There have been a few requests for a prego pic since I was never this big with my other babies.

So here you go!

I know my upper body is sooooo skinny. I lost so much weight when I got sick and I can't seem to gain it back.

I feel as though the baby has dropped which has really helped with me being able to sleep better without her sticking her feet under my ribs.

The swelling in my legs is just absolutely awful though. Bending them is extremely difficult. Putting shoes, socks, or pants on has become an Olympic sport and Im pretty sure most nursing home patients could easily beat me in a race up the stairs.

I'm counting down the weeks! It won't be much longer of this. I'm so thankful for all the help I get from javan and lance.

There really is no place like home

It feels soooo good to be home.  Its funny how much you appreciate the snuggle of your children. The smell 

of your own house. The glimmer of some sunshine...

Ok, i'm getting cheesy here but seriously I can't even explain how wonderful it feels to be home!!


So, here's the update:


Its a perinatologist group at St. Lukes that is caring for me so its always a different doctor of the same team 

that comes and talks to me each day.


.
Last night I was told I could go home today and then this morning, the doctor comes in and informs me that 

although it is great that her heart rate is totally stable, a baby with hydrops (fluid on her heart) can easily go 

back up to high heart tones and I need to stay for another day...He also wanted to do another sonogram

tomorrow too since it would be "pointless" to do one today. It would be too soon for the hydrops to

 clear up. 


I was totally heart broken. I can't tell you how horrible it is to sit in a hospital room, tied up to a

 monitor all day. BORING. 


So, anyway, after some thought, prayer, and discussion with my midwife I decided I'm making the decision 

to leave. When the doctor got news of my decision he set up a sono for me to do before I go. 


They wheel-chaired me to the sonographer and she just was the nicest lady. The sonographer said to me 

"So, this baby had hydrops?" 

"Yup" I say. 

"Well she doesn't have any hydrops anymore!" 


PRAISE HIM, MY FRIENDS. ALL OF YOUR PRAYERS WORKED! 

The doctor said, well, most babies with hydrops don't clear up THAT fast. I don't see any reason you need

 to stick around here. With the way your baby has recovered from this medication she "should" have no

 problems after you have her. 

Thank you for all of your concern and prayer. He chose to heal 

our baby girl -  and faster than the doctors expected!!


I am still diligently praying that the excess amnioitic fluid will go down now that the hydrops is resolved (md 

said there was a good chance it will correct itself too) which will also give relief of the fluid in my legs. But, 

those are secondary things. I have a healthy baby in my tummy and I am home...that's all I could ask for. 

Now I'm going to lay down in that nice comfy bed of mine and get some good rest... 

This has been the looooongest 6 weeks (or even longer). I haven't written much because I keep thinking that I would update when THIS is over.... and then something ELSE happens.

So, it all started with a little head cold. Which usually I am pretty good about fighting colds but this one wiped me out. I finally called Lance and said "I think I need to see a doctor."

Well, sure enough...I had pneumonia and was stuck in bed for about 2 weeks.

Now before this, if you remember, I was having a hard time keeping my blood sugars down. They were lower but not where they should be. Well, after THIS they were just totally out of control. There was just nothing I could do to keep them under control. I even tried using insulin but laying in bed and being sick just was too much of a battle.

So, anyway, I emailed my sister to ask about a chinese broth recipe I could eat since that was all that I could tolerate at the time..she sent me a gift that I can never repay her for....oils.

Well, I could actually repay her financially for the oils but that is not what I mean. I mean that these crazy oils that have been used from the beginning of time (including on baby Jesus when he was born). Actually stabilized my diabetes!! After about 2 days of rubbing them on my feet, neck, and inside of my arms... my glucose numbers began to be in perfect range of where I need them. Ahhh!!!

So, two things down now... The pneumonia is all better and the diabetes is healed.

Those two things were gradually replaced with 2 new issues...

1. I noticed my tummy suddenly got quite big. I was so nervous that it was because baby decided to grow into a huge baby because the blood sugars were out of control while I was sick. Because of this, I didn't think much more about it.

2.The week of Thanksgiving my legs started swelling. Not like a little swelling on my ankles but like SWELLING like I couldn't fit my pants on kind of swelling from the top of my legs to my toes. Doing anything became a struggle by the end of the day I could barely walk! My suspicion was that the swelling was due to the extra weight from that huge tummy.

