Our First Year of "Homeschool"

Well, we are just about done with our first year of unofficial homeschool with Nora. She has been doing the 2 Year Curriculum at ABCJesusLovesMe.com, and I think we've both been having a great time with it. With Nate (and Nora too), I've been using a book called Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready by June R. Oberlander, which has activities for each week that are developmentally appropriate for the child's age.

Let's start with Nora.

While she loved to listen to the ABC song on several of her toys that played it, she couldn't sing it herself. Part of that was language development, and part of it was just learning the song, I think. Fast forward to now: She not only sings the whole song by herself, but she recognizes over half of the capital letters, and several lower case letters. She can also write the letter "O."

I think she was beginning to grasp counting, as she would say "one, two, wee!" when grandma would play with her), but I don't think she understood the concept of what numbers represented. Now, she can count to 11 most days, and point and count to at least 7, but sometimes more. She recognizes 2 items right away without counting, but will often count them just because she can. She also knows her age and Nate's age.

She didn't know any colors or shapes before we started, but now knows all her colors (though she confuses pink and purple sometimes), and all her shapes.

Since we pray before our meals, she could kind of make the sign of the cross, but now she can make the sign correctly and say the whole prayer by herself. She has also learned several other prayers before bedtime. The Our Father, Hail Mary, Memorare, Angel of God, Come Lord Jesus, St. Michael the Archangel, and many others! She also knows the creation story, the Christmas story, and is learning about the Palm Sunday, and Jesus' Death and Resurrection. She also knows some memory versus to different tunes.

She has picked up quickly on lots of songs and finger plays, like "Red Light, Green Light," "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," and many more. Adam has also taught her a tap dance move that his mother taught them when they were kids called "Tick, Tock, Stomp."

When we started she called herself "No-wa" or "I-nor," but can now tell you her name is Eleanor Elisabeth. She can sometimes tell you what city she's from, but often gets that mixed up with her last name. She also knows the first names of her siblings and her parents.

About half way through the curriculum, I bought a large map for our office. This isn't part of the curriculum, but it's fun for her to "explore the world" from our office. I made magnets to go with one of their books called "Furry Friends." She can usually correctly place all the animals on the countries (or state) which they are from in the book (Alaska, Brazil, Scotland, South Africa, Russia, India, and Australia). I also made magnets with pictures of our family members that live out of state, so she can usually tell me what state they are in and put them there (Washington, Oregon, Texas, Georgia, Florida, and Minnesota).

While kids are always trying to be more independent and do things for themselves, here are things that we have specifically worked on getting Nora to do by herself: undress herself and put her dirty clothes down the chute, then dress herself (though sometimes articles of clothing end up backwards), pick up toys (with help and direction), wash her hands (especially now that Grandpa Jack made her a step stool, so she can reach!), and help set the table. We have always been working on manners as well, so Nora knows to say please, thank you, you're welcome, and excuse me, though she doesn't always remember. We are always working on improving these skills, but before we started she couldn't really do most of these things. A few things we haven't worked on are brushing her hair and her teeth, washing herself in the bathtub, helping to make her bed, and helping to clear the table after meals. She can kind of do some of these things, but since we haven't had her do it much, she hasn't gotten really good at any of them (expect maybe clearing the table when we ask, but it's pretty much like setting the table in reverse).

Of course all these things don't even put a dent in the list of things she's learned I'm sure (like being completely day time potty trained and almost night time potty trained)! But it's been so fun watching her grow and develop new skills and knowledge!

So, onto my little guy Nate...

We haven't really started any homeschooling with him, but have just been playing with him and teaching him all the things you teach a 1-year-old. He's learned to crawl, walk, climb, & scare Momma with new stunts while trying to follow his big sister or explore on his own. He wants to use a fork or spoon, and has actually been getting okay at using it, but he still prefers using his hands (it's much quicker and easier to stuff his mouth full that way!).

