5 Random Questions 3

I love answering random questions, and I love reading other people's answers to random questions. So I thought that would make a fun series. I will answer the 5 questions in my post and you can answer them in the comments. We can all get to know each other better, how much more fun can you get?

So here we go 5 Random Questions:

1. Have you ever been hospitalized, and if so, what for? I think I might have been after I was in a car accident as a very young child. Since then the only time was when I was giving birth to Little Man.

2. How tall are you? Do you wish you were taller or shorter, or are you just right? 5'7" I think I am just right. I wouldn't want to be shorter, and I had a sister who was an inch or two taller than me and she always got teased about her height so I wouldn't want to be taller.

3. Do you prefer to DIY or hire it out? Generally DIY, I like to save money. Some thing we hire out for like when we had all of the electrical in the house redone, or if the heater/ac has issues. But if we can figure it out and it is worth our time we will do it. I love DIY crafts/art and cooking :)

4. What do you eat for breakfast? It varies, but not a lot/ I like to eat yogurt and fruit, or crackers, occasionally oatmeal or cereal. I love hot breakfast foods like pancakes, bacon, biscuits with gravy, etc but I don't spend that much time on breakfast so we have those things for dinner sometimes

5. What would you do for a living if you didn't need money? I would do what I am doing. I would be a stay at home mom, and I do enjoy blogging. If money were no object I would travel more.


I can't wait to read your answers!


Questions Source:
http://www.bekahsbits.blogspot.com/2013/04/20-questions.html

Little Man 1 Birth Story

Beauty Through Imperfection is having a Birth Story LinkUp that looks like fun so I thought that I would join in. Since I didn’t start this blog until Little Man was somewhere around 4 month old I never thought to share his birth story. So I am going to share it now :)

I am still trying to figure out exactly where I should start. Where exactly does the birthing process begin? It is so tied in to the pregnancy. I guess the first thing to mention is that I struggled with high blood pressure (or gestational hypertension if you like medical jargon, I heard it often enough that I still remember it :)). At one point it was so high that my ob was considering medicating me. She had the nurses wait to take my blood pressure until I sat on the table for at least 10 minutes because she wanted to make sure that the resting rate was not too high (it was still high, but the resting rate was low enough that I didn’t need medicine). I was tested twice for preeclampsia.

The reason that that is important is because at my 37 week appt my blood pressure had spiked again. The dr had me testing for preeclampsia again (the first time had been somewhere around 25-30 weeks, it came back negative, but I was on couch rest for a while). For those of you who don’t know how the test for preeclampsia works it is a urine test. But it is not a quick simple pee in a cup test, it is a test were you actually have to collect every drop of urine for 24 hours (trust me this is a pain, if you are doing this test plan to stay home for 24 hours and make sure that they give you at least 2 jugs for the urine. The first time I was tested they only gave me one jug and I ran out of room at 3 in the morning so not knowing what to do I just dumped the rest, it turned out that they have to have every drop so I had to do the collection again this time they gave me 2 jugs).

In any case my blood pressure was high, there was preeclampsia suspected, the dr thought my baby might be big, and I was already 37 weeks along. She wanted to get the pre-e test in before we did anything so we set up to come in that Friday for another appt to get the results and do an ultrasound to see how big the baby was. She told us that if the test came back positive or the ultrasound showed a big baby there was a good chance that I would be induced that weekend.

Well I was doing the urine collection Thursday night with plans to drop it off before the appt and wait for the results. Since we knew that there was a chance we wouldn’t be going home after the appt we went ahead and finished up packing our bags on Thursday night (it was nice to have a little warning). Well I didn’t get a chance to finish the test or do the appt because my water broke at 5:45 Friday morning (I will never know if I had pre-e and I must admit I am still curious). I woke up right before feeling a pop and huge rush of fluid. It was very different from peeing because I had absolutely no control over the fluid pouring out of my body. There was no muscle that I could have used to try to stem the flow. I woke up Mr. Random and told him that my water broke and then made my way to the bathroom. Mr. Random called the hospital and they said that we should come in, there was no rush we could shower or whatever but come in as soon as we were ready (because the chance of infection goes up if you are not at the hospital after your water breaks).

