Health – Page 4 – Jacob and Marcia

Belly shot (not that kind)

Here I am this evening at 24 weeks.

24weeksbelly

You can’t really see it in this picture, but I am wearing my rubber chicken earrings.

FAQs

Q: How are you feeling?

A: Hungry. Tired. Gotta pee. So mostly good! (However, not as tired as I once was.)

Q: How many weeks are you?

A: Today marks 24 weeks (LMP) however, gestationally 22 weeks. It is weird, and can be confusing. LMP stands for last menstrual period. Ovulation, and therefore conception does not occur for (an average of) two weeks after that. So while we are told that we are at 24 weeks, Copyright has only been in there for 22 weeks.

Q: Have you felt the baby move/kick?

A: Yes, yes I have. I thought I was feeling something for a while, and then because I have never been through this before, I was doubting what I was feeling. And then what I felt was more obvious at 21 1/2 weeks. A few days later I was trying to hear for a heart beat with the stethoscope, and must have been crowding little Copyright, because there was a strong movement that pushed the stethoscope over. A week later I was able to place Jacob’s hand on my abdomen and He was able to feel baby movements. There have been stronger and more movements in the short weeks that followed. When I lay down, we can see movements with our eyes. We try to use the stethoscope to listen for the heartbeat, but we are not as skilled at that. We do have a thing-basically an electronic stethoscope-and we heard the “whooshing” that is Copyright’s heart and last night I decided that we should try again, and we heard the heartbeat pretty strongly. This time it was more like the thumping of my heart, and less like the whooshing from before, however we know it was not mine, because we could still hear my heartbeat as well. So that was pretty neat.

A: Well, this baby is uniquely made from us, and so the “copyright” part. And this baby was started and will be born in 2010. And we felt that we wanted a “name” so we are not always calling the baby “the baby” or “it” or “he or she.”

Q: How many are in there?

A: We are assuming there is only one in there. We will find out for sure next week. This is also the appointment that we will learn if we are getting a he or a she. Also, the dreaded glucose testing appointment.

Dear gum-chewer-lady

I walked away because I almost vomited on the toothbrush display. I am pleased that you were showing interest in oral hygiene (next let’s work on showers, please) however, chewing gum just won’t help your efforts. Though, the part that made me walk away was the fact that you were chewing loudly. I thought a cow had walked up to mee and was masticating very wet cud. The mental image I had before I looked over was of a nasty puree of grass and mucus spilling out onto the floor. While I was relieved to discover that they did not allow a cow in the store to purchase toothbrushes, it was slightly more disturbing that a human was making the sound. Please learn to 1) chew gum (and I suspect all your food) so that it does not sound as if it would fall out of your mouth at any moment, and 2) chew with your mouth closed-this, even if you keep chewing in the same style, will keep the rest of the world from hearing the sloshing inside your mouth, and frankly we don’t want to see what is in there either.

Sincerely,

mee

P.S. Are you the same person we saw the other day who has bumper stickers that read, “Why am I the only one on this planet that knows how to drive” and “My future’s so bright I need sunglasses” and then blew through a stop sign only to follow 2-3 feet behind a car in the left lane and then make a right turn with no use of turn signal (or lane change)? -m

I want them to go faster and louder

Almost a month ago (July 6-8) we had our first house guests in our new home. They are such fun three (and-a-half) year olds. I think they left wanting more. Which means they will be happy to come stay again!

They arrived and I showed them where to find the toy box in this house, and we had our was-a-stove-box-converted-house ready for them to play in. G3 said, “We love ours house in yours house, Marcia!” Yay a successful play-house.

Here is a picture of them playing with the toys from the toy box, the hand-cuffs are from our Halloween costumes when we were prisoners. (We keep the other set out of reach of children, thank you very much.) At some point during this playtime, G2 told us, “Daddy smokes. I like him smoking.” Her daddy does not smoke.

First item on the schedule was to get in the car and travel to a drum corps show. G3 fell asleep in the car before we left town.

G2 said, “I am not going to sleep, I want to be awake.” I told her that was fine.

Then not ten minutes later she did not answer when I asked her a question, and this is what I saw.

