4 month catchup = nbd

Whelp, four months have gone by like its nobody's business:

 --We went on an fantastically amazing 6 week cross country road trip this summer and visited family in Colorado, Kansas, and Minnesota. We saw lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. We watched Ryan graduate from high school (Hallelujah. High school is of the ghetto).

--Two family reunions, one for my side and one for Matthew's side of the family. Nothing but good times there.

--Sarah started smiling, giggling, rolling over, and is just beginning to crawl.

--This year, instead of teaching at two schools, Matthew took a full time job at one of them. It's only about 5 minutes away from our house, which is so so nice, but I think it is also a little crazy having kids who live on our block in his classes.

--Matthew is also teaching a math class two nights a week at a local technical college. He also referees little league and high school football games. He is one busy dude.

--Natalie has become a very enthusiastic dancer.

--She has also developed a deep and abiding love for Barney.

--I basically just sit around and stare at the ceiling all day. False. I have actually really gotten into running lately. I'm not going to lie, it feels awesome to be able to pound out 4-6 miles consistently most weekday mornings, and then do longer weekend runs, when I've almost never been able to struggle past 2 or 3 miles. It's also been great to help take off all the baby weight. I just hope I can keep the momentum up and keep running/exercising through the winter.

--We love the family garden we share with Matthew's family. This year there are tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, lemon cucumbers, beets, cantaloupe, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, and last but not least, green beans. Love love love it.

And now, pictures!

 "Baby, baby, I cute!"

 

Watching Barney together

 Cousins

 Snuggly sleeping baby. She doesn't snuggle very often anymore :(

Natalie LOVES Sarah.

Books

I feel like Matthew and I have been inhaling books over the past couple of months. It really helps that he teaches at TWO high schools with TWO libraries, and the librarians are super nice at both and will hold books or recommend books that have been really fun reads. So instead of being in a 79 person waiting list for some of these books, we've gotten them right away. I'm not complaining about the extra little perk. :)

In no particular order, and providing no description for any of them, these are several titles we've particularly enjoyed (Books on the same line separated with a "/" are in the same series):

Dragonswood/Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey
The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen
Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Daughter of Fire and Thorns/Crown of Embers by Rae Carson
Pathfinder/Ruins by Orson Scott Card
Daughter of Smoke and Bone/Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
Graceling/Fire/Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier
Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card
First Meeting in Ender's Universe by Orson Scott Card

Baby Picture Comparisons

One thing is for sure: Natalie and Sarah have very different looks:

Natalie and Sarah

When Natalie was born, I thought she had a good mix of both me and Matthew in her, but now that Sarah is born, Natalie definitely looks more like me and Sarah looks more like Matthew. Observe:

Matthew  and Sarah 

(No baby pictures of me available)

The most obvious feature is the hair. Sarah definitely has the head full of dark hair that is common in Matthew's family. She also has darker eyes that we think will most likely be brown--like Matthew's. And a lot of her facial features look a lot like Matthew's as well, I think.

Natalie, on the other hand, has more of my lighter, wispier hair. She has blue eyes--like me, and really long eyelashes, which is is common in my family.

It'll be interesting to see if all our kids fit into one of these two molds. It will also be interesting to see if they have personality traits more similar to the parent who they look like. Only time will tell...

Sisters

Natalie was SOOOOO excited about the baby coming and was just adorable when she first met Sarah.

 

 

 

 

 

Grandparents

I feel so lucky that both my mom and dad were able to be there for Sarah's birth. And super lucky that my mom is staying for another week, too :)

 

 

And then there were four

At least once a day Matthew and I look at each other wide-eyed and say "We have kidS" (emphasis on the purality) or "We have TWO girls" or "There are TWO car seats in our car" some other variation of holy buckets how is this possible?

We love it, though. Here's the birth story, and a few pictures:
We were supposed to go in on Saturday to be induced, but I got a call Friday morning and long story short, because they were going to be shortstaffed on Saturday and I would just be "on call" for my induction, they had me come in Friday afternoon instead. Which made Friday morning very busy and exciting, getting last minute things done and making and adjusting arrangements for everything.

We went in at 3pm, got the IV, signed papers, got the epidural, started pitocin, and then had my water broken. Before they did anything, I was dilated to a 3 and apparently having contractions every 20 minutes (I wasn't feeling all of them). When my water was broken at 5:30, I was at a 4. My parents got there a little around 6:45 or so, and at 7pm I was dilated to a 7. At 8:15 I was at a 10.

So things moved pretty fast. I might add that my epidural was awesome. I hardly felt anything at all. Some discomfort with contractions when I was at a 6-7, but a few pushes of the epidural button took care of that, and really, it was a very calm and serene process. It was fantastic. I pushed for about 7 minutes, and poof! Our baby girl was born.

Sarah Elisabeth

8 lbs 4 oz

19.5 inches

Practically perfect in every way :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Natalie really wanted to help carry the baby in :)

8 months, almost 9

Here is my 34.5 week belly shot:

I feel like I have gotten a lot bigger just in the past week or two. My brother commented that a couple weeks ago, he thought I looked very pregnant, but this last time he saw me, he thought I looked "great with child." Haha. I certainly feel great with child--there are plenty of aches and pains to go around. And it's getting hard to breathe.

