An Update with Pictures

I haven't posted any pictures of the kids in awhile. Mainly because this is how we have spent the last 6-8 weeks:





Have you ever seen anything more pitiful?! It started the week after Jacob started preschool and I was sure it was the beginning of the end. After all, he spends three days a week running around with 14 other 3 and 4 year olds and we all know what germ magnets toddlers are. I guess that is what happens when kids start school. Fortunately, this first illness (above) was the worst. Jacob was vomiting, but only 3 times in two hours and then he was done. Grace was lethargic and seemed sick, but after 3 hours of lying on the couch both kids were bouncing off the walls. Since then we have seemed to get cold after cold, but as of right now everyone is healthy and we hope it stays that way.

Last month, during one of our one or two days of health, we took a trip down to the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, RI. Our library has museum and zoo passes so we checked one out and headed down for the day. It was a balmy 75 degrees, but overcast so we didn't need any sunblock at all! It was a perfect day for the zoo! Grace talked about the elephants all week leading up to our trip so we were happy to see they were out and the kids had a blast.







In between all of this rain, we have managed to get the kids out in the yard for some playtime. They are loving all their new backyard toys and hopefully the warm weather is right around the corner and we can break out their water table, beach ball sprinkler and kiddie pool!







In pregnancy news, I have officially hit 27 weeks and my third trimester! It is so nice to make it here for a second time and is definitely cause for celebration, but we still have a long way to go. My last appointment with the MFM is this Wednesday and then I am being released back to my OB. I am seen bi-weekly by her for the remainder of the pregnancy and go in weekly for my progesterone shot with the nurse. There is some concern surrounding my incision/baby/c-section date. We were originally tossing around 36w3d which is when we delivered Grace (and also happens to be 7/22 which is her birthday!), but there is some concern that:

a. This baby is a boy and boys tend to be less mature at birth than girls. Since Grace was a girl, and needed no intervention, they want to make sure they don't attempt to take him too soon and have him end up in the special care nursery due to underdeveloped lungs. Most likely, I will be having another amnio this time around which is disappointing since we delivered Grace regardless of the results (immature) and she was fine. The whole amnio procedure makes me nervous!

b. My classical incision is still a rupture risk so we don't want to wait too long to deliver because

c. Boys tend to be larger than girls at birth and Grace was 7.7 lbs at 36w3d and thisclose to busting out of my uterus. My uterus was "paper thin" at her delivery, translucent and dangerously close to rupture. It was repaired by my OB at that delivery and stitched thicker to hold up to a future pregnancy, but we need to be careful.

All things considered, my OB is going to consult with the MFM and they will make a decision together. Obviously, we want the baby born safe and healthy, but I have to say that I will gladly take 36w and a few days in the nursery, if need be, over a 24w micro-preemie any day.

Grace's Fairy Party

Well, as usual we are 2 months out from Grace's party, but I am already looking for ideas. I always seem to pick a theme way ahead of time and then regret not waiting until later on to get a feel for what the kids are loving at the moment. This is one reason my kids' rooms are not based around character themes since their tastes change all the time. For Jacob's second birthday party, we did a Wonder Pets theme since he absolutely LOVED them at the time, but less than a year later he was on to Diego and Mickey and NEVER watches the Wonder Pets. If I had done his big boy room around a Wonder Pets theme that would be old news by now.

Needless to say, Grace LOVES Abby Cadabby and all things Sesame Street, but seems to really like Minnie and Dora these days. I am sure she'll love whatever it is that graces the cake plates at her party, but when I saw these little buckets at Target in the $1 section I knew they would be perfect to put favors in:



Since they were only $1 each and she loves Sesame Street I figured we would just stick with the Abby party theme. Since she will be sharing any future birthday parties with her baby brother we can do the Dora and Diego and Mickey and Minnie parties then!

Just when I was starting to doubt my Abby Cadabby decision I was cruising through Gymboree one day and came across this outfit from their Fairy Fashionable line from last Summer:





It was a 2T (PERFECT!!) and the entire outfit was less than $10 and since Abby is a "fairy in training" I thought it was adorable and perfect for her fairy party! That sealed the deal!

