Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Obsessed

The promised post!!

I wish I could take a picture of me right now, you know, the trendy "belly pic".  Alas, picture taking and posting at our house is over, for now.  We take pics and our camera has a memory card that we have to place in our printer to transfer it to the computer and to be able to upload it to a post.  Well, our printer conked out and it no longer recognizes the memory card.  The Musical Mailman has spotted a printer that he is going to get, it's just that we need $200 to get it!! So, pictures of any kind on any posts will not be happening in the near future.

I see blogs where they do week-by-week updates and pics.  I think I'm only going to do monthly pictures.  I think weeklies are overkill.

It's sad that I can't upload pictures, because I do love the shirt I'm wearing today, but I needed to know, from all of you ladies, if this shirt makes me look like a ripe pumpkin??!! Hannah said I looked pretty and that I didn't look like a pumpkin.....but gals, I'm

HUGE!!!!!!

Really, I've never had this big of a belly this early, in ANY of my pregnancies!!

And now, the real topic for this post: my obsession!

I must confess to you all that I have had an obsession with having twins.  For a long time.  It started when I was pregnant with Sofia Elisabeth, 5 years ago.  But it was barely a twinge then.  I had a bit of a twinge when we got pregnant with Lucie.  I was really little with her, though. Hers was the best pregnancy I've ever had! I felt the best I ever have, with her.  With this pregnancy, back when I didn't even know I was pregnant, I had a couple of dreams that we had twins, a boy and a girl.  Everywhere l look, I see twins.  I'm obsessed! I mean it! I can't stop thinking about it.  I have been feeling so yucky and so cruddy and this pregnancy, my symptoms have been magnified, big time!! As previously mentioned, I'm absolutely huge and I think I've already been feeling movements and vibrations! I did have an ultrasound at 7 weeks and there was only one baby there, but gals, I will tell you how obsessed I am!

I went back and studied the 7 week ultrasound pictures, and right next to Baby, there's a shadowy spot, right next to where Baby is.  Yep.  Freakin' out.  I know we're having twins!!!!

With no previous twin pregnancies and no history of twins in our families, I know I'm having twins.  I even took a quiz this morning on the likelihood of us having twins!

The results: our probability of having twins is slim.  18% chance slim.

We have only heard one heartbeat, but that's normal early on, even in multiple pregnancies.

I'm still feeling cruddy, although I have good days.  I have had 5 migraines the last 2 weeks.  I had a migraine just the other day that is kind of hanging around.

I feel a lot of pressure where the Baby is.  I have to go potty at least twice during the night, if not three times.  This hasn't happened before.  I never really have to go potty a lot till the end.

My logical mind knows that I am of advanced maternal age.  I have had 12 pregnancies.  I am 35 lbs overweight (not fun).  My body is totally different with this Baby.  My obsession with twins is just probably a figment of my imagination.

We'd be good twin parents.  We would.  We are ready for twins.  If God chose to do this for us, we'd rejoice!

Truthfully, we have actually been praying for twins, ever since we started trying to get pregnant again.  I've secretly wished and hoped and dreamed.

I have NO idea why I feel that way.  I know multiples are a lot of work and really hard on your body....But we still want them!

Seriously, if you could see my tummy, you'd be asking too! It's really big, and since I carry really, really low, I feel like my enlarged uterus is pushing everything else up and into my rib cage! Ugh.  I'm looking 8 months pregnant and I'm not even 4 months yet!!!

So now you know what I think about when I have too much time on my hands and my mind wanders!!! Crazy, huh?? I think I have a hunch that we are having twins, but it is more than likely wishful thinking and an over-active imagination.

Other things on my mind are: getting an emergency birthing kit put together and set on the back of the toilet.  Since Lucie was born at home, on the toilet (even though we lived only 3 BLOCKS away from the hospital), AND since we now live 40 MINUTES from the hospital, I feel it's imperative that this be done and in place! This will consist of a blanket and towel, shoestring, sharp sterilized scissors, a warm hat, and a gown.  I had this in place on the back of our toilet when Lucie was born, and even told the Musical Mailman that it was there right when she came out, but he was too shocked and a bit panicked to hear! We're talking about all scenarios and all this stuff.  We do have the Boss of our town's EMT's a hop-skip-and-jump away,  and he happens to be a really good friend of our family, plus we are friends with the next town's Fire Chief, which is 20 minutes or less away.  A thought just occurred to me: I have NO idea if our town has an ambulance!!!

