Getting my thoughts out

For some reason, I want to write thoughts down. I don't know what thoughts, though. They come and go so quickly that I forget what they are. I'll just type as I think. It may end up being very random.

I had my 32 week appt. today. It went really well. I gave her my birth plan. I was relieved to hear that the things I want are pretty typical practice for her and the hospital. I'm hoping to get the swine flu vaccine tomorrow. The clinics that most of the county health departments in Utah have been a joke. My OB said so, too. The hospital is giving the shots for high risk people but they have to have the paperwork from their doctor. She faxed that over today. I hope I can get one. My inlaws won't be happy about it, but that's ok. I have several risk factors - pregnancy, immunosuppressive therapy, RA and a past history of asthma, which makes bronchitis very likely if I contract the flu. I've gotten the flu vaccine every year for the past 14 years, except one. And the one year I didn't get it, I ended up with bronchitis twice. I've researched the vaccine so much that I know I've made a very informed decision to get it. Bryant mentioned that to them, but that didn't stop them from trying to dissuade us from getting it.

The baby's heartbeat is very strong and she's kicking up a storm. I think she likes upbeat country music, plus the theme song to Stargate SG-1. It's like she starts dancing when it plays. We've been watching it a lot because we're addicted to it. It's not like we have a nursery to create. Nope, we just sit there watching SG-1, anticipating TealC's cocked eyebrow or O-Neill's wise cracks while fighting the Ga'ould or some other alien that they come across during that episode. I think little Rebecca doesn't have a chance. She's going to be a Sci-Fi fan if we have anything to do with it. LOL!

We've slowly started the process of completely rearranging the office. We're going to limit our office to less than half of the second bedroom, while making the rest into the baby's nursery. Hopefully, we'll have our own place by the time she's big enough to need her own room. It's quite a task. Bryant has computer stuff everywhere. I took before pictures. I can hardly wait to get the crib put together. We need a rocking chair. I don't like gliders. I actually get sick from gliding in them.

I've been having truly bizarre dreams. I've read that it's normal and my OB told me so, too. I dreamed the other night that we decided to take the baby out to see what she looks like and then put her back. When we went to put her back, she wouldn't go back. My OB laughed and said, "Someone's having some anxiety!" I didn't think I was. I mean, part of me wants her here right now and part of me is willing to wait until it's closer because I'm not quite ready. But, I don't feel stressed about the baby. I guess I've stressed a little about being a good mother and being able to handle it. But, deep down, I know I will. Bryant was the one stressing out. But, I think that was before so many friends (and my dad) have pitched in and given or bought us all the big stuff, so it was basically a financial worry. He's fine now. IDK.

I even feel confident that I can handle labor without intervention. I don't like medicine at all and really don't want the side effects of any pain medication. I mean, I've survived several gall bladder attacks. The pain was excruciating and it never let up and always lasted at least 18 hours. When I've described it to women who've had natural childbirth, they've said that it's like labor. But labor has at least a little bit of a break from time to time. From what I've read about labor, the worst part is transition. I know it will be painful, I'm not kidding myself. I guess that from all the stuff I've been through - the gall bladder, the RA, the IBS,etc, have prepared me. I have a relatively high tolerance for pain these days. I know that all the joint pain that has crippled me before I got the RA under control prepared me for the hip and round ligament pain I've endured these past few months. If it weren't for the RA pain, I don't know how I would've handled that.

I think I've rattled on and on for long enough. My brain is totally consumed with our baby. Bryant likes to joke that baby.exe is taking up my whole processor. That's exactly what it is.

MIA

I've been posting more on our family blog than here. If you want to see what I've posted there and don't have the link, here you go:

http://bandcjewkesfamily.blogspot.com/

I'll be back here. I just haven't had a whole lot of time to do both lately.

Happy Birthday, America!!!!!

I just can't say how proud I am to be an American! I'm so grateful for all the men and women who have sacrificed their lives, time, families, etc to protect our freedom. It brings a tear to my eye. The song by Toby Keith, American Soldier, comes to mind. God bless America and its people.