I am probably going to go with an invite from Etsy (as usual) and I really like this one or this one.

I am still trying to decide whether to do cupcakes or a cake and considering how busy and exhausted I was for Jacob's party in March I think I will be skipping the DIY this year and ordering out like I did for his party. It was much easier (although much more expensive) to have someone else do the cupcakes, but considering I will be almost 33 weeks at this party it will probably be a necessity. As usual, there are a ton of cool cupcake toppers and party supplies on Etsy for an Abby Cadabby party and I am sure Grace will have a blast! I am so happy that at least two of my three kids have a Summer birthday so we can have some fun outdoors and BBQ for their birthday parties!

A whole bunch of nothing....

....is pretty much what this post is going to be. We have a lot going on around here and very little time. Unfortunately, the blog has fallen victim to this, but I have plenty of stuff going on to blog about.

Let's start with preschool! Jacob is doing great! He "moves a lot" and is "very active" (his teacher's words, not mine!), but we already knew that. He is starting to recognize the routine, but has trouble listening and following directions so we are slowly but surely getting there. I have a feeling he'll catch on by year-end and then have the Summer off to get all out of sorts before starting again in September. That should be fun! He has only had one bad report and it was the day I sent him to school after keeping him home for a day due to a nasty cold. He still had a runny nose and wasn't feeling well so we just chalked it up to him feeling under the weather. He also had a minor "incident" in the motor room on Friday and fell off a toddler size trampoline. The school nurse called, but just to let me know what had happened in case any bumps popped up later and nothing did.

As for the state of the pregnancy, I am currently 23 weeks and feeling great. I was a little anxious at my appointment on Tuesday because as of my last Level II ultrasound my cervix was measuring 3.8 cm. That is still great in a normal pregnancy and even better for high risk, but with Grace's cerclage my cervix never went below 4 cm so I was a little nervous that maybe the last cerclage had damaged my cervix and this one might not hold up as much. My doctor reassured me that everything looks fine and as long as I am not having any pain or contractions I am good! I am a little less than 2 weeks away from where I was when I delivered Jacob. At this point with him my cervix was already less than 2.5 cm so I am doing pretty good all things considered!

My fingers have been swelling and I can't get my e-ring on anymore, but my wedding band still fits (thankfully)! I don't know why, but when I am out running errands with two toddlers and very visibly pregnant with a third baby I like to know that people don't think I am some crazy, single person who runs around getting knocked up. Not like it matters what people think, but that ring makes me feel much better! My ankles have started throbbing and I am sure cankles are on the way. They arrived around 33 weeks with Grace and it would just be my luck for them to arrive in the 2nd trimester this time around.

Since I will be very large and uncomfortable in July, we are planning Grace's 2nd birthday party for the end of June so that we don't have to worry about throwing something together last minute once baby is here. It looks like there is a 95% chance that this baby is going to arrive on Grace's actual birthday and since this will be the last party she has that is all about her I want to make it special. We are doing an Abby Cadabby theme and I have a few cute ideas to share in another post soon!

As for baby boy, he still does not have a name! Oddly enough, we have pretty much scratched all 4 names on our "final list" and started all over. Naming a boy is SO HARD. We had so many girl names picked out that we will never get to use and no boy names to name this poor child with. I am just hoping to have one within 24 hours of birth. Jacob was nameless for awhile after birth (and rightfully so since we hadn't even gotten that far in the pregnancy) and that stupid woman with the clipboard was in our room every hour on the hour wanting us to fill out the form for the birth certificate. I felt rushed and honestly I still feel as though Jacob was forced on me. He is a Jacob now and that is all that matters, but I constantly wonder what his name would have been if we had more time!

I guess that is all from here. We have been very busy cleaning house and are trying to organize a yard sale for next month to get rid of all the crap that has accumulated in our basement over the past 5 years. We are hoping to earn some cash to buy a few baby things and clean this house out. Soon we will need room for 5!

Grace's Room - Final Plan

You may remember my post back in October about our plans to makeover Grace's room. Shortly after posting that, we realized we may be pregnant with baby #3 sooner than we had expected which was surprisingly good news considering my fertility struggles.

