Time Out

Baby Cooper is in time out.

He tried to pull a fast one on us and sent us packin' to Northside where we spent the night, got 3 injections of terbutaline (some sort of anti-contraction and lung boosting medication), and landed ourselves on bedrest through the weekend. The best part of the whole experience was Cooper's bursts of, let's say, "personality", where he would kick the tar out of the fetal monitor and make it fall off. Lovely. The sweet 19 year old OB nurse handled it like a champ.

Turns out what I tried to convince myself were Braxton Hicks contractions for 2 days, were actually preterm labor contractions. When I was admitted the contractions were coming every 6-7 minutes and I was dilated 1 cm. Bad Cooper.

Daddy and I had a long talk with him and told him that he needs to stay put. Here's hoping he's a good little listener :)

Thank you all for your sweet thoughts and prayers!!

Squish Squash

Sometimes I wake up smiling at the thought of how much God has blessed us. Today was one of those days. I rolled over and just laid there counting my blessings one by one.

We are counting down the days until Cooper joins our little family. His bed is made. His diaper bag is packed. His little footy pajamas are washed and folded. His diaper baskets are full. His little books are lined up on his little shelf. His car seat is prepped with all sorts of totally unnecessary hanging ornaments like owls and lions and tigers.

Someone once told me that while you can be "prepared" for a little one, you might never be truly "ready". Ready or not, we can't wait for him to be here. Some call it ignorance, we call it bliss.


This weeks news:

Food cravings: stuffed mushrooms (I just ate my weight in these yummy little boogers), reese's pieces, crushed ice (chomp chomp all day long), blue diamond salt and vinegar almonds, mcalister's chicken tortilla soup (extra tortillas), carrot sticks n dip from buffalos, and banana peppers.

Emotional Basketcase Moments: church on Sunday. Our kickin' praise team led us in the song my sweet Mama Potts used to sing as she rocked me to sleep (when I was, by the way, waay too big to be rocked to sleep--legs dragging the floor, knees and elbows up to high heavens...) I sobbed my way through each verse and thought about what she would give to rock Cooper to sleep singing "this is my story, this is my song...".

Hormonal Rage Currently Directed At: toothpaste residue left in the sink. Totally ridiculous. Totally unjustifiable. Worst part, I'm the one who deposits said toothpaste residue. Remedy: Sams Club-sized tub of Clorox wipes. It makes me happy that this is the only bout of rage I can think of.

Currently Grateful For: clothes that fit (hey, it can make or break a girl's day), upcoming baby showers thrown with bookoodles of love and hard work by my most precious girlfriends and family members, and sunshine.

Sugar Sugar

Went for the 4 hour glucose test today. Except for the whole fasting and having blood drawn 5x deal, it wasn't near as bad as I had anticipated. Belch.

Had our 31-32 week appointment with Dr. Sermons while I was up there. We talked about my recent visits with the perinatologist and the Sermonator assured me that his prediction is that Cooper will not be any bigger than 8lbs on his birthday. Now we're talkin'!

After making a bee line for the nearest Chickfila and swinging by Old Navy to browse newborn seer sucker suits (totally uncalled for) I came home and crashed. For 4 hours. But not before eating a handful (or two) of Reese's Pieces...mmm :)

Thank you all for your sweet thoughts and prayers! Will keep you posted on the results.

Perinatologist Wrap Up

30 week perinatologist wrap up: Super Coop weighs in at an estimated 3 pounds 14 ounces. "Fabulous!", I commented. That was until Dr. Stone informed me that 30 weekers should weigh right at 3 pounds.

While we are 30 weeks based on when we think we conceived, Baby is measuring between 31 1/2 weeks and 32 1/2 weeks. This coupled with the fact that I failed my glucose test causes need for return visit to the peri at 33 weeks. Then again at 37 weeks.

Dr. Stone promised me a box of Girl Scout Cookies (or was it 1 Girl Scout cookie?) if I pass my next glucose test.