He has really started to develop his language skills more, which excites me! He signs more, eat, thirsty, please, and poop (toilet). He also says "ma" which can mean more or mine depending on what he's doing. He says "ma ma," "da da," and "ra ra" (Nora). One word he uses a lot that I'm not as much a fan of is "dis" (this) while pointing to something. I am trying to work on the actual words for the objects with him, but I'll take that he's communicating what he wants with me. And one of his new favorites is "ba" (ball), since he just got a couple wiffle balls for Easter. He can also tell you what a puppy (va va), sheep (baa), bear/ dinosaur (raa) say.

He may (or may not!) also have some understanding of the color blue. Though, whenever you ask him what color something is he says, "bue." But sometimes I will catch him pointing at something and saying "bue" and more often than not it's actually blue.

Samuel David's Birth Story: A VBA2C

Since I was having a vaginal birth after two c-sections (VBA2C), and not all doctors and nurses are for that, I wanted to make sure that I had everything set up ahead of time that I could to ensure a successful VBA2C. At one of my appointments a few weeks before I was due, I brought a copy of my birth plan for my doctor to sign, so that if any nurses had questions or problems with it, they could see that my doc was okay with it. (For example, I wanted to be able to eat and drink during labor, but I guess it's against hospital policy for a VBAC momma. My doc was okay with it though.)

We also kept going back and forth as to whether or not we would use a doula to support us during labor and delivery. We were originally going to just use the volunteer doula at the hospital, but my friend convinced me to get a doula outside the hospital in case the volunteer on call was with another momma. We ended up finding Nancy Pone a few days before I went into labor, and she was wonderful, as you will read.

Well, onto the start of birthing our fourth child, Mr. Samuel David. As with Nora's birth, I started having contractions early on, but (luckily) this time it wasn't only at night for a week straight, leaving me near delirious come birth-time. It was on and off, and quite often during the day. On Friday, as per usual, my cousin, Linda, came over to visit. I started having contractions around 2pm before she came and started timing them on and off. At that point they were anywhere from 5-11 minutes apart, and were a little stronger than before, but I could still talk through them just fine. She didn't stay too late so that we could get some rest that night though.

We went to bed, and I started timing them again around 9:30pm, as they were getting more painful, and I couldn't sleep though them, and since they were coming anywhere from 6 to 15 minutes apart, I wasn't really sleeping in between them either. Adam slept most of the night, except for the two times Nora came in at 4am and 5 am to tell us she had to "go potty in the potty." I kept timing them on and off throughout the rest of the night and into the morning. When we got up that that Saturday morning, I told Adam to call my mom to come get the kids. I didn't think it was time to go in yet, but, I knew it would be at some point that day, and I wanted to be able to labor at home without a toddler or two crawling across my aching belly.

We spent the morning watching Doctor Who and relaxing at home. Adam actually ended up re-wiring an outlet in the office and setting up some internet thing in the office while I sat and watched. He kept wanting to retreat to the office to play video games, since there wasn't much for him to do at that point. They were starting to get stronger to the point where I couldn't talk though them, but there wasn't anything I wanted him to do at that point to relieve any pain. I just wanted him near me. Just his presence made me feel more at ease. He brought me peaches to eat and water to drink as I asked, and that was all I really needed. Shortly after noon, I decided to stop timing them, as it was getting annoying and difficult for me to get the timer on my phone started and then try to concentrate and relax my way though a contraction. So at 2pm when I started feeling like I wanted to be at the hospital, I don't really know how far apart they were, or if we were at the "5-1-1 rule" to go in or not. But, I started to get the shakes, and thought that was a good sign to go in. I texted Nancy to let her know that we were heading in, and Adam texted my mom to giver her an update, and then we were off!