My 28 week appt was during Thanksgiving week and it just didn't work out to get together. She had a birth and we were going out of town. So, we got together at 29 weeks instead. The swelling was alarming but even more alarming was my tummy was measuring at 36 weeks and she could easily feel that there was so much fluid in my stomach that she could barely feel baby. So, we talked about it over the next week. Tried a few different things, kept measuring my tummy, but nothing was changing really. So, we decided  to make a trip to the doctor to see what he thought.

Basically, he told me that excess amniotic fluid does happen from time to time and healthy babies can still come from it. There isn't much you can do about it unless you know the true cause. The swelling, he believed, was due to the extra weight in my stomach. But, he ordered an ultrasound to see if we can find out HOW MUCH extra amniotic fluid and make sure baby is healthy.

So, the next day... off I went to an ultrasound. The sonographer was pretty quiet the whole time so we didn't really notice that maybe something was wrong. Out she went...in comes the radiologist, who read the sonogram.

He said that there is 35cc's of fluid. The HIGH end of average is 15cc - so that is ALOT of fluid. Then she said "we spoke with your midwife so just go home and put your feet up until you hear from her."

ok... strange.. "let's go eat!"

I call the midwife and she comments about the fluid and then she said but did she tell you about the heartrate?

Ugh ... no

"Well, baby's heart is just racing, Merrie, I've called the doctor and they want you to be admitted in the hospital. I'm not sure what they are going to do but they are going to prepare you for a c-section just in case."

wwwha wha what?!?!

Talk about your world just getting flipped upside down. What is it with me and pregnancy these days? I just can't seem to have a normal old boring pregnancy like everyone else.

So, we go in to the hospital. The staff was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Honestly, if I was a hospital birth type of gal, I would choose there. what a great group of people.

The doctor really wasn't experienced in this type of situation and consulted with the specialists that he works with. In the meantime, they gave me steriods to help baby's lungs mature faster in case we need to do a c-section. Her heart rate was so high that it wouldn't even read it on the monitor. Approximately, 240's...

I tried to sleep that night... my thoughts of what that ultrasound was going to show, what were the specialists going to do and is my baby going to make kept flooding my mind. I tried my best to give it to God. I'm so thankful to have THE Great Comforter there to lean on.

We didn't get into the ultrasound until 10:45. Talk about a nerve wracking morning! The specialists did an extensive ultrasound that looked at every part of baby. The good news is that baby is healthy in every way..

The bad news is there isn't really an explanation as to why this was happening. They did find a bit of extra fluid in her heart and stomach and concluded that this rapid heartrate must have been happening for awhile and caused this.

That doesn't make much sense because never at any of my prenatal exams or even the doctors appt the day before did they find a heartrate that high.

I think it was all just God's perfect timing... and this was the first time it happened and God timed it so we caught it right away. Truthfully, it doesn't matter when as much as - are we going to be able to fix it.

Speaking of God's perfect timing... mom was talking about coming out and then changed her mind and decided not to and kept on going back and forth. I was pretty sure she had decided NOT to come but I guess she just couldn't miss Cosette's first birthday party.

Little did SHE know that God had a greater purpose for her to come out to KS - since we ended up canceling the birthday party.  I guess God knew I was going to need her help here.

Anyway, back to my story. So, the specialists decided to send us to the hospital they work out of more frequently so they can monitor me and baby and treat us.

They talked about several different treatments to try before c-section.

The first was a medicine that they actually give me. Its a double dose for my body - which is slightly dangerous. They monitored me closely with a daily ekg, etc...but they need to give me that high of a dose in order to get enough to baby.

So, the shots started on Friday morning. I felt fine... and we watched the monitor all day Friday and only saw the heartrate line scrape the very top of the highest reading all day - no change.

More shots on Saturday and another entire day of complete boredom - stuck in a room attached to a monitor that showed no good news ... just baby's heartrate scraping the top of the highest line possible on the monitor.

By Sat night I was ready to totally lose it so we asked if there was anyway we can go for a walk. they strapped on this wireless monitor that doesn't go much further than 4 small hallways but I took what I could get. Lance and I traced and retraced our steps for about 20 or so min. it felt good to just get some energy out and burn a little.. even if it was an incredibly boring view. I had great company ;-)

When we got back I got settled in and Lance packed up and went home.

