Hypertention

Well… I have made it to 8 ½ months. And have officially been on some type of bed rest for a week now. I thought things were fine, I felt fine… did a little too much on my bed rest but still felt ok overall. I went to the doctor and they have now diagnosed me with Gestational Hypertension. This is a condition caused by high blood pressure during pregnancy. Click here to read more about this condition.

Right now I have a mild form. I have to take my blood pressure twice a day and keep track of what I am doing so that they can see what is causing the high blood pressure or what type of bed rest I need. After reading the write up on GH I have to admit I am a little worried. We are at 34 weeks tomorrow. This mostly happens at 37 weeks and beyond. They get a little more worried when it happens before that point. So… that is why I am worried. So… if you could join me in prayer I would appreciate it!

I am praying for the following:
~That the high blood pressure will not get worse.
~That the hbp will not interfere with Payton’s development.
~That the hbp will not cause any of the complications that could harm her or
cause her to be born early.
~I was worried about having enough leave to cover any of the bed rest that they
are going to have to put me on from here on out… but at this point I am more
worried about Sprinkles and getting her here with little or no complications. We
will figure out how to deal with the leave part of it later… right now I just pray
she is ok.

I have a shower on Sunday that my co-workers are sweet enough to give me and that is about all the doctors want me to do. They want me to take my bp before and after the shower to see what my bp is like when I am active. Then on Monday I am not to do anything but stay in bed. I then need to take my bp to see what it is like when I am resting. They will use that data on Tuesday to make a decision about bed rest for the rest of the week. Thank God the next week is Spring Break. At least I get that extra time to take it easy without missing anything at work.

Part 2: The Shower!

Saturday afternoon was my first baby shower for little Payton! It was so much fun! There were lots and lots of people there! The food was great and the cake was amazing and Payton got lots of goodies! I am so excited for her to get here so that she can use all the wonderful things people gave her! Here are some of the pictures that were taken of the day!

Too bad I have that light on my head! :-)

This was a picture taken of the center piece at the last minute as they

were clearing the table (it was surrounded by tons of food!)

We are also finally getting somewhere with the set up of her room! Danny and Frank picked up the crib and Sonja put the bedding on it! It looks great! We are going to steam clean the carpets (hopefully tonight) and then I can start playing around with furniture placement. This is stressing Frank out. I don’t blame him… her room is very small and there are several pieces of furniture that I need to get in there. But… we are starting to talk about moving in about a year and so I think the furniture will be ok in there for that time. It will make it small but she will be small and she won’t really move around much in there during her first year anyway. Once she is about a year old I can get rid of the rocking chair and hopefully 6 months to a year after that we can get rid of the changing table! We will see! We are also talking about possibly replacing the crib with a crib that has a built in set of drawers and changing table… that would save a good amount of space! We will see!

Exciting Weekend Part 1

I had a crazy but wonderful weekend! The events all started Friday with me getting ready for school. While talking to Austin I felt like I was mumbling over my words. I figured that it would go away or that it was all in my head so we headed to mom’s house for our Friday breakfast. When I got to school I noticed that the mumbling didn’t go away yet. My mount (the outside… not just my lips but my whole mouth) felt swollen. I asked my co-worker if my face looked puffy and she said that my eyes looked like I had been crying. I went to the office and had the nurse take my blood pressure (a benefit of working in an elementary school) My BP was 130/100. I called my Dr. and they told me to come in. I left work and headed for the Dr. By the time I got there my BP went down to 124/80 (still high for me but they were not worried) They did some blood work and told me to take it easy for the weekend. I go back in tomorrow to have my BP and blood work results checked and then they will decided if I can go back to work on Tuesday. I have noticed that I feel swollen in the mornings when I first wake up but it seems to go away when I move around.


I had made plans a long time ago with a friend of mine to get pedicures Friday night since my first shower was the next day and I could not reach my toes. My dress required open toed shoes… and since the weather is getting warmer and my shoes are getting harder to put on… I figure I better get them done so I can wear slip on or strappy shoes as much as possible from here on out! We had a GREAT time! It felt so nice to get a manicure and pedicure! I probably could have done without the eyebrow waxing but that is now done too! Don’t worry… I checked with my Dr. to make sure that it was ok for me to still do that in light of the BP issues and she said “I will not take the opportunity to get a pedicure away from any pregnant woman!” So I went with full blessings!