It was raining when we got to the show location, and we were hoping that it would have stopped, so while the girls and I sat in the car and ate the food we brought, Jacob went to see if the show was going to be cancelled or moved indoors. (We had already purchased our tickets.) The answer was that it looked like the rain would stop soon, and we would wait and the show would just be delayed a bit. So, we went in and waited under the shelter of the bleachers. We had to entertain ourselves. Only when making this post did I notice the sunglasses; I did not see them like that when this was taken.

G3 helped G2 fix her skirt (which is a very cute skirt, btw).

They found drips coming from empty rivet holes.

G3 wanted her picture taken too. And just so you know, that is not a tear under her eye, it is a water drop.

Here is G3 sitting on Jacob’s lap watching the show.

Here is G2 sitting on my lap watching the show. After a while, she wanted to switch places with G3 because 1) the guy in front of us was very VERY tall and 2) my lap was/is not as big as it used to be, she had to share with her unborn cousin.

Here is a picture of the first corps that performed. They won their category/class. And as a special treat that guy there in the front ensemble is/was one of Jacob’s pitt students. We are proud of Jason, he played good.

We enjoyed this pretty sunset over the performances. ( I just realized that could mean that we preferred the sunset, that is not what I intended to say.)

We had arrived right as the show was supposed to start, and we could not see the corps busses. We had brought a lot of fruit with us to donate to Jason’s corps and we did not want to take all that fruit home with us, lest it go to waste. So when the shows were all done we drove around and found where the corps buses were parked, and Jacob went in search of someone we could give the fruit to. This was after 10 pm and the girls were tired, but very well behaved. In fact, all the people that were sitting around us were very complimentary of how well they behaved and were impressed that they watched the shows. G2 at one point told mee that one of the corps was going too slow and needed to be faster and louder. Both girls were in awe of the flags (color guard). If there had been any souvenir flags they would have been able to go home with their very own flags. Fruit delivered, and we started our two-ish hour drive home. They fell asleep in the car pretty quickly.

The next morning while I was walking (the girls were still asleep when I left, but insisted that they go walk with mee the next morning) Jacob got pancakes going. After breakfast, the girls took a BUBBLE BATH in my “tiny tub.”

While they were in the tub, their happy-things took a bath too. A very much so needed bath. Don’t tell Ronda that I let them have Happys with them at the drum corps show, but I did and they dropped them a number of times in the rain puddles, and may or may not have dropped them on the floor in the (public) bathroom when they took turns before getting back in the car to head home. Once it was clean, G3 told mee that she was unable to chew on her happy because it was clean. She makes me laugh!

After the bath they wanted to watch a movie in “ours house in yours house.” (Jacob thinks it is funny that the first thing they did when they started playing with the house was to find the object that was too big and try to get it in the door! We all do it at least once with our own homes, right?)

What did they watch? “Mahana you ugly, get down from that tree!” “Do you want Johnny Lingo to see what a disobedient daughter you are?”

They watched all but the last 3ish minutes of the movie. Then on to another activity.

I let them paint their own nails with what ever color(s) they wanted. They had fun. G3, “Boys can’t paint theirs nails!”

G3 first picture, G2 second picture. (In case you couldn’t have figured it out by the colors they chose.) I offered to paint G2’s right thumb nail, but she insisted she did not want that one painted. Well, okay then.

Lunch time, they asked if I would make them oatmeal, because G3 told mee, “Oatmeal is ours favorite food.”

G2 had her apple slices and cheese all lined up-I suspect we are related.

G2 right at the end of lunch told mee, “Marcia, I am tired, I want to lay down.” I gave her permission, and G3 followed her in and five minutes or so later they were out. About three and a half hours later they were still sleeping, and this is what we saw.

Somehow G2 turned into Dora. They slept for about four hours and 15-30 minutes. I guess we did a good job of keeping them entertained. When they woke up they stayed in there talking for a few minutes and then came out and asked if they could have another bubble bath! I would have let them if we weren’t headed out the door. We went over to Jacob’s parents’ house and they had a lot of fun pillow fighting with the adults. I wish I had taken pictures of that, or even video would have been great!

They went to bed, and before falling asleep double checked with mee that they can walk with mee in the morning with my friend, right?