Feeling better

I started having a good day here and there. I've worked myself up to two good days this past weekend. Today, not quite as good. But, that's ok. I'm making progress and it's for the best cause I can think of.

I'm noticing that there are some changes in my body. My stomach pokes out more, but doesn't seem as wide. It's odd to me. My OB appointment went very well. She told me that I'm out of the woods and I don't have to go back for another month! After going every other week for so long, this is going to be interesting and maybe a little nerve wracking. She told me that I could gain up to 15 pounds. Eek. After losing 40, gaining 15 of it back and then losing 10 pounds since I found out I'm pregnant, I don't really want to gain 15 pounds. She said I could maintain. I'll be happy with that. When I weighed this morning, I'd lost .4 of a pound. I'm totally ok with that.

I enjoyed being able to eat this past weekend. A little more food has started to appeal to me. Not today, but it was nice to want hamburger stroganoff yesterday.

I quit my job over the weekend. I'm surprised I lasted as long as I did and so was Bryant. It's been very difficult being sick, but the fact that the computer made me sicker, it was almost impossible. I was always stressed out. I felt much better after quitting, too. I felt a great weight lifted off of me. I was surprised that it took me only 6 months to get as stressed out with this job as I got in my job with the Church took me 3 1/2 years to get to that point. Well, it's over. All I have to do is take my computer, pager and badge down to Draper and I am not going to worry about it ever again.

I wonder when I'll start to feel the baby. I know that he's dancing around in there. That's what he was doing on Friday when my OB did an ultrasound. Bryant said it was like he was saying, "Look at me, I'm on TV!" As my friend Cece said, he's a show off already! :) Now, I can enjoy my pregnancy and not worry about work stressing me out so much.

It's good to be FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Thoughts

I haven't been complaining about my morning sickness or other discomforts of pregnancy. I'm just stating what I'm experiencing. I had a few days of reprieve this past week, at least until Thursday afternoon. It came back with a vengeance. What do I have to say about that? At least I know that the baby's ok. :)

According to my pregnancy calendar, the baby is now a fetus. That's a relief! I've also been wondering if I have to actually be 13 weeks pregnant before I reach the second trimester. I don't know if I truly understand how that works. My pregnancy calendar listed 3 different ways of figuring it out. According to the Developmental way, I'll start the second trimester on June 9. I'm all for that. It means that I have a week from Tuesday! That's at 12 weeks, starting my 13th week.

We braved Wal Mart downtown early this afternoon so that we could get me some grits. I've been craving grits. It's the only place I knew for sure that I had seen them out here. We went ahead and got our water from there, too. While Bryant was filling up our water jugs, I went and looked at baby stuff for the first time. I really enjoyed it, at least until a bunch of people started crowding me. Then, I had to show Bryant. It's really starting to feel like it's real and I'm keeping up the positve thoughts about delivering the baby and bringing him/her home in December.

I'm having the weirdest dreams. I guess that's normal. I already had weird dreams, but now they've reached a new level. And I'm trying to convince myself to quit looking at the toilet paper every time I go to the bathroom. I wore myself out pushing the buggy with 15 gallons of water and all the other groceries all over the store.

Gatorade has become my new best friend. Water doesn't sit well on my stomach. But, the Gatorade works really well. At least I'm staying hydrated. I was so excited that we found the blue Glacier kind in powder today. It's much cheaper than buying the bottles.

I'm quite content and happy. Even though I've had to give in and eat meat occasionally. I already had a hard time staying away from eggs and cheese, so I was allowing myself one day I could have stuff with eggs or cheese. Now, it's pretty much all the time. Boiled eggs have been good to me. And we had lasagna today. It was the 5 cheese kind that I found at Wal Mart. It was the best stuff! I'll have to get that again.