We decided to hold off on that makeover until we found out for sure just in case I got pregnant and found out it was a boy. Grace is currently in the bigger of the two rooms and we would need to swap rooms if the baby was a boy. Jacob's current room is simply too small for two kids. Well, it's a good thing we waited! Sure enough I got pregnant in November and here we are now at 21 weeks pregnant and it is a boy! The color palette and fabrics I had selected before were based off a line I had found at Target that had accessories in the same color. Well, Target no longer has any of that and the colors are very hard to match so we have decided to go in a different direction.

Grace's toddler bed has been assembled for about a month now, but we decided to wait until the room is finished and all set up to move her into it. With the swapping of the two rooms there is just too much junk cluttering up her room and we are afraid of what she will get into at night when we're all asleep!

The current plan is based again on a color palette. One of the newer trends in color is aqua and I fell in love with a few aqua/yellow nursery pictures I found while cruising the web looking for ideas. I decided to go with the aqua, but use pink as more of the main accent color and maybe throw in a few other bright colors to spruce it up a bit. I went WAY outside the box with this room. My entire house is pretty much all neutral colors, but if you are ever going to go bold a kid's room is the place to do it! I again avoided themes, licensed bedding, etc. and I am going more with something she can grow with. I was originally going to go with bird/butterfly decor, but so far all I can find that I really like is birds. There isn't much out there with butterflies.

Here are my ideas:

Paint Color: Benjamin Moore Bird's Egg (2051-60)



We were originally trying to decide between this and BM Robin's Nest (618), but the Robin's Nest was just too green for my taste. I prefer an aqua closer to the blue family that looks more like the color of a robin's egg. I saw a few pictures online of rooms that had used Robin's Nest and LOVED them, but it must be the lighting in our house because I bought both colors in sample sizes and painted them on the wall and the Robin's Nest was too green in Grace's room.

Furniture:
Ikea Hemnes 3 Drawer Dresser
Da Vinci Sleigh Toddler Bed in White
Target Do-Your-Room Medium Bookshelf





We only need to buy the dresser since Grace already has the toddler bed and bookshelf. Target no longer carries the bookshelf, but I was able to find a picture online in a Google image search. We were originally going to go with the Hemnes 8 drawer, but it is over 63" long and that dresser would swallow Grace's tiny room. I wanted a low dresser so we decided on the 3 drawer which is only 43". She doesn't need more than that space-wise right now anyway and at only $199 you can't beat the price. When Grace needs to update to twin bed furniture in the future we'll think long term.

Decor:

This is where I had to get creative. I am trying to find things that will grow with her and everything available right now seems to be birds or flowers. I have a couple of friends who have used birds and have seen some blogs where birdhouses were used for decor. I have decided to go that route, but purchase unfinished birdhouses and paint them myself! I couldn't find anything online that I liked enough to purchase so I figure I will buy them and paint them myself with whatever acrylic paint color I want! I am thinking maybe some pinks and yellows.

I am also hoping to incorporate some lanterns in one corner of the room to add a pop of color and possibly a wall decal of a flowering cherry blossom branch with birds. Once I do this and add a mirror above her dresser there will literally be no wall/floor space left! She has an oversized beanbag from PBK which I am considering re-covering in a coordinating color and I am running out of places to put it without tripping over something! I am also buying the same cheap stick lamp that I bought Jacob in blue in either pink or yellow for Grace. It was $14 on sale and works great. I also like the look of the silver stick and the bright shade.





As far as bedding goes I am just going to get some mismatched odds and ends since she will only be using this for a few years. I am thinking a hot pink chamois blanket for warmth and some cute sheets for her mattress will help tie the colors in the room together. Right now PBK has a new Penelope line out and the crib sheets they have match perfectly!

Jacob turns THREE!

This past Saturday, I threw together the poorest planned birthday party we have ever thrown. I blame the pregnancy, but I just could not get it together. Usually I have these things planned out months in advance, but I have just been so tired and so sick that a party was the last thing on my mind.

Those of you who know me know I live for my kids' parties and it is all about the details. On Friday afternoon, I still had no clue what we were going to eat, what I was going to do about cupcakes and what I was going to bag for favors. All I had was the cupcake wrappers, cupcake toppers and favor bags. That's it.

