Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Now for some pictures.....


We started out painting some Christmas ornaments and then things took a bit of a different turn.



These were taken before we left for the Christmas Eve service.




Christmas Day

Monday, December 29, 2008

Christmas Review (with pics to come later)

Well, I'm not sure how to describe this Christmas. It was definitely different than anything we had thought or planned for. On Christmas Eve we went to the 5pm service at church and then headed home. Just before church I started to not feel so great and that just kind of continued all through the service. Although from what I can remember, the service was beautiful and served as a great reminder for the what is really important as well as it has challenged me to strive for more. After service, we came home and Christian's sister, Tiffany, and her fiance came over for dinner. By this time I was unable to even look at food and was having to leave the table every so often to throw up (I didn't make a very good hostess, sorry). With this pregnancy I have had a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions, so I really don't think too much of them any more. Although, as I continued to throw up I realized that I was having these minor contractions every 5 minutes and sometimes closer.

Around 9p, after Tiffany and Justin, left Christian and I decided that we should probably call the dr. and talk with the hospital on call dr. about what was going on. The dr. wanted me to go ahead and come in to make sure that I wasn't dehydrated. Apparently dehydration can sometimes send you into labor, which for me at this point wouldn't be a horrible thing. By the time we left for the hospital around 10p my "contractions" were about 2 minutes apart but they weren't painful at all. We had some friends come over to watch Hud until Christian's parents could get here. All of the sudden it became very clear that we could possibly be having a baby and to be honest I was not quite ready for that - so many things that still need to be done. (ex. carseat is still in the attic).

We get to the hospital and I get put in the triage Labor and Delivery area and they start me on some fluids and check to see if I have progressed at this point. I had not progressed since my dr. appt so I wasn't in labor. They also decided to do some blood work. Some of the results came back and my liver enzymes were off and so was my kidney function. They send me upstairs to get an ultrasound to see if something is going on with my liver. By this point it is past midnight, so officially Christmas. Not how I expected to spend my Christmas. It was an hour or more before we got the rest of my blood results and the the ultrasound report. When the blood results came back is when things really began to change. My ultrasound was ok, but my platelets were extremely low which indicated I could have something called HELPS syndrome. HELPS is similar to preeclampsia, but more severe. They brought in a couple anesthesialogists and some nurses and we were getting ready for an emergency c-section where I would be completely out and Christian wouldn't be allowed in the room. I forgot to mention, that by this time Christian is now sick and struggling to stay in the room. We begin to pray and send out messages to let people know what was going on. They order more blood tests. The dr. were still a little confused because my blood pressure was still extremely low (normal for me) and that usually is not the case with HELPS. This time it took only 20 min or so to get the results. Amazing how things change when the "situation" gets more serious. This time my blood work was normal. Praise the LORD. So, for the time being the C-section was on hold because now we are going to do a 3rd set of tests to see which one seems to be the correct one. The 3rd set also came back normal. The doctors and nurses were all in shock as to what was going on, but we knew that God had been gracious to us (thanks to all of those that labored in prayer for us, especially in the middle of the night on Christmas). We ended up staying at the hospital until 730am so that I could get more fluids and rest and then we were released to go home.

Christian's parents stayed at our house until Hudson woke up and then they took him over to their house. Christian and I came home and slept for a couple of hours and then headed to their house to spend Christmas with his family. It was an unusual Christmas for us, but we were able to experience the presence of the Lord in a way that we never thought we would this Christmas and for that we are extremely thankful.

Hudson enjoyed opening his presents and getting to play with his new toys. He loves his train table (I will post some video soon-Christian got me a Flip mino HD-so fun). So I guess next year we will try to instill some of our own Christmas traditions with our family since this year God had some different plans for us. We are now all healthy and recovered from a nasty stomach virus, hopefully it will not return. We continue to wait for Parker's arrival, I can't believe how soon it is coming. I'm still able to try for a VBAC, so please continue to pray that we will have a successful VBAC.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

~34 week Belly Pic and Pregnancy



I'm now 38 weeks and much bigger! I'm not sure if there will be any more shots of the belly taken:) Everything is going well at this point. I now go to the dr. weekly. I'm starting to progress, very slowly - well actually not a whole lot since my 36 week appt. Today we set up an amnio induction (breaking my water) on the 14th if she has not arrived yet and seeing if that will help initiate labor. We are praying that I will go into labor naturally before that. I had a C-section with Hudson and it is our prayer that we will be able to have a VBAC with Parker (any prayers are very much appreciated). We will keep you posted as we know more of what is going on.

Hudson 2 yr photos and some family photos

These were taken just before Thanksgiving by my (Erin) cousin Kim. She does a phenomenal job and we are so blessed to have capture some pictures for us.