I remember having a contraction as I was trying to walk down the couple of steps from our laundry room to the garage, but on the car ride to the hospital (not that it's that far!), I think I only had one. I'd heard that sometimes changes in surroundings slowed labor, but I was hoping it wasn't going to slow it down too much. I also remember walking though the ER doors and a security guard coming up to me asking if I wanted a wheelchair. I held up with "one-minute" finger, and he said something about waiting until the contraction was over. Once it was, I decided to take the wheelchair up to the L&D floor, which I remember deciding against with Nora, but the pain was worse this time around.

Once we got up to our room, the nurse, Barb, hooked me up to the monitors, and said she needed a 20 minute strip on the baby, then she could take me off the monitors. She checked me, and I was at 3cm, which kind of disappointed me, especially since my "purple line" had said I was at 10 cm (ha!) a couple days ago. I thought I would at around a 6 and be closer to active labor instead of still in early labor. So we focused on trying to get a 20 minute strip of the baby's heartbeat so that I could get off the monitors and move around more easily. This we found to be a difficult feat, since the bands that they use to hold the monitors on my belly didn't actually keep them in the right places. However, Adam was a pro at holding them in place through my contractions (and when I wasn't contracting), and getting a solid 20 minute strip in just over 20 minutes.

Once the monitors came off, Nancy had us start some belly dancing to help labor progress. She really wanted me to get my hips into it swinging and swaying them side to side. Adam danced with me and held me through contractions. They were painful,but manageable at this point. We found this really helped me progress, because when Barb came back to check me, less than an hour after she checked me before, I had gone from "thick" and 0% effaced to 80-90% and 4 cm.  Hearing that brought my spirits up after the disappointment I had from the first check.

We kept dancing and moving to help shake the baby down and out of me. We did have to take a break to get an IV placed so that I could get some antibiotics since I was Group B Strep positive. Part of my birth plan stated that they could not do any blood draws, and that if they needed any blood it needed to be taken when the IV was placed. Adam mentioned this to Barb. Nancy mentioned this to Barb. I mentioned this to Barb. Serveal times each. She insisted that she didn't know why they would need to draw any blood. "Are you sure?" was repeated several more times. She doubled checked, and still assured us that the hosptial did not need any blood samples.

Since I wanted it numbed before the IV was placed, Barb had another nurse come in who was more familiar with placing IVs when numbed. Well, the numbing didn't work in the first spot, and the vien didn't cooperate either. So they numbed another spot, and tried there. That vein wouldn't cooperate either. I don't do well with needles and was trembling (on top of the contactions) before this all started, it didn't get any better after having been poked so many times either! They finally decided to call in, I kid you not, the SWAT team. Yep, the SWAT team. I don't know what it stands for. I never asked, but they were pros. One try, and the IV was placed without a problem.

Once that fiasco was all over, and my nerves were calmed a little we continued to dance, but I got tired of that quickly, and Barb suggested I get in the bath once the first round of antibiotics was finished. I liked this idea a lot. I knew I couldn't have a water birth that I dreamed of since I was pregnant with Danielle, but at least I could have some relaxing labor in the tub. It did help me relax through the contractions more, so much so that I had to tell Nancy when they were coming so she could time them, because she couldn't tell by my demeanor. I wasn't in there too terribly long though, because I started feeling too hot and almost suffocating-like.

After I put my lovely gown back on, Nancy would squeeze my hips through contractions while Adam helped me stand, but it was this point that the contractions started getting to be much stronger than I ever remember with Nora. I worked through several on the verge of tears, thinking in between the contractions that I could handle it. But, eventually told Adam I wanted the epidural I couldn't do it anymore. The nurse, now Shelly, of course, wanted to check to see how far I was to make sure I wasn't past the point of being able to get one. I wasn't. I hadn't changed much since the last check. The baby was lower, but I was still at 4 cm and 90% effaced.

The contractions were getting much less manageable, and I knew the epidural would take a while to get with paper work and waiting on the anesthesiologist to make it up, so I asked for phentenol right away in my IV. Plus, I knew it would help me relax through the epidural placement, since each contraction I was trying so hard not to cry and be miserable.