I must say it all came together pretty quickly and everything panned out okay. In my opinion, there is nothing worse than a Winter birthday party. Our Gambrel is only a little over 1500 sq ft total so when you have 8 kids running around the downstairs it can get pretty hectic. I am pretty sure this is the last party we'll have at home. We have looked into a few local indoor options and think that next year when Jacob turns four it will be a good year to venture out. The options we had this year were rather expensive considering you had to pick one of their themes and couldn't bring your own food/cake in. The toys at this place for Jacob's age group are mostly things like Step2 playhouses and cozy coupes and we have all that stuff at home so paying a couple hundred bucks, plus extra for food for the adults, didn't seem worth it.

This year we went with the Toy Story theme and the party was all things Buzz and Woody. Jacob was up at the crack of dawn (6 AM) and started yelling, "Party! Party!". We tried to convince him to go back to sleep, but no such luck. Jacob usually sleeps in until at least 7 and doesn't go down for a nap until 1:30 or 2. His party was scheduled to start at 12:30 and he got up so early we attempted to put him down at 10:30 for a short nap and he ended up sleeping until noon! We were good to go!

Here are a few pics of the day. Jacob received so many nice gifts, many Toy Story related, and really seemed to enjoy himself. This is the first year he had any interest in opening gifts and he actually ate the pizza we had for lunch! He never eats pizza!! He also blew out the candle for the first time so it was a banner year!













Can I also mention that I was pregnant for Jacob's first AND third birthdays?! Grace is turning two most likely THE VERY DAY we are tentatively scheduled to have this baby and seeing as I, a.) have to deliver early b.) was hospitalized with her around 30 weeks and c.) have hideously disgusting, throbbing cankles around week 33, I am planning her party already and throwing it a month early. I cannot get stuck in the rut I was for Jacob's party! Not to mention this is the last party Grace will ever have that is all about her. Since she and baby-who-does-not-yet-have-a-definite-name will have the same birthday they will be having a joint party!

First Day of Preschool!

This past Wednesday, the 23rd, was Jacob's 3rd birthday! More on that coming in another post scheduled for tomorrow! That means as of Wednesday, Jacob was officially discharged from Early Intervention and was eligible to transfer to the public preschool program on the day of his third birthday instead of having to wait until the Fall.

We went for our Orientation on Tuesday and I had a tour of the school, even though I technically didn't need it since I went to that school for first through fifth grade, while Jacob stayed in the classroom with his new friends and participated in circle time and story time. The school has changed A LOT since I went there in the late 80's and early 90's. I was surprised to learn that not only is my fifth grade teacher now the principal, but the music and art teachers are still the same! Jacob is also in one of two preschool classrooms and one of my very good childhood friend's Mom is one of those teachers! Did you get all that?

When I left Jacob on Tuesday, to take the very brief tour, I came back to find a very distraught Jacob trying to escape the grasp of the aide who was hired to guide him around for the first few weeks and help acclimate him. As soon as he saw me, it was cries of Mama! and tears. I was nervous for Thursday which was his first real day, but come Thursday I dropped him off, he held his teacher's hand and turned around a couple of times to say goodbye, but he separated well.

I picked him up at the end of the day and they said he did great! The report was the same on Friday at pick-up! I am very proud of him and although I know this is just a coincidence he hopped in the car after his first day and promptly asked for, "Twinkle Star" which is his favorite song on the children's CD we sometimes play in the car. He never uses two words together so I was thrilled and told Ian, "See! He's a genius already!". He also had his birthday party this past weekend and was more vocal than he has ever been so hopefully this is only the beginning of great things to come.

The day at school is very structured, much more so than the group he attended for EI, and I know it is going to be good for him. There is a certain way we drop-off and a certain way we pick-up at the end of the day and everyone has to adhere to it so they are getting Jacob into the routine and hopefully he will learn it quickly. Right now he just wants to sprint to me as soon as he sees me.

I have attached a few pictures below from his first and second day. When I picked him up the first day and he walked outside with his coat, hat and backpack on he looked like such a big boy. I almost cried. ALMOST! I would actually like to preface this by saying he DID most certainly wear a coat, but for one or two pictures we took him outside briefly due to lighting issues in the house which you'll notice in the indoor pictures.