Quick Update

I thought I would update in case there is anyone out there wondering how I'm doing. :)

I'm 10 weeks today. We've had a total of 3 ultrasounds and each time, the baby's heartbeat went up. It started at 115, then was 136 and the last one on the 20th, it was 175! We're so happy! The doctor thinks that the baby is doing perfect and that, with my history of early losses and how well the baby is doing now, I have a 99% chance of having a full-term baby. He was so impressed, that after our appointment and ultrasound on June 4, he's going to release me back to my regular OB. That's such a relief to me! I didn't like having to see a high risk doctor. I know it's because of my previous losses and I want to do everything I can to have this baby. My OB is 3 miles away and we wanted to have the baby at LDS Hospital, since it's about 2 miles away instead of driving all the way to Murray when it can take forever to get there, depending on the time of day.

I've struggled with morning sickness and haven't been on the computer much. Actually, it turned into all day sickness, with it being worst at nights. It still is worse at night, but it's not nearly as bad. I'm really grateful for the reprieve. I'm still wiped out. In fact, I'm going to bed right now. :)

I think I'm ready

Since we've told all our parents and grandparents, and things are going really great this time, I think I'm ready to blog about how we're getting the best Christmas present ever! I'm pregnant and we're due just before Christmas!

Last Thursday, we went to my RE's office for an ultrasound. I had been praying that we'd see the heartbeat (even though it was still kind of early, 6weeks 2days) and that the baby would be measuring ahead. Guess what!?! We got to see and hear the precious heartbeat - 115bpm, which is very good. And the baby was measuring 6weeks 5days - 3 days ahead!

We feel very optimistic this time around. We've never made it this far. The farthest we've gotten was with the first one. We thought we were over 7 weeks, but the ultrasound showed that the baby hadn't developed much over 5. To see and hear the heartbeat made me bawl like a baby. We're so happy. This one is going to make it.

My due date, according to my chart or cycle, was December 22. But with the baby measuring ahead, it's now December 19. That will give us a little more time to have the baby and get home by Christmas. lol But, I expect the baby will come when he or she's ready. Bryant joked that we've put in our order with the stork and asked for a boy, but either will do nicely. I have a feeling he's a boy, but I am not sure. I really don't care. I just want a healthy baby to hold in my arms come December.

I'm supposed to be working, but I'm struggling with that. I've had a lot of nausea and fatigue. Combine that with pregnancy brain and I'm in a lot of trouble. I can't think of or remember anything lately. I feel like if I just stayed in bed, I'd be doing good.

Today, I'm 7weeks 2 days. Less than 5 weeks until I'm in the 2nd trimester. I'm seeing a maternal fetal medicine doctor. I have another appointment with him and an ultrasound tomorrow. I'm excited to see what he says.

This is going to be a crazy week. Josh is getting married on Friday. Mandy, his fiance, is getting her endowment in the Provo Temple tomorrow and G&G Duerden are supposed to be staying with us Wednesday night. No house cleaning got done over the weekend. Can anyone come help? Between the smell of the dishes and the super tiredness, I can't get anything done anymore. And I'm so happy for all of it!

This is what we all need

Just think, we could be free of disease without medicine. Medicine just relieves symptoms and often causes other problems. What if there was a simple way to solve most of your health problems with food? Would you change? What Americans are eating today is killing them. I want to share my knowledge with everyone, but this is the best I can do for now. For the time being, check out this petition. It's a step in the right direction. Obama's health care "plan" is not the way to go. It's all wrong. We just need to take care of ourselves by eating the right foods and exercising.



I'm the first to admit that the sadness and irritation I've felt this last month and a half have been because I started eating junk food again to soothe my emotional pain. Once I cut it out again, I'm feeling much better. Read The China Study, ask me for more info, or do something. We don't have to suffer. It's our own choice. I'd rather live a long and healthy life than die early from eating processed, dead food. The health problems I created for myself by eating poorly all went away when I eat right(except the RA, I still don't know what to do with autoimmune diseases. They are tricky. I just know to stay away from milk!).

Check it out. I'm through with my sermon. :)

Oh, boy!