They walked a mile with us before sitting on the track playing.

I let them take another bubble bath. They loved that, maybe for a birthday or something they need bubble bath soap. While making stacks of toys that I let them use in the tub, I heard G2 say to G3, “G3 do you know I love you, you is my best friend. Don’t put that on mine!” They got out of the tub just in time to start playing when Grammy, Ronda, G1, and G4 arrived to pick them up. We all had lunch and then they went on their way.

We really had fun having the girls here, maybe it can become a sort of tradition? What think you?

The post you have all been waiting for (well, some of you)

Our last post indicated that we were working on securing a mortgage. We did it!!! Hooray for us!! And (finally) thank you taxes! We qualified for the first time homebuyer’s tax credit. We have a home to call our own, we are very excited about this.

Monday the 14th of June (Miss Emily’s birthday) we closed circa 2:45pm (when all was signed and done). We walked straight over to the post office to mail out our “address change” cards to many people. This is why we asked for any addresses if people wanted one…. This is what it looks like:

annhousepageone

Okay, so it looked a bit different, because on what we mailed out had our actual address. However as previously stated, we are not posting our address on here. If you need/want our address, we can email it to you, but only if you ask, otherwise we don’t know we need to get it to you, and if we do not have your address you are responsible for getting it to us.

And for those who were/are unaware that there is a second page to the card, this is what it contains (unaltered):

annhousepagetwo

So there you have it folks!!! We are very excited and (as one of us likes to put it ) “a little bit terrified.”

It was kind of a sneaky maneuver to announce our news this way. Especially since I (Marcia) went camping with our young women for the rest of the week. We acknowledge that. We had good reason for it though. Originally we had set the closing date for when I was going to be camping, as soon as we realized that, we changed it for the day before I left. We also wanted to be sure that we had everything finished with purchasing the house before we announced the pending arrival of Copyright 2010. (And just because I want to explain my taking so long in making this post) We have been packing/unpacking/moving/cleaning/etc for the last half of June, and only this morning did we finally get around to setting up my computer. There, I said it, and I feel justified! And I am pregnant, so don’t make mee cry.

? ? ? F A Q ? ? ?

We get asked many questions with both of these big events happening in our lives. We have decided to do an FAQ (frequently asked questions) list:

Q: When are you going to move?

A: We have moved all of our belongings out of the house we rented and into our new house. We had our family help us. This process was started while I was at camp. I thought that was good timing, and because I have not been too incredibly useful, I figured it would work out better if I could just pack and have as much ready before hand and let them work while I was out of town.

Q: Are you all moved in?

A: That is a tricky question. All of our stuff is in the house, however much of it is still in boxes. We have been sleeping here and unpacking. I would not say we are “moved in” yet, I am not sure what the true definition would be for us to be in that state. Though because most of the boxes are in Copyright’s room, we have to be un-packed enough by the time December comes around.

Q: When can I come see your house?

A: Never, the date is past. We held an Open “empty” House the evening we closed. So I am partly kidding about the “never” part. We will not be holding another “open house” and we do request that if people want to come see it, that they set up an appointment (I hate the Tuesdays), so as to allow us to be home, and hopefully a little more moved in. We are after all living here now. Be considerate about it.

Q: How much work do you have to do on the house? (Also stated as: now you get to have fun fixing up the house)

A: Actually we don’t have to do any work on the house other than unpacking. We did have to get a fridge, stove, washer/dryer, and that is about it. The good people we bought it from gutted the house and made it like new with new cabinets, paint, toilets, roof, plumbing, wiring, everything really! We did get to pick out the carpet for the living room and flooring for the kitchen and bathroom.

That said, there is a detached garage with apartment space above it that needs quite a bit of work before it’s really useful, so that will be fun, but it isn’t something we have to do before we can live here.

Q: Did you buy the house because you are having a baby?

