turned out to be a surprise (TOTAL SURPRISE) baby shower! The gifts here were more than baby shower presents, it was the love of Christian young women who barely know me, yet wanted to do something for me and my unborn child. Experiencing this king of welcome to a group and being surrounded with what feels like love with no hesitation, is such a rare occurrence in my life. I don't have the words to express how my heart overflows with amazement and gratitude.

As I prepared for bed last night, the bathroom was still foggy from my husband's shower before work, I discovered a finger-scrawled note on the mirror reading "I <3 my wife!". Just the best thing to see before tucking myself into bed!

Thank you God for all the beautiful gifts of yesterday!

Surprise Baby Shower pix: (and might I add, if I had known, I would have tried harder with my appearance. no makeup, hair in a ponytail, clothes that say "at least i'm dressed. awesome! thank God His people loved me anyway!)

Ya'll have NO idea how excited I was to get wipes!

The girls were SO thoughtful with there gifts even down to the packaging :-)

This was awesome, one friend did the "mommy gift"! Bath stuff, creams, and all manner of goodness just for me!

HOW CUTE is this??? Baby bath toys!!! Little boy has all manner of stuff for bathing and wiping his butt now!

Have an awesome holiday weekend ya'll!

 

Best,

M~

Baking Disasters

Yesterday when I got home from work I decided it was time to try my hand at bread-making. I love baking, I love bread, I love homemade bread, I'm tired of the store bought texture and overloaded sodium content in bread from the grocery store. I thought I'd be helping my family if I could make some awesome whole wheat break at home. $5 bag of flour that will last a few weeks to a month, or $5/week in grocery store loaf?

Here's how it went. I get through stage one and come to the first rising stage. Hubby gets up from his midday rest before he goes in for some overtime at work. He wonders if I plan on making supper. I figure I can make dinner in between the different rising stages.

While we wait on the "sponge" to "rest" (taken strait from the recipe lingo), I fire up the chicken. The "sponge" seemed "rested" so I move into the next stage... kneading.... for 12-13 minutes. Half-way through kneading, my contractions kick in. I blame it on lack of water, heated kitchen, heavy-duty kneading.

Once I'm through kneading, I jump back to the chicken, start the couscous, and start the stir fry veggies. Hubby is helping out with whatever he can as needed. Supper fixings complete, we get our plates loaded up, David is a little nervous because my contractions are kind of painful. He fills our biggest drinking container with ice water, helps me with my plate, and we get my feet up.

Shortly after dinner hubby has to leave for work. I rest a little bit longer and dive back into the bread making process. In between the bread rising, punching it down, letting it rise, and waiting for the oven to preheat, I'm resting with my ice water.

Ok, so 5 hours later this is what I end up with:

 

 

 Two disgustingly deformed excuses for bread in really heavy, thick rock-form...

 

...And one disaster of a kitchen, sadder also because hubby spent part of the morning cleaning it up for me and making it liveable again. 

 

 

 

Then, 128 ounces of water later, my contractions were under control and I could sleep as peacefully as any woman almost 8 months pregnant sleeps.

 

 

Best,

M~

My Week of the Unexpected

You may have noticed how quiet it's been around here for a few days. Remember how tired and sore I felt Monday? It didn't stop there.
Tuesday night I decided there were several things I could get done while hubby was taking a nap before work. About 9:20 when I was settling down, I began having back pain unlike back pain I had experienced before. I drank some water and moved onto my left side to see if that helped. From there I also began having tightenings in my stomache more painful than the braxton hicks I've had since 23 weeks.
I cranked up my water in-take. 40 ounces in one hour. The pain kept coming. I tried directed breathing to hopefully relaxe my back and stomache, finally I decided to go take a hot shower using the detachable part of the showerhead to bring relief to the "ouchy places". Nothing was helping, everything was intensifying. Finally it was about time for David to get up so I went to lie down in our bed. He was excited to see me and wanted to give me an enthusiastic kiss and hug. I had to put up my hand to stop him and barely got out "I'm in a lot of pain right now, take it easy." Imediately his countenance fell and I could see he may be on the verge of worry. I said "It's nothing, I'll be fine, I'm just trying to get things under control. 'Practice contractions' are normal." I was obviously in denial. While he was in the shower things got even more painful. I decided to call the after-hours nurse and see if she had any suggestions. She told me she would have a midwife call me back. By the time David got out of the shower I was timing these contractions, one minute apart lasting 2-5 minutes. I finally got off the bed, was standing and holding on to the bed post trying to practice all the awesome breathing I had been studying. When the midwife called back David had to talk to her because I really couldn't talk through the contraction I was having, I didn't even want to moan. It took the midwife 3 m inutes to give directions to David to get us down there as soon as possible.
David had to change twice... who knows why ;-) He was in rush/panic? mode. I was also feeling nauseas so he grabbed a bowl for me just in case, and we were off like a blueish-gray hyundai bullet.
Contractions stayed consistent. When I had a break I would hope that it was nothing, maybe I had food poisioning? My baby could just not be coming right now. We had just been to the clinic that morning for a check up. Everything was fine.
We got to the hospital. They were on baby delivery overload. Apparently while we were there someone had delivered in the ER waiting room. The room they put us in had just been cleaned after one woman barely made it out before dropping her blessing, and another woman delivered in there right before we came.
The monitors proved I was having actual contractions. I was dialated one centimeter. They began treating me like it was pre-term labor. The contractions lasted at this intensity for 4 hours. In that time they gave me three swab tests during breaks, of which 2 proved negative, which showed the baby wasn't actually set to come that night or even in the next two weeks. They gave me a steroid shot any way just to mature the baby's lungs and tummy to be on the safe side. The good thing is, the baby montior showed my son has a strong heart, the heart of a term baby, so even if he came early, though he'd be small, he'd be strong! The third test showed a bacteria that they believe could have contributed to the excitement, so they put me on antibiotics. They kept us overnight and I cleaned out three bags of saline for hydration purposes, which they credit to also helping control my contractions. I'm now on strict orders to drink exorbitant amounts of water.
I was told I could return to normal activities as long as I felt up to it and stayed aware of what was going on internally. Friday morning I decided I was ready to go for a walk... one loop around the neighborhood and I started having some mild contractions, I debated pushing myself, and then decided to play it safe and drink more water while putting up my feet.

I chalk this experience up to another lesson in "I'm not in Control". One of my biggest worries during that whole ordeal was how much we hadn't finished for the baby. The next day we had scheduled an appointment with a lawyer to officially name guardians, we had plans with a state trooper to have our car seat installed and inspected, we only had three outfits for him for when he first comes out, we didn't even own a receiving or swaddling blanket!!! I had checklists for what was to be done each week, and the baby was trying to come before it was all ready! We didn't even have our hospital bag packed!

Praise God, baby is still safe inside, growing a little more. This weekend we went to a huge consignment sale and went nuts on baby clothes, blankets, and hats. We now have several outfits for 0-3, 3 months, and 3-6 months. We have burp clothes. We have 5 blankets and 4 hats! I feel a little bit more like we some things ready for him. We packed a bag for us and started one for him, and I made a shelf just for his bath stuff in the bathroom linen closet.

Now to meet the state trooper... if they would onlly call back! Is 4 calls too many? Maybe I'll try one more time tomorrow.