This is the point where all hell broke loose in anger from not only me, but Adam and Nancy as well. Shelly, the nurse that had taken over for Barb, realized that Barb missed in my chart that I was a VBAC mom. That meant that the needed blood. And while, I think they let me go a while without bringing it up, once I asked for the epidural, they said in order to get it, I needed to have blood drawn. I was beyond livid. I don't think there is a word in the English language to describe how furious I was! I cried tears of anger and fear of going through what I went through with the blood draw from Nora. While Shelly tried to apologize, she didn't seem to understand what she was asking of me. She wasn't there when the lab tech butchered my arm at Nora's birth leaving me with a welt for days. She wasn't there when it took two nurses and a SWAT team to finally get an IV placed only hours earlier. But she had the upper hand. She had the epidural. She said the anesthesiologist wouldn't even come up until labs were drawn. So I consented. But, I said they had one shot at this. I said if they didn't get it the first time, there was not second chance. I said I wanted the phentenol first. And I said they better call in the SWAT team the first time. And she did. And it was actually an okay blood draw.

Shortly thereafter, the anesthesiologist came up to place the epidural. He must have been the same one from Nora's birth, as from what I understand, there's only one anesthesiologist there that likes his patients laying on their side instead of sitting up. I was thankful for that, as I think it made it easier on me. Now I could just lay and relax in bed. It was getting late, past our normal bedtime, so I was tired.

Eventually, Shelly came back to do another check, and to give me my second dose of antibiotics. Looking back at my notes from Nancy, I was at 6 cm and 100% effaced. With that I decided to try to take a nap. With Nora, Adam had kept coming in and out of the room, and each time he would, I would kinda wake up and look for him. This time he just laid on the couch and watched House, while Nancy and I took naps. I remember at one point Nancy asking Adam to turn the volume down, which helped me be able to get more rest. 

After about an hour and a half, Shelley came back to check me again. She said I was at 8 cm, and my bags of waters was bulging. She asked if I wanted her to break it. I said no, but then through the epidural, I felt like I was suddenly peeing, and I heard Shelley say, "Oops." I wasn't upset though, as I figured that if it was bulging that much, it would probably have popped soon anyway. But, then she changed her answer on how dialated I was. Apparently, the water breaking pushed me up another cm to a 9. I was definitely okay with that! 

Shelley went to her computer next to my bed to update my file or whatever, and within a few minutes, I told her that I thought I felt the urge to push. It wasn't something I expected to feel at all! With Nora, I was told that it was time to push, and then I was told when I was having a contraction, so that I knew when to push. But this time, I could feel my son actually decending into the birth canal. It was amazing! I could feel lots of pressure, but no pain. By the time Dr. Nelson, the on call doctor from my clinic, arrived, my baby was just about ready to be born. She was amazed that as he was crowning, he was turning his head side to side, and commented on his strong neck muscles. It only took about 10 minutes of pushing before Samuel David entered the world! He cried loudly, as he was placed on my chest, and I tried to nurse him. At first he just wanted to cry, but he soon found my nipple, and started nursing like a champ. 

These are the notes that Nancy took for me during Sam's birth. I had to refer to them a couple times for the order of events since I finally finished his story over a year after his birth, but I still remember those moments very vividly. 