Happy Birthday, Jacob!

Three years ago today, I gave birth to a 1 lb 7 oz baby boy who forever changed my life.



We had some struggles getting pregnant and there was nothing I wanted more in life than to have a baby. When I saw those two little lines pop up on the pregnancy test in October of 2007 I was overjoyed. Knowing I was going to stay home with my baby, I started daydreaming of all the fun stuff that we would do together. Trips to the park, story time at the library, trips to see the puppies in the pet store at the Mall, walks downtown to get an ice cream cone, etc. I had so many dreams for this little being who at the time was no bigger than a grain of rice.



This was my first child and nothing terrified me more at the time than the thoughts of having a child with a disability. While flipping through the pages of my pregnancy book I imagined what life would be like with a child that had Cerebal Palsy or Down Syndrome and the thought terrified me. This was my first child. I didn't even know how to be a mother to a child never mind one with special needs.



The morning Jacob was born was a cold day in March. It was relatively quiet in the Mother Infant Unit where I had been living for the past 6 days. I was due to be checked out and go home at 10 AM and instead I was down in Labor and Delivery at 5 AM begging the doctors not to let my baby die.

They had told me all the statistics earlier in the week when I first arrived. A 24 weeker has a 39% chance of survival. The closer they get to 25 weeks the more their chances increase closer to the 50% range. He could be born with any number of disabilities (physical and/or mental) and be impaired for the rest of his life. He would definitely spend the first few months of his life in the NICU.....if he even survived. It didn't matter what I had been told all week by neonatologists. I wanted my baby to live and I begged that poor doctor wheeling me into the OR to save my baby. I didn't care what was "wrong" with him. If he was able to have any quality of life then I wanted him here with us. All of my fears of having a child with special needs went out the window. I just wanted my baby to live.

The next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room shaking violently (side effect of the general anesthesia) and seeing Ian standing next to my bed clutching my purse. "Is he okay?" I asked. "He's pink and he's breathing" was Ian's reply. I really didn't know what that meant at the time, but Ian had assured me they had wheeled him by and Ian had seen him on his way to the NICU, all 1 lb 7 oz and 11 inches of him. His head was the size of a clementine. Our wedding bands easily slid up and down his limbs. He was as big around in the middle as my wrist. He was tiny, but he had survived. For now, my prayers had been answered.



The day of your child's birth is supposed to be the happiest day of your life and that is simply not true for those of us who have had premature babies. In fact, most of us celebrate the day they came home from the NICU more than we celebrate their actual day of birth. Those first few days are numbing. I spent all day in my hospital room crying and staring at the one picture I had of Jacob while Ian was at work and the rest of the world went about their daily lives unaware of what had just happened to us. I was too scared to go see Jacob alone those first few days so I hid out in my room until Ian got to the hospital and he would wheel me down to the NICU to see Jacob. I would usually last a good 10-15 minutes before I started hyperventilating and had to leave. He was so tiny, so bruised, so SICK looking. I couldn't stand the thought of losing him and was worried if I spent too much time down there I would get attached and the loss would be ten times greater.



Slowly, but surely our miracle boy cleared major hurdles. He never developed a brain bleed or NEC, two very serious conditions which can often be death sentences for micro-preemies. His PDA (which nearly all premature babies have) closed with medicine and did not require surgery. He steadily gained weight and we celebrated every milestone, from ventilator to CPAP, 2 pounds, 3 pounds, nasal cannula, 4 pounds, first bath, open air crib, 5 pounds, and three months to the day after he was born, a transfer to a hospital 10 minutes from us. It was there he was weaned off all his medications, monitors and oxygen and sent home three weeks later at 7 lb 9 oz and only 10 days after his original due date.



Today he has officially been discharged from the Early Intervention program and is only in need of speech therapy and wears glasses for farsightedness. Random people on the street would never know the struggles we went through to get Jacob home and now that he is here I make sure everyone who is willing to listen hears Jacob's story. To me, there is no denying in this little child that there is a God and that miracles happen every day.



Happy Birthday, Jacob! We love you!