100mg of Clomid! Yikes! I'm transforming into a monster! When I took it for a couple of months in 2007 to get my hormones back in balance, I was so cranky. I've only taken two doses and I'm already all snippy. I have a headache and I can't count the number of times I've snapped at people. I also caught myself whining. I must get a hold of myself! Isn't there an easier way of checking my egg reserves?

I went to a fertility specialist last week and he decided to do this clomid challenge. Somehow, it's more involved than just measuring FSH on CD3. I also have a 2 hour glucose test and an SSG on Tuesday. Bryant will be doing a chromosome test that day. No SA because he's had that done already. Men have it so easy. Blech!

I was chastised by my boss yesterday. Apparently, with the sausage I had where my thumb was supposed to be, I couldn't type for 5-6 hours each day. And since I'm an airhead, I forgot to contact my team lead to tell her I couldn't work. Oh, well. I won't forget again. My attitude still stinks. And my thumb still hurts. The cortisone shot hurt like heck and made it worse. It's still swollen. I'm hoping it will just take a couple more days to get better. I'm getting pretty good hitting the spacebar with my left thumb.

Bryant and I have decided that we don't need to live here anymore. I could write a novel about why we don't like living in SLC. Where are we going? No idea. Guess we'll have to keep praying and thinking. Idaho sounds good to both of us. We just have to go somewhere that he can find a good paying job. I still think that guy at BYU-I is an idiot for passing him over. There were things I still needed to learn here, like the raw foods stuff and giving up meat. That's probably why he didn't get the job, but we still would rather be in Rexburg. I wish he'd get a job with the church ICS dept. down in Riverton. I wouldn't mind living in the south part of the valley again. Stay tuned. We'll figure out something.

Awesome Dreams

I have felt like a complete failure at my attempts to be a mother. Yesterday morning, after having endured a terrible Saturday at the ER at the big IHC Hospital in Murray undergoing all kinds of tests for a heart attack and then blood clots, I had a mini-breakdown about time church was starting. Don't worry, I'm ok. Most likely, it was an anxiety attack, brought on by my heartbreak over losing another baby. Anyhow, I started bawling and telling Bryant that I was a failure. He offered much support and assurance that I was in no way a failure. I have such a wonderful husband.

Well, as he held me after I stopped crying, I fell asleep. I have this brief memory of seeing B get a little boy out of our car. He was about a year old. He was gorgeous. He had curly reddish brown hair and looked exactly like B in the face. I went over to take him from his dad. The sun was shining and we were surrounded by nature. I felt such peace and happiness. It was such a special moment when I woke up and realized what I had seen.

This morning, I was exhausted from our getting home so late last night. I stayed in bed when B went to work. I had another dream. I was lying in bed, trying to get a quick nap. I guess I had dozed off, because I woke up to see B standing by a crib that was against the wall by our bed. He had come home for lunch. I got up and walked over to him as we looked at our little newborn. He had curly brown hair. We gazed at him with so much love. I laughed and said, "He sleeps all the time. We never get to play with him. Of course, that should change soon."

I can't tell you how much peace those dreams have brought me. I have never had so many vivid dreams about babies. Especially that I can remember so many details. Whenever I get stressed out about my losses, I need to focus on this hope. I'm sure the dreams were given to me to help me find that hope again.

My New Background

I wanted to do St. Patrick's Day, but this background just called out to me, soothing my aching soul. I feel like it represents the calm peace that I seek and find glimpses of. I want to be able to grab hold and not let it get away....

Blech

This is a totally selfish post. I'm hurting so bad right now and I need to get this out.

After having one week of sheer happiness over being pregnant and one week of a huge roller coaster, I lost our baby. It's gone. I miss it so much. I miss being nauseated. I miss the tender bb's and being so tired that I'd fall asleep whenever I sat still long enough. I'm so dad gummed sick of this. I hate my stupid body. The doctor thinks that my miscarriage was related to the RA. She thinks my immune system either attacked the baby or my clotting factors were the problem or both. It hurts.