Sarah gibson
Conx occ night
9:27 830, 3-12 min
215 leave hosp, strong shaky
3:50 -tight cm 3cm, "thick" cont monitoring 20min
440 - 80-90% eff, 4cm, baby stn 0 nurse: Barb
545 nurse alicia IV
Trembles starting
Pee
630 - bath!
715 Pee -standing hip squeeze - Shelly on
730 90% 4cm baby low
800 fentinol/IV/labs
830 ep
930 pencill #2, check: 6cm, 100%?
NAP! (Or stay up and watch House for Adam :)
11 - switch to left side...check, cervix soft 7cm
1130 checked 8, water broke during check 9 bleeding
1150 dr nelson in
1212 pushing

1222 born

Contraceptive Use and Abortions

So you all know I'm a number nerd. And with all the heated debate on my post, I wanted to see the numbers (because in my mind, numbers don't lie ;) ). I was genuinely curious after reading all the links and quotes from this study and that study if the numbers matched up to the claim that contraceptive reduced or increased the rate of abortion. After reading some of the studies from Guttmacher, I though for sure it would show in favor of contraceptives lowering the abortion rate among women of child-bearing age. So here goes...

I had a hard time finding use rates of contraceptives among women of child-bearing age (15-49), but I found it for four years. Then I found how many women there were of child-bearing age that year and the number of abortions performed that year. Here's the numbers. You can make your own conclusions, or you can read mine. I cited the sources for my numbers below as well, so feel free to double check. I used LibreOffice Calc to automatically calculate the percent of women who had an abortion, but feel free to double check those numbers if you wish as well.

While I hated statistics in college, I'm seeing that from the numbers I found, every year, except the first year that abortion was legalized, that the higher the rate of the use of contraceptive, the higher the rate of abortion among women of child-bearing age. So my conclusion would be that yes, in fact, higher contraceptive use correlates with a higher abortion rate.

Sources:
Abortions per year: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/graphusabrate.html (They pulled their abortion numbers from a couple places on http://www.guttmacher.org/. I used them because it had it all in one place versus several different pages)
Population of Women of Child-bearing Age 1973, 1976: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/statab/pop6097.pdf
Population of Women of Child-bearing Age 1995: http://www.census.gov/popest/data/national/totals/1990s/tables/nat-agesex.txt
Population of Women of Child-bearing Age 2006: https://www.census.gov/population/age/data/2006comp.html Table 1.1
Percent of Women using Contraceptives 1973, 1976: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_010.pdf
Percent of Women using Contraceptives 1995, 2006: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_029.pdf

We All Have Stories: Our 2014 Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas 2014

This year has been a wonderful year for the Gibson family, and we hope it has been for yours as well! Here's a run down on our family, starting with our smallest, newest member!

	Samuel David

 

was born on September 28, only 22 minutes after his due date. He is, by far, the most loved on person in this house! He loves to coo, babble, & smile at all of us. In his two months, he's already started rolling from his tummy to his back, and has already had his first ER visit (a cold has been running though our family, and it struck the poor little guy pretty hard).

	Nathaniel

 

is growing up so fast! While he still doesn't have a ton of words, we love seeing the new things he is learning how to do... like, climb up the front of the fridge. He's a ball full of energy and dimples. This fall I started “school” with Nate. He always wanted to do what Nora was doing, so even though he's a little young (the curriculum I am using is for 2 year olds, and he'll turn 2 right before Christmas), I started him anyway. He loves sitting and “daw” (drawing) with us.

	Eleanor

 

turned 3 this year, and many doors have opened for her. She was old enough to take a dance class. While she wasn't the greatest participant in the beginning, by the last class, she knew the whole routine for their dance (“The Wheels on the Bus”). She loved going to dance class, and we will probably sign her up again! This fall she was also old enough to start faith formation at church. I signed her up thinking that it would be nice for her to have a teacher other than me at home, but I have ended up being one of the teachers for her class. She has continued on in her “school” as well, and has been working on the 3 year old curriculum since late spring.

Danielle

would have turned 4 this year. We had a birthday party for her. One of our good friends made a beautiful cake for her birthday, that when we cut into, we found out that Sam (who we had just had an ultrasound with) was going to be a boy. We still feel so blessed to have her as our daughter, even though we're not raising her.

	Sarah

 

(that's me!) worked as a Title I instructor at St. Agnes during the last school year. I've also continued working as a personal math tutor for a few different students. And, of course, teaching our own kiddos. In February, my mom and I took Nora & Nate to Oregon to see my grandma for the last time. She died shortly after we returned.