Not too long after that (about 10:30) the nurse came in and said "did you see what your baby is doing?!?!?!?!"

I look at the monitor and her heartrate was 180!!!!! I couldn't believe my eyes. The medicine finally started kicking in or maybe the walk helped or maybe God just healed or maybe... eh who cares HOW it happened!!! I was sooo excited but tried not to get too excited in case it  goes back up and then I have to face the worst kind of disappointment.

I slept that night. I actually slept. (putting aside the many times I had to be woken up to get meds or blood drawn or blood pressure check,etc, etc, etc...)

They woke me at 5am for meds and 6am for blood draw and by 6:30 my grumbling stomach decided to keep me up so I started to get out of bed.....looked at the monitor and COULDN'T BELIEVE MY EYES!! 160's!!!!!

The doc came in and told me that they will keep me for 1 more day to monitor her. I will have to be on this med until full term. They had to go mess up my blood sugars with the steriods (eh hem or it could have been those pancakes I ate on the first day because I was so starving. Its THIER fault.. they made me go 24 hours without eating in case I was having a csection) so I have to prove to them that I have it under control before they will let me go.

....and then I am outta here!!! with a healthy baby in my tummy!!

Praise God Praise God Praise God!!!!

Silly girl

Cosette has the silliness personality.

Today I bought yogurt pretzels as a special treat at the grocery store. I gave Javan the bag and Cosette just one to snack on...its just a 5 min ride home.

Here is what I found when we got home. Yogurt everywhere and the pretzel on her head. Haha.

Hot hot

Every morning i make Cosette eggs and blow on them and say hot hot.

And she always copies me and says "hot hot" too

Its so cute. I love it.

Tonight i made her a portabella mushroom and blew on it and said hot hot.

So she started blowing on her food too!  Ack all that cuteness i can't stand it.

Of course, normal Coco style once i bring the camera out she stopped doing it. But at least i recorded her blowing.

Pumpkin patch field day

Friday we went on a field day to a pumpkin patch with our homeschool group.

It was nice to have Lance with us...he doesn't get to go on all of our field trips very often. 

but it was cccccold!!!

We still had a good time with all the activities and Javan got to choose a pumpkin and we did the corn maze.

Once we thawed out .... It was full of good memories.

What a nut that little one is

Bobbing for apples

Today Javan asked what bobing for apples was

So i thought I'd let him give it a try. Haha!!

I had a dream

Well, I'm 24 weeks prego now and what a long journey this has been. 

Man, I thought my pregnancy with Cosette was hard but this one took the cake.... Oh why did I mention CAKE!

Last week I had a dream that I was at a party and it was all different kinds of yummy cakes and desserts. And I walked around looking at them. Just looking because that's what I do at parties. I just look at the cakes and pretend I can taste them. Then there was one that I could eat. it had no carbs. It looked sweet and delicious and ... and ... and ... I dropped it on the floor. I cried. CRIED. bawled.

I woke up crying. Not like a couple of tears but weeping on my pillow. My pillow was soaked.

I cried all morning. Its not about the cake. Its about finally finding a way to live with diabetes and then completely losing it. 

And that just about sums up the past 6 weeks.

Its. been. awful.

I have been eating the same things I did with Cosette and my numbers still seemed to want to go up over the range I know they should be. When I was pregnant with Cosette, they would go down about 20 points every hour after I ate. But, with this pregnancy they stayed there. Right there - same number hour after hour (unless I exercised to get them down).

So, regardless of eating and doing all of the same things that I ate when prego with Cosette - plus I completely cut out diary and meat (which did help a bit)... MY NUMBERS WOULD STILL GO HIGHER than I wanted them to.

grr... so, in order to get them down I needed to exercise. 

Which works, my friends. Its the one thing that ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS works 

So, every day after breakfast - I would run up and down the stairs until my numbers would go to where I wanted them...

Then after lunch - I would run up and down the stairs until my numbers would be where I wanted them...

and then I would eat an early dinner, cook something else for my family (because I can't eat what they eat) and while they ate dinner I would walk around our little block until the numbers would be where I wanted them to be. When it was warmer we would all go for walks as a family but now that it is cooler, I've been going on my own.