Saturday was lots of fun for lots of different reasons! We started our day out with a sibling class for Austin at the hospital! It was great fun. He learned how babies cry for different reasons, how to hold a baby, how to change a baby and how to wrap the baby up in a blanket. Then we took a tour of the birthing unit. Most of the stuff we saw looked exactly the way it did 4 years ago when we were there with Austin! My two favorite parts were showing Austin the room we stayed in when he was born and there were two brand spankin’ new babies in the nursery we got to peek at! They were precious! Austin got a special water bottle that says “Big Brother” on it and he also got a certificate of completion. Here are some pictures!

This is Austin practicing picking up the baby.

This is Austin holding the baby.

And here is his certificate!

Ok… this post is awfully long… so in an effort to not loose your interest… come back tomorrow for Part 2: The Shower!

Wordless Wednesday

Open Wide!

Austin went to the dentist on Friday! He did a great job and they were surprised that he had never been before since he did so well. He has gone with my mom and his daycare lady so it really was nothing new for him. Mom took him for me while I was at work. They asked her to wait in the waiting room and brought him back for the cleaning and checkup. They had a lot of great things to say about his teeth and asked us to start flossing (gggrrr). But he got to sign the “No Cavity” board and got a bag full of fun stickers, toys and dental hygiene products so he was very happy! He is growing up so quickly!! I can not believe it! It is a little scary!

8 Months!!

*No photo at this time! I am feeling nasty from this cold and do not feel like being the subject of a photo at this time! So... I owe you one.*

Can you believe we have hit 8 months!! WOW! It is going by fast and slow all at the same time! Fast in that I can not believe we are only 56 days (only 8 weeks) away from her arrival if she comes at exactly 40 weeks (which I don’t really think will happen.) It is also fast because I still have a lot to do with Boards, school and her room to get ready. Luckily, I am not that worried. I am really really close to being ready at school and I am planning on getting a giant amount done this week on the boards. Frank and Danny will get the crib in her room next weekend and that will be a giant step forward in getting the room ready.


I went to the doctor yesterday and things are still going well. This was the time with Austin that I ended up on bedrest so we are really keeping an eye on things this go round! I am supposed to take it easy and try to do as little walking as possible. (Since that is when I seem to get the most contractions.) My co-workers continue to be awesome and help me by walking my kids to and from classes and the bus for me. I know I cannot eliminate walking all together especially since there is a lot of walking involved with my job but these little trips are really helping me out! My class also has a field trip coming up to a local museum. Even though I would rather not use the sick day right now I have decided to stay home from that trip since it will require a full day of walking. My doctor agrees. (Plus, this gives me another day to work on my Boards paper so I plan to use it wisely!) The doctor has also asked me to keep track of the baby’s movements everyday for the next two weeks. This should be interesting since I have to lie on my left side for an hour twice a day to do this. I asked if I could do both hours in the evening, like one hour as soon as I get home and then one hour right before bed. She said that was fine. I also asked her if I could stop the hour after feeling the required 5 movements which she also agreed to! That should make this a little easier.

Overall I feel great! I have had this cold for the last 3 weeks and it seems to be getting worse instead of better. That is tough since I am up every hour and a half to use the restroom and now I am up more than that with this cold. But, I would imagine it can’t last much longer! Right?! Next week my showers start and I am very excited about those. I also signed Austin up for a Sibling class and tour at the hospital! I think he is going to love that class and I think he is going to love the hospital tour since this is where he was born too! I also think that this will help when the baby is finally here and he feels comfortable with his surrounding while visiting in the hospital. I am so excited for her to be here! Especially since we had the 3D ultrasound. I am so curious to see exactly how much like Austin she looks! I sure hope she gets his eye lashes at least! It would be a shame for a boy to get those and not his sister!

Wordless Wednesday