So after gathering the few things we hadn’t already packed and calling my mom (who was going to be there helping us for the birth, Mr. Random was having a lot of stomach issues and we weren’t sure if he would be able to be there helping me the whole time) we headed to the hospital. (Oh, I have to tell you about a product I definitely recommend for child birth – depends, it was a life saver for traveling to the hospital without having liquid drip everywhere, and super great after coming home and dealing with the messiness after you give birth). We checked in at the desk and waited for a nurse to come and check the fluid to make sure it was my water and not urine. When she found out it was my water they went ahead and checked me into a room.

Mr. Random then spent a while bringing in all the stuff that we had packed (we went way overboard on packing, we are planning to scale back a bit this time). The dr checked me and found that my water had broken but I wasn’t in labor. She recommended that I be induced and if I wanted an epidural to get that. I had asked for a room with a tub because I thought it would be nice to labor for a while in the water so I got to go in the water for a little while before they started the pitocin.

After they started the pitocin labor started rapidly and got really really hard. By the time the anesthesiologist got there I didn’t care about the needle or the side effects or anything, I just wanted relief.

After the epidural the labor got very boring. I wasn’t really interested tv, books, or the computer. Mr. Random and my mom both encouraged me to nap while I could. I think I fell asleep out of sheer boredom. I never understood how women in labor could be posting on facebook, I assumed that they had should have had something better to do, but I was wrong :).

Several hours later the labor started getting intense again. I don’t think that the epidural was wearing off, I think that it didn’t go low enough. I have done some reading since and discovered that the epidural kinda flows along your body. I think that I spent too much time laying down and the epidural didn’t have a chance to flow down to my lower abdomen and legs. The dr and nurses were amazed at how much control I had over my legs even at the end. Because of that when I hit the transition and pushing stages of labor I could feel it and it hurt, a lot.

It was horrible, probably the worst hour of my life. At one point I turned to my mom and said “I think I’d like a c-section now”. It was too late for that of course (and of course I wouldn’t have really wanted it anyways :)) so I had to keep going. Apparently the pushing went a lot quicker than the nurses expected because they didn’t call the dr quick enough. They encouraged me to stop pushing and wait for the dr. I managed to hold off on pushing but it was horrible and definitely a mistake. By the time the dr got there I was in so much pain I couldn’t tell what was a contraction and when it ended. I had to have the nurses tell me when I was having a contraction and when I should push. It was horrible, horrible, horrible.

Little Man was born at 5:18pm. It was such a relief to have him out but I was still in pain. I had some tearing which required stitches and Little Man was whisked to the other side of the room to be stabilized. I am not sure what all they did over there because I was still dealing with myself having just given birth. I am not positive, and have no proof but I think that the time spent waiting for the dr might have hurt Little Man and I. This time I am not planning to let the nurses pressure me into waiting, if the dr doesn’t get there in time the nurses can deliver Little Man 2.

For the first couple of months after Little Man was born I couldn’t imagine being willing to go through that again ever, I didn’t know how anyone ever had a second child. After a couple months I got to the point where I thought I could do it again (not anytime soon after that, but sometime in the future). And obviously now I will be doing it again. But never in any of that process (including the birth) did I regret having gotten pregnant. Little Man is so worth it. I don’t enjoy the pregnancy or child birth, and if I could I would skip it, but since I can’t it is worth it. I wouldn’t trade Little Man for the world much less a pain free 9 months. I love him to pieces and can’t imagine life without him.

Pregnancy Update - 36 weeks - Little Man 2

I’m at 36 weeks now. I can’t believe that I haven’t written an update in 11 weeks (well, I can, I am a procrastinator and have been pretty busy, but still). I am getting huge. I thought I was huge 11 weeks ago but I was wrong. I forgot just how huge I can get. I went shopping with my sister the other day and she started giggling when I picked up a watermelon. She said my belly was bigger than the watermelon :).

What do you think? Which is bigger?

According to my weekly pregnancy email Little Man 2 is the size of honeydew now, around 18 inches long (that is a big honeydew :)). It also said that at this point if Little Man 2 was born he would almost definitely be fine. He may have some time in the NICU but long term there is no discernible difference between babies born full term and babies born between 34 and 37 weeks. This is not to say that I am ready to give birth now (although part of me is), I am not planning to be induced early, but it does calm some worries if Little Man 2 decides to make an early entrance.