A: No we are having a baby because we now have a house. Joking. We pretty much decided to buy the house before we knew about being pregnant. This is a house we saw about a year and a half ago when it was in foreclosure, we loved it, we talked to the bank about making an offer. Then we were told some one else made an offer and that offer was accepted. Some months later (just over a year ago) we were presented with the opportunity to buy the same house, and it had been “gutted” and was in progress of being fixed up (when it was in foreclosure, the people trashed the house, on top of apparently not taking good care of it at all anyhow). We thought it over and agonized and had to turn down that offer. We did not feel like we could live in a “construction zone.” Earlier this year as Jacob was at the university in his office, he had a visitor and we were again offered the house, this time all the work would be finished and it would be move-in ready. We verbally expressed interest February, talked over details in March, signed a contract in April, and closed in June. We knew about the baby in March and test confirmed in April.

Q: I thought you never wanted to have children. (not really a question, and mostly directed at Jacob)

A: All bark and no bite. He claimed that until it happened he reserved the right to say that. In reality, we are very excited. And of course there is a bit of anxiety in the unknown. Will our baby be cute? Who will the baby look like? When do they toilet train? They don’t already know how to tie shoes? Things like that. However any person that said that to mee, doesn’t really know mee.

Q: When is the due date?

A: December 2010. Doctor’s office says the 7^th based on LMP. I say the 6^th based on ovulation.

Q: Is that a really sonogram or is it photoshopped?

A: It is really a picture from my uterus. Should it really be called a picture, it is an image created by sound waves aimed at my uterus.

Q: Are you having a boy or a girl?

A: We don’t know for sure. Based on biology and time and the moon and the stars aligning and the atmospheric pressure we suspect it will be a girl. However we have to wait about ten more weeks before my doctor will check it out.

Q: What do you want to have? (generally this immediately follows the last question)

A: A healthy human baby. I know they mean sex of the baby. Really though, I will be happy as long as everything goes well. I would love a son or a daughter. I would definitely be disappointed if it was not human.

Q: Do you want to find out the sex of the baby? (a number of people say gender, however there is a very important difference in the words, and for some odd reason it falls under my pet peeves category-sex is male or female, gender is masculine or feminine)

A: I would be okay with either knowing or being surprised, a surprise could be fun, though so could knowing and planning. Jacob wants to know. We will find out if we can. We really are planners and like to be prepared.

Q: Have you been sick at all? (directed at mee since no one suspected, except in hindsight, and we only told doctors and we were surprised at how people had finally stopped asking when we were going to have a baby)

A: Jacob responds with, “Have you not been sick at all?” I have had lots of not feeling well. I did really well with not vomiting, though there was lots of nausea, still is some, though not as constant. Then I got a sinus infection, drainage started and the vomiting commenced. I could probably win a contest for puking on command. Is there a super hero yet?

Q: Have you had any cravings?

A: Hmmm, cravings…. Not too many cravings. Mostly I have aversions. Sugar is the biggest offender at this time, unless it is counter balanced with other healthier foods. I can’t eat lettuce, and the vinegar in most condiments gives me issue. Yesterday I really wanted garlic bread, it was delicious to mee. One day I wanted potato chips (I don’t like potato chips, I like corn chips) in three flavors BBQ, Cheddar, French Onion; I did not get them, but I could taste them in my mind, and I wanted them. Early on I had a strong craving for Chef Boyardee canned ravioli; that stuff is nasty and I refused to listen to that craving.

Q: Are you (or “you are”) going to have fun shopping for maternity clothes?

A: If I liked shopping maybe that would be appealing. However I am short and it has never been fun to shop for clothes, for mee. Also, last year I lost over 60 pounds, and I did not get rid of those clothes (I know you are never supposed to keep “fat clothes” but I did). And there were some of those clothes that I like, and frankly I don’t want to spend money on temporary clothes. And there is the fact that we now have a mortgage to pay, and I don’t think there is a shopping spree in the future of our budget.

If we remember (or any other questions start to come up) other questions we get asked we will answer them.