This is a real possibility for us, gals.  My labors and actual births are, historically, very short.  As in, hey, you're 6 cm dilated, it'll be 4 hours, oooops! 20 minutes later, no doctor no nurse attending, she's here! And, as in, the nurse goes to check me and I'm 8.5 cm's, she's just getting ready to tell me the baby's still very high up there, when bam......literally a second later, no doctor and three nurses delivering, baby's here! We want to be prepared, because if I go into labor here at the house, it's a very real possibility that I won't make it to the hospital.  We want to be prepared for any and all emergencies and scenarios.  Big stuff around here!!

These are the thoughts that are going through my head these days......twins and emergencies!!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Overwhelmed

Well.....let me just warn all ya'll that this post is quite possibly the longest post I have ever done.  Yes.  It is.  So getcha a nice tall cold drink and buckle up if you want to read to the end!

Hello.

What I'm feeling right now, and have been feeling the past few days, is being overwhelmed!

Overwhelmed with the fact that you all still read my blog.
Overwhelmed with you all praying for me.
I want to say thank you to all my dear blog friends who are out there and supporting me and praying for me and wanting to walk this new path with me.  God gives strength to me through you.  I feel your prayers! I definitely feel your prayers.   It's true that we can't do this thing called Christianity without each other, huh?

I'm also contemplating the thought that I'm starting this journey again at my age.  Yes, it is totally what we wanted, and God has seen fit to honor that want and give us another Life.  But the thought dogs me that I will be
Almost 38
when this baby is born!

That feels overwhelming to me.  Silly? I mean, it's not like I expect to suddenly break down and be frail and doddering and fragile overnight......but it seems older to me.  Yes, I know that Michelle Duggar, whom I admire very much, is now 43 and just had her 20th child.  Hey, suck it up, right??

I'm definitely having a different pregnancy this time around.  My pregnancy with Lucie was a stinkin' breeze!  This time, hmmm, it's, well, I'm not going to lie to you, it's been HARD! My body is doing weird things to me.  Migraines, twice a week for a while there.  Sickness, but never actually vomiting, all morning until 11 am.  Then again, hitting me at 4 pm till bedtime.  I have been so tired! I mean, tired is a gross understatement this time around.  I'd get up at 6 and by the time 10 am rolled around I was needing a nap again! I'd just lay on the couch while the kids did their thing and be drifting off to sleep before I knew it! I think I've been taking two naps a day.  Now, I struggle with laziness, and this just fed my slothful tendencies!

And hormones? Do you gals want to talk hormones with me? Cause I can talk hormones with the best of 'em! This pregnancy, I think an alien demon from the deepest reaches of Hell has inhabited my brain!! Seriously, I feel like someone stole my body and brain and I have no idea where they took them!  I've been a monster lately! I even told my husband I was done with him AND took my wedding ring off (which, if you know me, will totally horrify you because it's just something that I do NOT do! This ring is my most prized possession and I never, no never, take it off) and put it on his dresser cause I was not going to wear that thing anymore! People, it was ugly! Let me tell you, I've done a LOT of apologizing to my kids and my husband the past three months!

So, how am I doing now?

I'm 3 months and 5 days pregnant (can we just say I'm almost 13 weeks?) and let's do an assessment of how I'm feeling today:
  • My nausea is almost completely gone.  I only get a bit nauseated right around bedtime.  Now ladies, I have never been nauseated when pregnant, with the exception of a week when I was pregnant with Samantha, so this is momentous! I hardly ever talk about this aspect of my pregnancies for fear of being stalked by mamas with AK-47's because of this.  I know that this is a big problem with most moms, but don't hate me!!
  • The migraines have gone away.  I hope they never come back.
  • I'm still tired.  I still absolutely HAVE TO have a nap a day.  Last night I started to fall asleep on the couch at 8 pm!
  • The hormones? Well, when I asked you all to pray for me, I had a few days of bliss! And for the most part, the past week, I have felt more like myself.  I am drinking red raspberry leaf tea at least once a day, and this is great for hormonal problems and sleep issues and is a great thing for you all who struggle with PMS and really bad periods.  It's a miracle!
  • The Musical Mailman Husband is trying to understand, he really is, bless his heart.  I feel so sorry for him because his little woman who he married is gone and in her place is someone he neither knows or understands! 
I'm getting back into the swing of things, slowly.  Laziness still stalks me and many times he wins, but I'm slowly taking authority over that and trying to do what I feel called to do around here.