The reason I was worried about that is because we had some excitement a few weeks ago. One night I started having contractions and I had 7-10 of them in an hour and they were getting more intense and painful. I was only 33 weeks along at that point and we worried that I was going into preterm labor. I called the afterhours dr and she said to come in and get checked out. We went into labor and delivery and got hooked up to the monitors and such. The contractions started slowing down which was good. The nurse did a pelvic exam and found that my cervix was still really high and I was not dilated. So we knew that the contractions were just Braxton hicks. They also did a couple of labs to see if they could find what was causing the contractions. One lab was a swab test that told if I was going to go into labor in the next couple weeks, it came back negative. The other was a urine sample to see if I had a UTI, that one came back positive. The nurse said that UTIs and even sometimes just a full bladder can cause contractions. She said that for their preterm labor moms if they start having contractions they tell them to empty their bladder (a good tip for any pregnant mommies out there having early contractions). It ended with them sending me home with a prescription for an antibiotic and a plan for me to come back for my regular appt 1.5 weeks later.

Last week was my regular appt. I had still been having contractions fairly regularly and some period like cramping so I mentioned it to my dr. She thought that I still have the UTI, the first round of antibiotics didn’t clear it up, so she gave me a prescription for another one. I also asked her if I can take probiotics when pregnant and she said yes, it is safe (I figured that I could, but the bottle says ask your dr so I did). I have heard that taking probiotics after you go through antibiotics helps restore good gut health so I thought this might help when I am done with the antibiotics (Antibiotics wipe out all bacteria in your system, probiotics put good bacteria in your system). Otherwise everything looked good at the appt, nice low blood pressure (thank you Yahweh!), baby growing well, good heartbeat, head down. All in all a good appt. I am to the point where I will have appts every week until I give birth so I had another appt this week and they will check to see if the infection has cleared up then.

I think that sleep at this stage of pregnancy is sorta a cruel joke. You only have a few more weeks to sleep before you will be up with a newborn every few hours, so you really need your sleep. But of course you can’t because you are huge, and uncomfortable, and in pain, and have to pee every few hours. And for some reason several nights this week I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep for 1 or more hours. Last night was better, but some nights are pretty miserable.

My back hurts a lot especially after a contraction. I hope that is not a sign that I will have back labor this time (I was thankfully able to avoid that last time).

I feel like this pregnancy has been a lot more “normal” (it is following what the books say more). With Little Man 1 I had all sorts of random side problems like high blood pressure, a lot of hip pain, and almost constant illness (I had a cold, flu, or infection going on almost every week of the pregnancy). And not all of the pain and illness went away after I gave birth. I was in physical therapy for several months for my hips after I gave birth, I actually only stopped physical therapy because I got pregnant again and I needed to save some physical therapy allotments in case I need it again this time. This time I have been having the heat flashes, and Braxton hicks, and discomfort that the books talk about. I am still trying to figure out which type of pregnancy is worse. I think I have figured out that I am not one of those people that enjoys pregnancy. I thought I might be before I got pregnant the first time, but I was wrong. But the end product is so worth it. I wouldn’t trade Little Man for the world, and I know I’ll feel that way about this little one too.

I was convicted on Sunday that I need to be more thankful for my children. I have been so uncomfortable lately with this pregnancy and I didn’t really feel like I had a choice about being pregnant this time (God sometimes has different ideas about when we should have children than we do :)) so I haven’t been thankful that God has given me these children. I know that I would be very sad and desperately wanting children if I didn’t have them (I have always been a kid person and had always wanted to have children) so I need to be thankful that God gave them to me.

My belly button has started to come out. I have an extremely stubborn innie belly button. With Little Man 1 it never popped, it never even came close, it never got flat, it was still a deep innie belly button the whole 38 weeks. It did come out quite a ways, but it was still really deep. This time it is starting to pop out. So far it is mostly the top of the belly button, but the whole thing is getting squishier and shallower. We’ll see, maybe it will come out yet :).

The nausea still comes occasionally. And food aversions are still pretty strong. Most of the time I am hungry but don’t want anything that I can think of. I generally have to just make something that I know I will be able to stand and then just eat it. This kinda reminds me of the first trimester (although the first trimester was worse). In the first trimester I would make food and not think about eating it until I was eating it. I literally had to tell myself “I am not going to eat this food, I am just preparing it” and I would keep telling myself that until it was eaten :). This is not as bad, but I still don’t really want food. Although Little Man’s tuna sandwiches smell good so I often have those or peanut butter and jelly.