Night time has been the hardest to get them down. Not sure what the deal is but if I wait until after 8:00 (when the kids are in bed) then my window of opportunity to get them down is lost... and whatever is it is what it will be in the morning. (which is the most important time for me because your body has 8 hours of staying at that number. Which if its good and low it brings the entire average down). 

Usually by the evening walk - I'm walking in tears.

Lance and Javan have been so supportive. Lance never really knows what to say when he sees me walk in the door from a long walk, tears streaming down my face - so he usually says something like  "Hey Baby your lookin GOOOOOD - Have you been working out? Dang." or something ridiculous like that that makes me want to laugh and punch him all at the same time. 

No, really, that made him sound totally insensitive but he has been really really supportive and does his best to give hugs and make me laugh when I need it. He's been a huge help with the kids - with all this exercising it has left him to take care of the kids. 

Javan my little sweetheart has prayed over me so many times. He is always very curious about my "numbers" and tries to encourage me with cute things like "Its ok, mommy, your numbers will be better tomorrow"

I have been so very tired. So, so, so tired.

Not really physically. Honestly, I have had more energy physically since all of this exercise than ever before... but emotionally, i just am toast. 

Every day, at least once a day I have been in tears over this. I honestly wasn't sure I could make it through this pregnancy without an emotional breakdown. 

I prayed and prayed and prayed that He would heal me. I now know for sure it was God's healing powers that were at work through my pregnancy with Cosette.

(Which, by the way, if you don't know that story you can read it here or copy/paste this link http://javanscott.blogspot.com/2012/01/cosette-graces-birth-story.html)

The ONE THING I didn't do with this pregnancy was get prayer during service at church.

Why? I don't have a reason. Maybe I felt slightly embarrassed.. it WAS just last year that I was pregnant and getting prayer for THE SAME EXACT THING.I don't know why that would matter but Satan likes to twist thing up in our minds.

 Maybe it was that I felt like my prayers should be just as powerful as those at church. And I don't believe it has to do with WHO prayed for me or WHERE I got prayed for... 

I actually think it has most to do with me taking credit for beating diabetes with my very thought out meal plan and exercise regimen. I think God wanted me to try EVERYTHING I could think of with very little success before turning to Him JUST to drive the point home that this can't be done without Him.

So, I went up for prayer.

In all the years I've been attending this church, this was the first time that the pastor was the one who prayed for me.  As I said earlier, I really don't think it has to do with the PERSON that is praying for you BUT it was pretty sweet that our pastor happens to be so in tune with the Holy Spirit that he gets prophetic pictures from Him. 

So our pastor, Mark, prayed for me and this is what he said "I keep getting a picture of you standing there and Jesus is on your right side and he keeps putting his fingers over your lips. In the most comforting, loving way...." He prayed some things about joy and some other stuff but he kept going back to that picture. He said "Its strange because usually when I have a picture like that I get something else to follow up with but He keeps showing me that same picture like I'm not 'getting' it.  He keeps covering your lips like to say "don't worry" or something" 

That's it. It was probably 5 min of prayer. That's the way our pastor rolls. He's truly a "no fluff" kind of dude.

I went back to my seat and knew exactly what The Lord was saying. He was saying "Don't worry". 

I wasn't sure at the time if he was saying "don't worry, I'm going to heal you." or if he was saying "don't worry - keep doing what you are doing this baby is going to be fine" but I was REALLY hoping that it was the first one.

...and it was... yes, my friends. I went to bed with a too high number and said "forget it.. tonight I'm waaaaayyyy too emotionally exhausted to do anything about it" and the next morning my numbers where.... where... where... a teensy bit high but MANAGEABLE! NEVER in the past 6 weeks has my morning number been lower than the before bed number.

And this week my numbers have been awesome. Still have to work out a few kinks but I am at least able to manage them. 

WAHOO... PRAISE GOD. 

And so the lesson I have learned is that I am NO expert on diabetes and this diabetes (or the diabetes with my pregnancy with Cosette) would never have been managed this way without the power of prayer. 

Homeschool Hookup Fall festival

Today was the Homeschool Hookup fall festival. The kids had a lot of fun playing games and making crafts.

