Saturday, July 28, 2012

C section is moved...

Our c section date changed to Wednesday! Forgot to update here... :). But we will be meeting our newest daughter on August 1st! :)

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

It's getting to be time!


Time to meet our new baby girl!  Yes, a belly pic... this past week at 37 1/2 weeks pregnant... there I am... :) 

On Tuesday, July 31, we will be meeting our newest daughter!  We are excited, nervous, anticipating, and so ready to meet her!  All the things new parents are usually feeling, I'm sure!  Since our daughter will be delivered via c-section, we already know the date and even an estimated time of the cesarian section, which is a blessing to be able to plan our lives around it, but also nerve wracking! :)

We have a wonderful group of friends and family that are stepping up to help us through this next month as I recover from the surgery and we adjust to life with our ninth child.  We are grateful to each person that has stepped forward to help us during this time, especially with Wesley's care, since I will be unable to lift him for the next 4-8 weeks after the baby is born.

And why do we keep calling her "baby"??  Right... her name still isn't chosen :).  We have narrowed it down to just two names now, though, and we look forward to meeting her and deciding which name best suits her!

We have had a wonderful, exciting, productive, and FUN summer so far, and all of us that understand that this baby will be joining our family soon are looking forward with great anticipation to meeting her and welcoming her home!  And those that don't quite understand it... well, they will soon be met with that reality and I am excited to know that I think that every one of them will have a great response to their new baby sister :) :)

Monday, July 09, 2012

Comfy yet??

I have given in to the desire to stack all the pillows up on the couch and attempt to arrange and rearrange them until something slightly comfortable emerges from them so I can lay here and type... Except without the arranging and rearranging part (that will come later) since I know that the inevitable will happen if I get comfortable before all the kids are asleep...

Someone will need me, will cry, will be up so I have to go send them back to bed, a phone will ring, an alarm will go off, the door bell will ring or someone will knock, I'll realize I need something, or someone else needs something, or... well, the list goes on :).  So, I'm sitting somewhat comfy hoping to have my back and hips decide to cooperate so I can update on the computer! :) :)

I'm kidding-- sort of :).  I'm now 36 weeks along and feeling it today!  I've been very active this entire pregnancy and just the last few days have had my body begin to say "slow down!" so I'm trying to listen!

The past two weeks have been somewhat busy.  I've now been sent to the hospital for nonstress tests after both of my last two OB appointments due to weird things going on with the baby's heart.  That said, I also went to the high risk doctor last week and was cleared from there being any obvious concerns, so we are "back on" for a delivery at our local hospital on July 31!  YAY!!  I also had a possible medical issue come up for myself, unrelated to the baby, but that was also CLEARED!  Thankful to God for both of those!!

I'm now going to the hospital weekly for the next three weeks until we meet our baby girl to have nonstress tests done as well as seeing the OB every week.  Throw in that we start private therapy this week for some of the kids (we are working on arranging it for everyone and getting it all started, but decided to start with what we could get!), and we have appointments three days a week plus therapy in the evening at home that will continue as well.  Thankfully, two of those will end when we get to meet our newest daughter! (Then we can add in her appointments and post-op appointments for me... but that's ok!)

Our home renovations are ALMOST finished!  On July 4th we "occupied" the new bedrooms and bathrooms which was a huge relief and we are all LOVING it!  Now there are only a few minor things to do: close up an old entry in to the hallway that was renovated and paint the areas affected by that!  YAY!!  We will also be having the outside of the house painted as soon as we completely finish the interior.

This past weekend Michael painted half of our family room with the new paint color and we'll be purchasing the accent color (now that we made sure it matches what we wanted it to!) and will finish it up in the next week or so.  The second half of the family room/kitchen will have to wait for the hallway to be finished, but it will be the final touch that completes the room!

When everything is finished I will post a long post of pictures, but since they're all on my phone... it's not happening right now :).

We now have FOUR bedrooms for the kids which is a wonderful blessing!  Kristopher and Wesley are sharing one room, James and Micah in a second, Brianna, Lynae, and Emma are in a third room, and Aleksa is in the fourth.  We also added a bathroom that is fully handicap accessible, with a shower that is "roll in" with two shower heads (so the kids can begin to learn to start showering themselves as well!), grab bars throughout the shower and around the toilet, and a 'roll under' sink that the wheelchair can get up under!  Our "old" bathroom is reconstructed as well so we now have three bathrooms on the end of the house with the kids' bedrooms.  It has been SO NICE after having just one for the last few months!

Onward and upward, we got rid of our piano (to my sister and brother in law) and moved living room furniture around to accommodate my desk coming out of our bedroom.  That made room for the bassinet to go IN, and we've begun to get things ready for the new baby-- clothes are washed and hung, the car seat and hospital bag are (mostly) put together, and we've begun arranging help for after the baby is born here at the house.  Unfortunately, since I'll be having a c-section, I will need someone to come in a few hours/day to help with Wesley, especially, but with some of the other kids as well for a few weeks after the baby is born.

Michael says I'm in nesting mode, and I can't argue with that :)  He really has been glad I'm nesting and not just sitting on comfy pillows on the couch attempting to get my back to stop hurting... though he's attempted to talk me in to doing that (relaxing) more often :).

That's the update on the home front.  Forever busy but GREAT as well!  OH! And we got Wesley's new wheelchair too!  Pictures of that are of course on my phone too, though...