My hips and back hurt a lot especially after a contraction and it makes it very difficult to find a comfortable position for sitting or laying, and I don’t have the energy to stand for very long, so I am just uncomfortable most of the time.

I bought a pregnancy pillow for $15 off of a local garage sale site. I tried a pregnancy pillow with Little Man 1 and it was so horrible that I promised myself that I wouldn’t do that again. But when I found this one for only $15 (great price!) and it was a different shape than the last one I bought I decided to give it another try. I am very glad I did, it has taken some work to get it to work right, but it is better than it was. At first I tried sleeping with just the pillow but the neck part is uncomfortable on my neck and by the 3^rd night sleeping with it I was waking up frequently because of discomfort. So I started switching back and forth – 2 nights with pregnancy pillow, 2 nights with other pillows. That worked for a while but it is a pain to constantly switch pillows. So then I tried turning the pregnancy pillow over so the head part is under my legs, and using my regular head pillow under my head. This has been working for me so far. I have had to add 2 couch pillows under my legs to keep my hips from screaming, but it works. Hopefully it will keep working for a couple more weeks.

I have been craving roast beef with mashed potatoes and all the wonderful comfort food sides. I can totally cook that, but it takes a decent amount of work. So when Mr. Random asked me where I wanted to eat on our date last week I asked to go to cracker barrel. They have a roast beef dinner with 3 sides and biscuits. It was soo good. But their portion sizes are kinda small so I think that I will try to make it myself instead of going there again soon. $10 for only one meal is expensive, for that price we usually at least have leftovers so it is 2 meals.

I am extremely susceptible to food in movies and tv shows so now I am craving chocolate chip cookies and candy bars (I also have a big sweet tooth in pregnancy). I told Mr. Random last night that he is lucky that I am not one of the pregnant ladies who sends him out to buy everything that I crave. I am too frugal for that, but I don’t turn down an occasional treat when offered :)

I have been having hot flashes and just overall being warmer than usual. With Little Man 1 I never really had that problem, I am pretty sure it is because my thyroid was out of whack and we didn’t know it. My hands and feet have become little heaters. If I press my palms together I feel like I am burning up. When I am having a hot flash Mr. Random can’t stand to have my hands touching him because they are so hot. Is this normal? I have no idea.

I am calculating that I have 2-4 more weeks to go. Little Man 1 came 2 weeks and 1 day early and they say second babies come quicker than first babies so here’s praying that Little Man 2 doesn’t decide to go overdue.

How to get Feedburner to send emails again

First of all, sorry about the huge inundation of posts on your feed and email this morning. And I'm also sorry that you haven't had any updates in your feed or email for a couple months. As you read below you will see why and how it happened.

I noticed a couple days ago that I hadn't been receiving emails from feedburner with my new blog posts for a couple months. So yesterday I decided to see what the problem was and if I could do anything about it.

First I checked with Mr. Random and he said he hadn't been recieving them either, so I knew it wasn't a glitch with my email, but I checked in the junk folder anyways, just to make sure they weren't accidentally seen as junk. I also checked on feedburner in my email subscribers to make sure that we hadn't accidentally been deleted or deactivated there.

When both of those checked out I went into Feedburner's troubleshooting page to see if they had any advice. It wasn't listed as a known problem, so it was probably something wrong with my account. I pinged them as it said and that didn't do anything, for some reason the last post on my feed was from May. I looked through several group posting on their site (none of which were helpful, it was just a bunch of people saying that they had the same problem, but few had an answer, and most of those answers were long, complicated and difficult to fix, they really should have feedburner employees monitoring those groups to give answers). I also checked my feedmedic and it said my blog was doing fine. Well I knew it wasn't fine, the feed hadn't updated in 2 months.

So I decided to try resynching my blog, even though the page said it should be a last resort option. When I clicked the resynch now button it popped up with a couple of alerts at the top that said that I couldn't resynch. One of them I diddn't understand, and don't remember. The other said that my feed was too big and I needed to get it below 512K. Well that was finally helpful because the last trouble mentioned in the common trouble list was a too big feed with a link to this help page with very clear easy directions to fix the problem. I simply went to the page, followed the directions exactly step by step and set the max results to 15.