I am absolutely terrified of having a big baby.

I am clinging to 2 things: 1) They (read: medical professionals) are frequently waaay off with weight/size guestimates, right!? 2) Super Coop will come when he is good and ready. His Daddy came at 34 weeks and weighed almost 7 pounds. Had he stayed in the oven, he would have been pushing double digits.

Nothing wrong with wishing for a late April baby (as opposed to a May 4th baby) who is a normal healthy weight, right!? This statement is largely inspired by the current size of my enormous cankles and the piercing pain in my ribs where Baby Cooper is trying to rearrange organs to make more room for himself. It is also driven by fear of delivering a mammoth-sized baby.

Secretly I am just chomping at the bits to meet our sweet boy. Chubby cheeks and all :)

Chubby Cheeks

Today was absolutely perfect!

We started the day with a most generous gift from our dear friend and pastor Kevin Queen; a 3D/4D ultrasound visit to sneak (yet another) peek at Sweet Baby Cooper. Oh my!

It was the best 25 minutes ever. What a different 14 weeks makes! Super Coop has changed SO much since our 3D ultrasound at 17 weeks. His Grammie came up participate in the oohing and ahhing and we had so, so much fun. We couldn't get over his sweet chubby cheeks! Where did those come from??!

Apparently he has been spending time in his "womb" perfecting his grumpy face, complete with Elvis Presley lip. Hilarious.
We oohed and ahhed a little more and then hit the road for brunch at Mimis Cafe. Holy goodness. Yummy, yummy. Hubs had a flight to catch so my mom and I spent the rest of the day shopping and pampering ourselves. We hit the mall, Sams Club (where we purchased boxes of diapers and wipes larger than life), PF Changs, and ended the day at the pedicure place.

Ahhh! Absolute bliss.

I have fallen waaay behind in my silly weekly belly pics. We (also read as, Chris) dropped the camera and the lens got stuck, so alas, here we are at 31 weeks belly-picture-less. It's quite the belly.

Back to Dr. Stone, the perinatologist, tomorrow morning to get an update on how Cooper is growing. We are counting down the days until we get to meet our sweet baby boy! So very excited!

Oh, and our sweet friends Jill and Clay welcomed their second baby, Lucas Clay, last night and look how very precious he is:

7 pounds, 7 ounces and 19.5 inches long. I could just eat him up! Many, many blessings Maddox Family!!

It's been a rough couple of weeks. I don't know why exactly, it just has.

On Friday we received some FABULOUS news that sent the blues-a-packin'. Mr. Glock's sweet secretary called to obtain our February payment. When I asked, nervously, how much more of an, ahem, "mountain" we had to climb, her answer was considerably less than our previous arrangement. God is so good.

I decided to bring up a possible court date while I was in the mood to tackle difficult topics and she said that there is a good chance that Chris' case will be settled outside of court! Mr. Glock is heading the case off with the DA and is doing his best to settle things (not sure exactly what that means) without going to trial.

I did a thousand cartwheels and then treated myself to an M&M Twisted Frosty from Wendys.

Chris was out of town at the time (poor thing had to go to the Superbowl and then down to the Keys on a deep sea fishing trip) so I saved the good news for when he got home. The look of relief that washed over him was priceless.

So yeah, take that stinky no good blues.

These (totally impractical and unnecessary) precious flip flops also helped to chase away the blues.

Tell me these are not a perfect excuse to pack it up and head to the beach!!

Blogcoma

I seem to have faded off into a blogcoma. I can't think of one thing to blog about. Not one.

When I finally think of something to blog about, I can't seem to string my words together in a coherent, read-worthy manner. (See, that sentence was extremely awkward).

Perhaps this is a new side effect of settling into the 3rd trimester (can I get a woo-woo!)? Happy times, indeed!! I am the size of a small houseboat but happy as a lark.