Natalie is insanely cute about the baby. She will come up to my belly and say "baby, baby" and want to lift up my shirt to "see the baby." And she sometimes gives my belly a little kiss, all by herself. Adorable.

The biggest news right now, however, is the baby is breech. Every time I have gone in for a non-stress test starting three weeks ago, I keep hoping she will flip, but to no avail. I know she still could flip, but every time I go in and she still hasn't turned, it is sad. So here's to hoping that she will turn by herself, or be easy to flip around when the doctor tries to flip her. I really, really, really don't want a c-section.

me, me, me

--Whelp, here we are. Seven months pregnant. Less than two months until baby. Six weeks until end of internship. And really, truly, cannot wait for both events to arrive. I am really excited for the baby to get here, in fact, almost surprised at how much I cannot wait for her to be born, but I suspect that part of that is related to the fact that when the baby is born I will finally be done with the internship. And that will be nothing but a happy day.

--The way everything has worked out with internship and being pregnant has been very fortuitous. For example, being in the third trimester means a lot more doctor appointments. Next week I start non-stress tests twice a week and will have to take off a little early for all of those appointments. If I was in clinical or community rotations, missing those hours would have been a lot more of a big deal, but with the food service rotation, I can work on my projects at home to make up hours.

--I bought myself some maternity clothes yesterday. It was kind of a splurge, but all I can say is I am really happy to have more than one pair of maternity pants that actually fits well. And a tank top that will go all the way over my belly.

--I have liked the food service rotation a lot more than I had thought I would a year ago. It is actually pretty fun--I am working at the district office of a local school district, doing a lot of managerial and administrative stuff, but also getting a lot of time in the schools. For example, last week I spent a few hours with a manager at one school trying out different smoothie combinations on a new Vitamix blender for a smoothie program they are doing at breakfast. That was nothing but a good time.

--Of course, I also have had to make a lot more phone calls this rotation, which is not my favorite thing in the world. 

--Also, I'm pretty sure I have gained a pound every other day the past couple weeks. Again, not my favorite thing in the world. Is it too early to chalk it up to water retention?

CGM

I know you are all dying to hear about my cgm (saying "continuous glucose monitor" starts to be a mouthful). And even if you aren't on the edge of your seats waiting for all the details, well, I am dying to tell everyone about it, so here we go.

My diabetes rotation for the internship was great, if for no other reason than they let me try out a bunch of cool diabetes gadgets, including a cgm. I only wore it for 5 days or so, but I really loved it and was convinced I should get one, especially since I am pregnant. I remember last pregnancy thinking a cgm would have been very helpful. Also my current doctor's opinion is that a cgm is a necessity more than a luxury in pregnancy, but you know, whatever.

So, what does it do? Basically it is super handy dandy.
--There is another site on my stomach that has a small tube under the skin (that is taken out and changed regularly), which reads and transmits my blood sugar level every five minutes.
--The device that receives the data doesn't just show you the latest number, it shows you a graph that you can expand to show up to the latest 24 hours.
--It tells you how fast your blood sugar is rising or falling (or if it is staying relatively constant). So you can see if you are dropping fast or whatnot.
--It alarms if you go too high or too low (I have mine set to alarm me if I go below 80 or above 150).
--It has some other features too, that I haven't really used yet. When you go to the doctor they can download the past month, two months, whatever.
--So it reduces the need for lots of blood sugar testing during the day. You still have to check your blood at least twice to calibrate the cgm. They say technically you shouldn't treat highs or lows based on what the sensor says, but... I kind of ignore that most of the time.

So you can see, when this picture was taken, my current BG was 127, you can see the angled down arrow which means I was dropping slightly, and you can see the graph for the past 3 hours. Nifty eh?

So, there are essentially two companies that make CGM currently: medtronic and dexcom. I tried out the medtronic in October, but I actually ended up buying the dexcom. The medtronic was great because it sends the data to my pump, so you have everything on one device. The dexcom sends the data to a separate little device, so you have to carry around another thing with you. That was a major pull for me to get a medtronic, but there were three big reasons I went with dexcom:

1. It is more accurate. There is always some lag time between your real blood sugar level and what it says on the cgm when your blood sugar is rising or falling, especially if it is changing rapidly. (When it is not changing, or not changing fast, there is almost no discrepancy). However, the dexcom is more accurate than the medtronic. That was the clincher for me. Accuracy is kind of a big deal.
2. Inserting the sites are less painful on the dexcom compared to the medtronic. Even if I have been sticking myself regularly for over 15 years, its not like that means it doesn't hurt.
3. Sites on the dexcom supposedly last longer than the medtronic. They say the dexcom will last from 10-14 days, whereas the medtronic lasts up to 7.


Anywhoozle, I could go on and give an even more detailed analysis with more observations and likes/dislikes, blah blah blah, but I think I will call it quits here. My final thought it that when all is said and done it turned out to be not that expensive, and it is helpful and useful and accurate (at least, accurate enough to be helpful and useful). I'm a fan!

26 weeks, almost

I am so bad at taking regular belly shots. Oh well. Life goes on. I'll be 26 weeks on Monday. Almost to the 3rd trimester! And I don't want to hear "you don't even hardly look pregnant!" Every so often someone still tells me that. Thanks,  but what I want to hear now is that I totally look way pregnant. Because I certainly feel very pregnant! :) I enjoyed Nathan telling me almost every day over Christmas how big my belly was getting.