I got a new bracelet

And boy am I glad we pay for mee to have nice insurance. (I would like to not have to pay so much, but still glad we can have it.) Playing volleyball tonight I happened to attract the volleyball with the left side of my jaw. I seem to attract the ball to my self often. Just like any other time, I thought I was fine. Then I opened my mouth and tried to close it again. I was wrong. The right side of my jaw was bad. Very tearful. I waited till our next between plays and “sneaked” out of the game. My plan was to get a drink of water and cry in solitude till the pain subsided. And with my luck, in walks our friendly doctor friend who asked how I was, and what I was feeling. He called over to the ER for advice and suggested we (Jacob and I) go over. So, over we went. They had mee sit in a room and answer health history questions, and then after about half an hour sent me to get an x-ray of my head to check for broken bones or dislocated jaw. After 20 more minutes they came back and told me I am not broken, just bruised. That I need to take Tylenol, keep ice on my jaw, and stay away from chewy foods for a couple/few days till I am not hurting anymore, also to lay off volleyball for a while. And of course if my jaw gets more painful or if I start to swell, or anything else really bad, to call and follow-up, either there or to my dentist. The worst part of it all was when they would ask mee “On a scale of 0-10 how bad does it hurt?” I did not know what to answer, and there were no charts around telling mee what the varying numbers meant. At least not until after they had already taken all my info and had mee sitting and waiting for x-ray. They need to make more (and bigger) copies of that chart and have them all over the place. Or perhaps make wallpaper that is just the pain-ranking-chart repeated. That would be helpful!

Quiz yes, photo no-ish

Here are my test results to a couple tests I have taken recently:

Created by Auto Insurance

Created by Oatmeal

How do you score?

The Great Tree Massacre of 2008

Yes this quiz is from a pictures taken over a year ago.

answer83

On December 19th, 2008 at almost two in the morning we heard a noise. It sounded like something had fallen on the house. We put our coats on, and went outside to see the above.

We were worried that the branch may have been too heavy to leave hanging on the cable that feeds us our internet. We also did not like the idea that it might fall on the car.

This branch was about the diameter of a healthy cantaloupe, and was very long. Jacob went up to it to see if he could just push it off to get it away from the wire.

2008 12 19 (1) blog

Upon closer inspection, it was really really big. He gave a few heaves, and decided it would be best to move the car out of the way so as to not allow the chance of the branch falling on the car. So, he ice-picked his way into the car, kept the door open to see and backed the car up a ways. He went back to the branch and gave it some good pushes.

2008 12 19 (5) blog

Down it came. You can see where the car had been. The sound from the branch hitting the ground was loud, and the vibrations from it hit other places where ice had formed, and we heard lots of cracking and popping around us. The best we can describe it is to say that it sounded like a battle field. The apartments across the street had lots of ice on the roof, that (we believe) in response to the branch noise, cracked and slid off the roof into the parking lot. We hope all the cars were ok after that.

2008 12 19 (3) blog

The ice storm really was pretty to look at even though it really was not good for the trees (or likely the animal life either). This is one of the electric lines next to our house that we saw at that time.

2008 12 19 (9) blog

This is a picture taken after getting up for the day.

Little Orphan Annie

Is responsible for a number of my obsessions. Red Hair. Curly hair. Twirly dresses. Calling dogs “dumb.” Bald heads*.

Tonight as I was trying to feel better**, I curled up on the couch to watch “comfort movies.” One of which was Annie. It reminded me how much I loved the music, still do. And it got mee to thinking about how I used to have an Annie dress, not the one she wears in the movie, but one with her and Sandy and a rainbow, all over it. I have no idea what the rainbow was about since I didn’t see one in the movie, but I had matching hair barrettes. I remember being very sad when I was no longer able to wear it.

When the movie was over, I checked the audio options, as I like to do, and was pleased to see that I can watch it in Spanish! I like the song translations***.

And my wonderful husband**** surprised mee with roses when he returned from Stake meetings this evening.

*So, I may not be obsessed with “bald heads” but I sure do think little old men are adorable, and I love when babies (boys) look like little old men. Weird I know, but it is mee.
**I am suffering from a crazy sinus infection. Mostly bothers mee overnight, however it has mee coughing and sneezing and feeling pretty crumby.
***I foresee my memorizing them in the future.
****I sure do think he is swell!

On the bright side

Even though it is freezing cold outside, I can be content to know that spring is coming.

How do I know this? We are past the shortest day of winter, and that means the days will be longer. Which means that the sun will be out more. Which means one day I can be warm again.

And that makes me happy.

Category: Health