	Adam

 

was officially hired on at Danfoss Power Solutions in March of this year (before that he was working there through a temp agency). He still continues to work early AM's at UPS too. He has also been working on losing weight, and has lost 25 pounds so far, mostly by working out, but he's also been watching how much he eats. I'm very proud of him for sticking with it for so long, and committing to lead a healthy life. He also “ran” his first 5k in June. He came in at 1:07:00 just behind his pregnant wife (who had to stop twice for a potty break), and our sleeping toddler in the stroller.

We hope your 2014 was as blessed as ours was, and that your 2015 brings you much more joy!

All our love,

The Gibsons

View our other Christmas Letters! 2010     2011     2012     2013     2015     2016     2017

Pertussis: Misleading Statistics

So originally this graphic came from the CDC. It looked like this.

http://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/downloads/pertuss-surv-report-2013.pdf

It shows just what the CDC wanted to show, however useless it might be to the rest of us, it means something to them, I guess.

Then someone came along (I don't know the source of the beefed up graphic) thinking that it meant something it didn't (statistics are funny like that!), and tried to show that this vaccine doesn't work and you have a better chance of not getting it and reporting it if you're not vaccinated.

FALSE!

Enter a mathematician.

The original graphic from the CDC is showing a breakdown of the 6,235 reported cases in 2013. If you wanted to make the claims from the beefed up graphic, you'd need to look at the whole population, or take a sampling that included kids that did and did not get and report pertussis, including vaxers and non-vaxers, and you'd have to take a pretty large sampling for it to actually be an accurate statistic. 

So let's see if I can get a little more accurate view of what she's trying to show. There are 710 non-vaxed kids that got it, and 3,456 vaxed kids that got it. According the Census, there are 19,868,088 kids under the age of 5 in the US. According to the CDC 95.1% of kids entering kindergarten in the 2012-2013 school year had gotten the DTaP vaccine (the best number I could find, since before entering kindergarten vaccines don't have to be reported as received, but from other sites I've looked at, the non-vax rate is under 6%, so I'm thinking it's fairly close.) 

(This is where you should see a red flag go up... more kids have been vaccinated against pertussis, so there's more kids that could potentially get it. There's less kids that haven't been vaccinated against it, so there's a smaller population that can get it. So, it only makes sense that of the kids that got sick and reported it, fewer of them were un-vaccinated... there's just less of them to choose from!)

So with these numbers this is what we have...

With a population size of 19,868,088 and 4.9% not being vaccinated, that means that 973,536 were not vaccinated against pertussis. And 95.1% or 18,894,552 were vaccinated against pertussis.

Now, if we take the whole population of non-vaccinated kids and look at how many reported having pertussis (710 total kids that did not get any vaccination against it at all), we're looking at 0.073%.

Looking at the whole population of vaccinated kids and how many reported having pertussis (416 and 3,038 or 3,454 that got at least 1 dose of DTap), we're looking at 0.018%.

Both these numbers are incredibly small, yes. But it shows that the kids who did not get the vaccine were actually almost 4 times (3.984, to be accurate) more likely to get and report pertussis than those who were vaccinated against it.

Moral of the story: Don't let statistics scare you unless you actually understand them fully.

My Pregnancy with Sam

**I was just going through my posts and found that I had written all this out from my pregnancy with Sam, but never actually posted it... now that he's a year and a half, I'll share it with you all!**

5 weeks 2 days

February 4, 2014 - Week 6
I highly doubt it is, and really hope, that it's not the case, but I can't seem to shake the feeling that we might be having twins. I don't know why or where I got this idea. Or, why it keeps coming back as something that my mind thinks is going to happen. But, I guess we'll have a couple weeks to wait and see. Around 8-10 weeks, we'll have a dating ultrasound, and they'll be able to see how many itty-bitties are in there.