And it worked! I checked my feed last night and it had updated to the 15 most recent posts. And I got the email this morning which sent out the 15 most recent posts. I didn't intend for it to completely flood people's feeds and emails (thankfully they came all in one email, not 15 separate ones) so I am sorry for that, but I am glad that it is fixed. It should be back on track and my posts should come to your feed or email after they are posted now, which is generally 1-3 times a week. Please don't drop me because of one crazy glitch :) Sorry for the inconvenience and let me know if you have any issues with it. Thanks for sticking with me through this crazy time!

Hopefully this also helps someone who is having this issue on their blog :)

5 Random Questions 2

I love answering random questions, and I love reading other people's answers to random questions. So I thought that would make a fun series. I will answer the 5 questions in my post and you can answer them in the comments. We can all get to know each other better, how much more fun can you get?

So here we go 5 Random Questions:

1. What's your ringtone? One of the ringtones that came with the phone. I always enjoy going through the ringtones when I get a new phone and picking which ones I like. I use a different one for Mr. Random so I can tell if he is calling me just by listening. ANd I keep the same tones for the whole 2 years (unless I start hating them) because otherwise I would forget that it's my phone that is ringing.

2. How old were you when you had your first kiss? Was it meh or toe-curling? I was 19 and it was with Mr. Random. We actually say that we had 2 first kisses. Our first first kiss was before I knew that I loved him and I didn't feel anything. Our second first kiss was when I told him that I loved him and it was pretty toe curling :).

3. Do you have any siblings, and if so, where are you in the birth order? I have one older brother and two younger sisters. I am a middle child with older middle child syndrome (I have all the worst traits of the oldest and middle child). Since I was the oldest girl I was sorta an oldest child too.

4. What was your first car, and did you name it? I don't remember the type any more. I bought it from a relative for $800 and it lasted me 6 months. My second car I bought from another relative for $300 and lasted me a year or two. My third car I bought from a dealership for $5000 and it lasted me 2-3 years. My 4th car was the first one that didn't completely die on me. I bought it for $300 from a relative when car #3 died suddenly and unexpectedly (the engine exploded) and drove it for around 6 months until we saved up for our current van then sold it to another relative and it is still going strong, it is ancient, well over 200,000 miles, has been passed around the family several times, and is the only car besides my current one that is still running, crazy huh? The current van (car #5) is currently in the shop for 3 weeks which will hopefully fix the major oil leak, if it doesn't we will run it to the ground and shop for another one. Can you tell I don't have great luck with cars? And no, none of them have had names, I'm not great at naming cars.

5. What would you request for your last supper? hmm, I don't know, I would want to spend it with everyone that I love, but I have no idea what food I would want, I'm dying so does it really matter? Plus if there is a food i really like, or want to eat I make it, that is the benefit of being the cook :) Maybe something expensive that I could never afford to order.

I can't wait to read your answers!


Questions Source:
http://www.bekahsbits.blogspot.com/2013/04/20-questions.html

Let's Talk: What do Braxton Hicks feel like?

I never really had period cramping. I mean I had cramps with my period, but it was mostly gas cramps. So I didn’t know what to expect. And I didn’t have Braxton hicks when I was pregnant with Little Man 1 (or at least I didn’t know if I did). This time I have noticed it more and I think it might be because I have a better idea of what I am looking for. Although it took me a while to figure it out this time too. I thought the baby was just moving to a position that was really uncomfortable. But after a while I noticed that I was feeling pressure, and I wasn’t feeling the baby there, and my stomach was really hard. That’s when it clicked, Oh, it’s a contraction. Most of them are painless, just uncomfortable. Some are a little more painful or more intense with some cramping (sharp achy pain, especially lower down around my hips and back). One way I can tell that it is a contraction not just the baby moving is that my whole stomach is hard. If the baby moved it is usually just a small part of my stomach that is hard.

So what does it feel like? It feels like my whole abdomen suddenly tenses up (like I tensed my muscles, but I didn’t do it, it did it on its own) and stays tense for a little bit, then eventually releases. Or it feels like the baby moved and you don’t like where it moved to because it feels like they are trying to push their entire back out through your stomach. Sometimes I barely notice it, but sometimes it is uncomfortable or hurts.

That is how they feel to me. Have you had Braxton Hicks? How do they feel to you? How would you describe them?