Let's talk about weight, shall we?? Almost 5 years ago, I went on a wheat free/gluten free/dairy free diet, and it did wonders for me.  The day I went on this self imposed diet, I weighed 220 lbs and a size 20 was getting real snug on me.  I vowed to myself that I would NEVER go up a size.  I was already fat and just couldn't do it anymore.  I had so many major physical symptoms that it would take a separate post just to list them all! Within 48 hours of going on this diet, I started to feel better.  Actually, I can't adequately convey to you HOW MUCH better I felt.  It was nothing short of amazing.  Five weeks into it, I had lost 20 lbs.  Altogether I lost over 80 lbs.  I weighed 150 lbs for 3 and a half years.  I was a size 10-12.  Yeah, I felt skinny.  I have always hated myself and my body, but I was starting to love myself and accept myself and finally, after 36 years of being me, was starting to find out who I really was and liking me! Truly, I felt like a New Me and really loved the feeling.

Why did I include that seemingly unrelated paragraph in this post? Bear with me, I'm getting there! We started going to a new church last October and they had a potluck after every church service.  Oh joy.  Can you see where I'm going with this?? Yeah.  I started to gain weight.

I have gained 35 lbs in the past 8 months.  I'm back to feeling obese and frumpy and just generally gross! I wanted to do something about the fact that when I walked, you could here my thighs slapping together down in Arkansas, so I started exercising.  With Leslie Sansone.  Every single day.  3 Power Miles.  I started to firm up.  I lost 5 lbs! I was going to do it!! I'll tell ya'll that I now love exercise, and this is saying a LOT since I had always thought that exercise was torture designed to kill and maim me slowly. Now I'm an exercise nut and I can't exercise right now and I feeeeeel it.  But that's a post for another day!

Then I got pregnant.  Just two months after my latest miscarriage, I was pregnant, much to my disbelief and surprise! When I talked to Dr W about my weight and told him I was terrified of being obese and pregnant.......

He laughed at me.
He looked me square in the eye and told me I was indeed NOT obese and that I had absolutely nothing to worry about there, but he also admonished me to stop thinking about losing weight right now.

To date, I've gained 2 lbs.  I have been trying to reconcile myself to the fact that I will be over 200 lbs, more than likely, when this baby is born.  I swore I'd never go there again.  I was skinny when I had Lucie.  I look at pictures of me and envy that gal that I was. I had always wanted to be a Cute Pregnant Gal!  People couldn't even tell I was pregnant from behind.  I felt good.  Let me just tell you, I was HOT.  I'll use a phrase I don't love but let's just say I rocked my Baby Bump!

I know this is a long post, but hey, I warned ya!

So you can now tell the things that bother me and worry me the most.  Pray for me! Right now, I've already had some delicious tuna salad with celery and slices of provolone cheese.  I've had a banana.  I've had a half glass of my oldest daughter's Killer Lemonade, and I say half a glass because my Poor Son looked so pitiful cause he didn't get any that I felt deeply sorry for him and gave him the rest of mine.  What I wouldn't do for that Boy! And I can still taste the lemony, tartsweet goodness on my tongue! I've had a piece of Udi's gluten free bread with about a half a stick of butter and organic strawberry jam on it.

And I confess that I had three of my favorite Pamela's Double Chocolate Chunk cookies.

Yes, three.  People, they're bliss.  I think they ought to have a warning label on them!

And I'm still feeling hungry!!

I think I'll just shoot myself right now, and get it over with!!

Thanks for hangin' in there with me this long, gals.  I'll do a post tomorrow about what I'm craving and what I'm eating.  Don't think because I'm on a restricted diet that there isn't anything for me to eat.  I can guarantee you that this diet is perfect for me because I love all kinds of veggies and fruits and salad happens to be my dearest Homey, people!  So I'll do a post about my faves and you can see that I am NOT starving, and you wouldn't either, should you choose to embrace this type of diet.

Love you all so much!!  Talk to you soon!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Blessed

Guess What??

Lucie's going to be a BIG SISTER in the Spring!


We've known for a couple of months now, but we chose not to tell our scrumptious secret until we felt led to.  


I finally couldn't keep it quiet any more!


We're three months pregnant today.  


We're due around March 1st, 2011.