February 20, 2014 - Week 8
We had the dating ultrasound and she only saw one baby in there... But I'm still not 100% convinced. Here's hoping she's right though! I also asked where he/she was hanging out, because I'm wondering if placenta previa will be an issue again. She said he/she was hanging out kind of low in my uterus. :(

9 weeks 1 day

March 11, 2014 - Week 11
We had our first trimester screening today. The kids and I met with Joan before the ultrasound, and I told her nothing had really changed about our family history. She loves seeing the kids! All went well, though the placenta is close/partially over my cervix. Krista (yep, I got her without even asking!) said there's a better chance it will move this time. Nora & Nate sat very nicely the entire ultrasound eating their lunch. Krista even gave each of them an ultrasound picture of the baby! So sweet! :)


March 21, 2014 - Week 12
I had an appointment with the new provider today. Jennifer seemed to think that a VBA2C (vaginal birth after two cesareans) was something that the clinic wouldn't do. I told her that Dr. Mahan said with Nate, that I could likely try a VBAC again. So when I left, I made sure I could get an appointment with her next time. If she decides that I can't attempt a VBAC again, then I may switch to Dr. Hartung (though the baby would be born in Wisconsin, and that's no good!)

12 weeks 4 days

March 22, 2014 - Week 12
Someone in one of the Catholic Mom groups I'm in on Facebook posted about getting a relic from St. Gerard, who is unofficially the patron saint of mothers, pregnancy, and infertility. I had already found a prayer (below) that I have been saying everyday in hopes of the placenta moving so I can have another VBAC, but I sent a request for a relic from him that I can wear. I can't wait to get it!

O Sainted Brother Gerard, whose heart went out to the unfortunate; who relieved so many poor, healed so many sick, comforted so many afflicted; behold me worried and troubled as I kneel at thy feet. In vain to turn to men to seek consolation and help; therefore, do I have recourse to thee thou who art so powerful in heaven. Graciously assist me, Saint Gerard, that being freed from this trial or strengthened to bear it for the love of God, I may praise and thank God and serve Him with greater love and fervor. Amen.

15 weeks 2 days

April 29, 2014 - Week 18
The scripture I reflected on this morning was Psalm 5:3, "At daybreak, Lord, You her my voice; at daybreak I plead my case to You and watch expectantly." I've been saying that St. Gerard prayer every morning, in hopes that God will hear my prayer and I've been waiting and watching expectantly for His answer. I thought it was so fitting.

18 weeks 3 days

April 30, 2014 - Week 18
I finally had an appointment with Dr. Mahan. On the way in Nora said that we were going to get the baby out of my tummy. So I explained to her that after she turns 3, then the baby can come out. Dr. Mahan said what I thought she'd say about VBA2C: totally fine. She said I'd have to have continuous monitoring though (which I did last time anyway), and if anything went wrong I'd be in the OR right away. She listened to baby's heart beat (160 bpm), and Nora remembered our talk earlier about how we need to listen with our ears and tell Dada about it when he gets home from work. Nate was just perplexed by the weird noise and watched me and Dr. Mahan the entire time.

18 weeks 6 days
Dressed up for a wedding in my bridesmaid's dress
when I was 5 months pregnant with Nora

26 Weeks 3 Days

27 Weeks 1 Day
All dressed up for a cocktail party at my
friend Anna's home. 

29 Weeks 3 Days

July 23, 2014 - Week 29

All was looking good at my appointment, except that I was measuring small (just like I did with Nora), so Dr. Mahan said if I am measuring small at my next appointment that she would order an ultrasound. She also said she'd want one done anyone to check for placenta accreta.