I've been so clingy to Bryant all weekend. I just wanted him to hold me. I miss him so much right now. I wish that his coworker wouldn't have had a doctor's appointment today so that he could've stayed home with me. I haven't wanted to talk to anyone but him. I just can't talk about it. My emotions are all over the place and I can't tell whether I'm going to somehow feel like crying, cussing or what.

I was so excited to be nauseated. I wanted it so bad. I wanted to have a normal pregnancy and to be able to bring home a healthy baby in October. I wanted this baby more than I wanted to feel good. Instead, I've been in pain for 3 days. I'm mourning another baby. And I hurt. I hurt. And to know that I don't have my baby with me anymore because my stupid immune system is so screwed up makes it hurt worse.

I have had a lot of support from my wonderful friends. I'm so grateful for you. It helps both B and me a lot to know that I have your support and love. Thank you. I don't know what I'd do without you.

I'm also grateful to have a wonderful husband who doesn't blame me, even when I blame myself.

I found out that comfort foods don't comfort me anymore. They just make me sick. At least I know that my body was healthier than it ever has been and complains when I'm not good to it.

Feelin' the love

I don't know why I'm so excited for Valentine's Day. With my luck, it will be my team's turn to work. But, I'm looking forward to it - Valentine's Day, not work. Maybe it's because I'm feeling more optimistic and more love from others than I've felt in a long time.

I started the Enbrel on Dec. 31. Already, the rheumatoid nodule (or nubbin, as they are affectionately, and humorously, called by some friends) on my right elbow is practically non-existent. It wasn't very big, but now it's hard to find. The ones on my thumb are half the size they were and I've noticed one of the ones on my left elbow is considerably smaller! So far, I :heart: Enbrel!

And the vegan diet is going really well. I feel better every day. If only I didn't have the progesterone mood swings from you know where, but I guess that's a good sign. My moods were swinging before I started the cream and I had a nice, big temp spike the day I ovulated. I lost 3 pounds this week so far. I've really noticed it around my waist, shoulders and arms. I'm stoked!

Now, getting enough sleep is going to have to become more of a priority....

Feeling good...

I have to say that the past 10 days have been much easier than I thought they would be. Giving up meat wasn't bad. I actually feel really good. Especially since the past few days, I have increased my veggie intake, along with adding new seeds to my salads. I have noticed that I'm eating a lot of bread, though. Oh, how I love bread. I will weigh again on Monday. I hope the bread intake doesn't hurt me.

Sprouting seeds and nuts is so easy. And they taste so good! Processed foods have lost their appeal to me. They don't taste good at all. Even B has noticed that. He no longer craves Wendy's or other fast food. Not even pizza. Even though he has been eating meat, he is getting more veggies, and hasn't complained about it.

And I think I've almost kicked my headaches. I had very little sugar yesterday and none so far today. I'm hoping that will continue to help. Sprouted flax seed helps to control hormones and I think that has helped my headaches tremendously.

I did give myself my Enbrel shot on Wednesday. It was easier this time, since I knew what to expect. It hurts a little. I wonder if that's because it's cold. I might try to let it warm up to room temperature next time. That substitute nurse didn't fax in my paperwork to Enbrel for my free month supply of the meds the way she was supposed to. My doctor's real nurse was ticked off about that. I have to go on Monday and fill it out again and then pick up the free meds by Wednesday.

No Progress?

I haven't had a bite of meat since last Tuesday. I was challenged to go one week without meat and see how I feel. Overall, I feel much better. My stomach doesn't have the tenseness and pain it did before. I feel like I have a bit more energy. My body is not working so hard just to digest my food. I have found that sprouted seeds and nuts are my friends. They taste much better than I thought they would.

So why did I step on the scales today and see that I've gained 2 pounds since Thursday? I wonder what I ate to do that? I had cake and ice cream on my birthday, but surely it wouldn't have made me gain weight. I did feel kind of bloated today. I hope that's all it is.

Boy, am I sleepy. I really hate these sleeping habits B and I have kept these past few weeks. We really need to get into bed earlier. It's driving me insane.