Sofia will get a Baby for her 5th birthday!


We saw a heartbeat on July 14th, via in-office ultrasound, when I was 7 weeks and one day.


I got to hear the faint, beautiful music of a heartbeat again on August 12th.  It was a healthy 172-175!


Next appointment: September 16th.


We ask that you would hold us up in prayer.  I'm trying not to let my medical history with pregnancies and stuff like that cloud my joy or take away from this pregnancy in any way......but.....for me, it's an uphill battle all the way.  I am having major issues that I cannot see the end of, with my finite, seen-through-a-glass-darkly vision.  I may blog about these issues soon, just so you gals out there who also struggle with the same things know that I'm not perfect and I struggle too.

I used to pray for a healthy, whole baby.  But I think that God has spoken to my heart about my views of what's "acceptable" and "not too hard" being totally different than His.  I'm NOT saying that it's not okay to pray for a healthy baby!!! Please don't read that here.  After all, that's my deepest heart's desire! But I have had a change of heart and I just want to be open to what He has for us, no matter what it is, and in the past, I haven't been open to that. I'm not saying that we are at higher risk for problems, or that I sense problems with this pregnancy.  But, what are HIS interpretations of healthy and whole?  He views babies that are physically or mentally challenged just as He views babies who are not challenged.  They are all perfect, precious and wanted in His sight.  We just want this baby so so bad that I have just been praying for His will, with some prayers thrown in about my will too, because I think He wants to hear all of the desires and wishes and thoughts of my heart.  He loves it when we share those things with Him, even though He already knows them.

So, please, I'm begging you out there who still read my blog, PLEASE pray for me.  Pray that something would break and that I would see light and joy and laughter again.  Please pray for me however you feel lead.....

And if you want to leave a comment on my post, please do.....I desperately need the encouragement!

More posts coming soon.



Monday, August 2, 2010

Another Recipe

A little background before I get to the actual recipe:
This recipe had been running around in my mind for a couple of days.  That's actually how I make up most of my recipes.  I hear voices.  Yes, you read that right.  I just seem to hear a voice telling me to put this and that and a bit of this together.  I think it's the Holy Spirit, because I believe that the Holy Spirit cares about everything that has to do with us, and the Lord gives us all diverse talents, and I think He has everything to do with helping us develop and hone those talents.  Some people are good at building things.  Some are great seamstresses.  Some are great writers.  Some are great at getting things to grow.  I like to cook, and I think people like to eat the things I make.  I don't like using recipes.  I only use recipes for desserts and cookies.  Someday I'd like to make a recipe collection for each of my girls.  I just thought these ingredients would taste great together.  It's a little unusual! But be brave and try it.

A Disclaimer: Usually, when I make up a recipe, I never measure.  Wait, what am I saying? I never measure anything anyway!! I have tried to be as exact as I can.  I just usually eye things, so, as I said, these measurements are pretty close to exact.

Now on to the recipe!!

Cilantro Green Chile Chicken Salad

2 cans canned chicken breast, such as Kirkland Signature from Costco
1 can diced green chiles, drained
4 green onions, finely diced
1 tbsp finely chopped cilantro*
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp seasoning salt, such as Lawry's
2 C grated cheese
1 1/4 C sour cream

Place chicken in a large bowl.  Add green chiles, green onions, cilantro, lemon juice, and seasonings.  Stir this mixture well, until the chicken is broken up.  Add cheese and sour cream.  Stir until combined.  Serve with tortilla chips.

*I buy a bunch of organic cilantro at the store and keep it in the fridge, wrapped in a paper towel.  I use cilantro a lot! I love it chopped up in my salads, in taco soup and chili, and in my marinade for grilled chicken.  I just tear off a very small handful and chop it, and that's roughly a tablespoon, after it's chopped.

Another way to use this: I spread about 1/4 of a cup of this chicken salad on a flour tortilla and rolled it up.  I placed it on a cookie sheet and repeated until I had about 10-12 tortillass, and baked them at 375 for about 20-30 minutes.  My husband went wild over these, and he doesn't even like cilantro.  I had to force him to taste it, because I knew he'd like it.  He's the type of person who eats to live, so he rarely really gets excited about food, although he does love my cookin'! He is still raving about these little babies. I sent a couple with him for lunch.  You can cut them in half and use them for appetizers for football games, tailgate parties, baby showers, or bridal luncheons.

YUM!