August 7, 2014 - Week 32

I had my appointment with the nurse today. I was measuring small again, so she ordered a growth ultrasound. I'm sure we'll see in a couple weeks that it's just low fluids like with Nora. With summer pregnancies, I find it hard to keep hydrated enough. I thought I was doing better this time around, but I guess not! I was also supposed to see the lactation consultant they have on staff, but I guess the patient before me had a lot of questions. We had a play date to get to, so I said I'd just meet with her next time, but that I didn't really have any questions at this point (since this will be my 3rd baby nursing!)

37 Weeks 4 Days

Nora's Tea Party Birthday

I wanted to do something for Nora's 3rd birthday, but since I'm 8 months pregnant, I needed to do something pretty low key and easy. We decided to just invite grandparents and Godparents to keep it small (if we do a family affair, it's upwards of 30 people, and the idea of having a bunch of toddler running around and trying to keep them entertained seemed to daunting to me!). Nora's loved playing with a tea set that was mine as a child and being the "hostess with the most-est," so I thought a tea party would be right up her alley. Plus it gave me a reason to use my grandma's China for the first time. (Not something I would have wanted to do with a bunch of toddler running around! Yikes!) So here's how it went and what I did...

We'll start with the easy stuff... Tea! I made three "teas" for everyone to enjoy. I had a cold black tea with mom's garden raspberries, hot Tazo Zen tea with mint, and lemonade in a tea pot for the kids. I think both Nora and her "God-sister" Abby tried the teas, but Nate had a little lemonade in a toy tea cup, then decided that his finger food went better in the cup.

Silly brothers!

 Of course I needed to make sure that there was something my kids, and Abby (Nora's "God-sister"), would eat, so I used the flower shaped Pampered Chef baking tube (similar to these) to make homemade white sandwich bread in. I made half a batch of bread and had to extend the baking time in the tube. After I sliced the flower-shaped bread, I used a small circle cookie cutter (similar to the smallest from this set) to put a hole in the center of half of them. I spread peanut butter, then my mom's homemade apple jelly on the ones that I didn't put the hole in, then put the ones I had cut the hole in on top for the pretty flower effect. These were a hit with Grandpa Jack too since his favorite thing to eat is a peanut butter sandwich.

I made one batch of French baguette that I used for two different sandwiches. When I split the rolled out dough into two, I put cracked pepper and Parmesan on one before rolling it up, and dried spicy basil from my garden and cheddar on the other.

With the cracked pepper and Parmesan French baguette, I made cucumber ranch finger sandwiches. For these, I used a package of cream cheese mixed with a dollop of sour cream (just enough to make it a little more spreadable) and ranch seasoning to taste to spread on. I had Adam assemble these, so he spread the cream cheese mixture then put a slice of a garden cucumber on top.



With the basil and cheddar French baguette, I think I made the hit of the party: BLT finger sandwiches. (Maybe you can tell from the picture, Adam and Nora's Godfather, Dave, got to them before I could snap a picture, and they were the only ones we didn't have any left.) While Adam was cooking up the bacon, I spread mayo on each slice, cut up a piece of garden Romaine lettuce for each, and a slice of garden Roma tomato for each. When the bacon was done cooking I used a scissors to cut up each piece of bacon into thirds (which was roughly the length I needed to fit across the baguette). I put the lettuce down first, then the bacon, then the tomato, because I thought that order looked the nicest, but you can really put it in whatever order you want (though the mayo should probably go right after the bread ;) )

My lovely mother made her famous turkey roll ups, and Nora's Godmother, Theresa, made these super cute tea bag cookies.

Of course a Birthday Tea Party wouldn't be complete without mini cupcakes. I like to bake better than cook. But, oddly enough, I almost always end up using a box mix for cupcakes instead of making them from scratch. I think this was a chocolate chip chocolate cake mix, but I don't recall for sure. I know the frosting was called Strawberry Mist though. The only down side was I couldn't quite fit 3 candles on the little thing... but Nora enjoyed being able to eat 3 of them instead of just one. I'm pretty sure that made up for it, if she had any hard feelings about the two missing candles. ;)

My birthday girl!