Javan with his buddy Storey - a hotdog pirate and a buzz lightyear

\\

Doing some crafts

This girl cracks me up. I pull out the camera and this is what she does

Apparently this is her smile now

pretty little ballerina :-)

Farming fun

There is this small Homeschool group that I recently joined. Its just about 30 people but one is a farmer. This is where we have been getting our eggs and recently raw milk.

If you don't know the benefit of getting your eggs from a reliable source and buying your milk raw... look it up... Really, really, really its worth the money. I mean, what is the reason you are buying milk and eggs for your family. If it is for some health benefit then you are just wasting your money if you aren't buying free range, hormone free eggs that come from chickens that are fed non-gmo and organic corn.

Speaking of non-gmo...I will admit I have not watched this since we were busy getting muddy at a farm but Lance did and it was a life changer for him. Its a full-length movie so pop some non-gmo popcorn, curl up on the couch and watch this movie. Its important for you to know...

http://geneticroulettemovie.com/

Anyway, The farmer decided to have a little party at his farm. The kids had so much fun. They got to see cows and chickens and feed some rotten apples to the pigs. But the highlight was the walk we took down to the lake

Yes, that's my son knee deep in mud...

Oh, here he is waist deep in mud...

and I asked him if he thought about how he was planning on getting home with those muddy clothes

He said "Yup, i'm going to wash off in this lake"

So, that's what he did... look how "clean" he is here. 

This is on the walk back.

At least he had loads of fun AND had to ride home in his underwear. 

All in a day's fun :-)

Cosette, on the other hand did NOT get muddy but did enjoy playing in the leaves 

(and maybe eating a few)

I had to change her diaper...in the grass..She was not particularly happy with me.

At least she had those 2 sticks with her... her favorite toy of the day.

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The other day I was holding Cosette and she was grinding her teeth...

ooooh...baby don't do that. Its such an awful sound. 

Then it occurred to me.... in order to grind your teeth you have to have top teeth too!!

Sure enough. Two top teeth, just one on the bottom from what I can tell (not like she lets me stick my finger in her mouth or look in there for that matter. haha)

I guess those teeth decided to come in all at once!

Babysitter

I had some technical difficulties with the last couple of posts. Still trying to figure out this new phone. Haha.

Anyway Mackenzie...er i mean Aunt Shana babysat Cosette while we went out to dinner.

10 Months old!!

Well, Sunday Cosette turned 10 months old!!

She has really started learning a lot lately. She has started waving goodbye, clapping her hands and saying a few words:

Mama (this one she limits how often she says it ... sigh)
dada (which she Loves to say)
"dog" which really sounds like "da"
"hot"
"nigh nigh" which she usually says when she is crying and tired. I interpret it as "night night" but I'm not really sure that is what he is trying to say

and she likes to play peekaboo too (which baby doesn't! haha).

And everyone's favorite... Cosette's famous growl. I don't know why she does it or where she got it from but its darn cute.

We tried to get her to do some of her "tricks" on camera but, as usual, she wouldn't do them until after we turned the camera off but at least you can see her silly personality a bit.

Here's another one. She was waving bye bye but, of course, wouldn't do it while the camera was on...

More September pics

We went to Lance's parents house in mid-september. Lance got a new gun he wanted to play with.

Lance's dad recruited him to help cut down a dead tree in his yard. What a big project!

 

Burning the wood

 

 

 

 

Lucas and Cosette playing together

 

 

My little princess

I think she looks like a little porcelain doll here

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictures from September

I haven't uploaded pictures from our camera this entire month! yikes.

So, I'm just putting them all in one post.

We went on a field trip to a nature park. They had a little class about turtles and they sang some songs and had loads of fun :-)

 

Hanging out in the front yard

 

Javan's buddies

Great pic of all four of them.

Javan insisted that he put Cosette on the basketball for a pic.

She is a little over 9 months in this pics and just learning how to be mobile.

hmmm.. what's over there...

 

OOh grass.. that looks like fun to crawl on.. is that a walnut. Looks yummy

You can pull on this grass stuff and it rips right out. Pretty cool!

 

Ripping more grass ... the little things in life

I had to run to the store and Lance was babysitting. This is what I came back to. How daddy babysits... put her in the walker and mow the lawn. He didn't know what was so funny about this picture.