A long while...

Yes, it has been a long while since my last post, but you know how it goes...busy,busy, busy. Well a lot has happened since last time. To start Sarah is now in Kindergarten and is loving every minute of it. She is already reading level one books. I am so proud of her. She has made a ton of new friends. She has grown a few inches and now is about a head taller than her peers. Hannah is in her second year of preschool. She loves it, but has a hard time opening up to friends. Hannah is getting ready to go into kindergarten in the fall, and says she is excited to be a "big" girl like her sister. Hannah is talking a lot more at home and has been engaging in conversation with her brother and sister. For those that do not know Hannah goes to preschool for speech, and we have been working on it at home too. I definitely see an improvement. Aiden is still my little brute. He is so big for only being 3 years old. He is now heavier than Hannah only by a few pounds but still. He is wearing a size 4 in pants and 5 in shirts. Everyday he looks more and more like William, so handsome. He is a very active boy and still loves to wrestle with his sisters and dad. Alexandra is still as cute as ever. She is now 10 months old, and weighs in at 15 lbs. She has just started to crawl, and is quite happy to be able to move on her own. Her smile could quite literally light up a room.

Now for the big change.... We bought a HOUSE!!! I am so happy and I love our new home. We moved from West Chester to Batavia. We live in a Ryan Home. We bought what is known as the Ravenna. It has a finished basement with a full bath. The main floor has an open concept, which is why I fell in love with it. The morning room is perfect for the kids to eat breakfast. William has an office now so when he need to work at home he can go into his office. Upstairs we have 5 bedrooms, two full baths, and the laundry room. I love that the laundry is upstairs where the bedrooms are makes it easy to put clothes away. One of the bedrooms is my craft room, which I was quite happy to have. I did want a place for just that reason. It makes me very happy to finally have this home. I just love being able to come home to my own garage and not worry about parking spaces anymore. This is a dream come true for me. So because we moved into a new home we moved back to the eastgate area, and I am in the Eastgate ward. I love my new ward, they are all so friendly. There is a lot of people that I knew in Cherry Grove ward too, so that makes it nice. I am happy to be back here.

Grandma's visit....

My mom came to visit with us for two weeks. I was so happy to have my mom here with me. She is so wonderful to talk with and to be around. I love my kids very much, buy every once in awhile I like to talk to someone other than my kids. She got here on June 30, we didn't really do a whole lot, we just enjoyed each others company. My mom did get me to watch a show that I get on my Netflix, it's called Medium, and I love it. It's a great show, I am totally addicted to it...thanks Mom!! We went to the mall and out to eat a few times, but nothing really big. The kids had so much fun with Grandma around, they love her very much. I was totally suprised when Hannah immediately bonded with her, and followed her around then showed her the house and where she would be sleeping. It was very sweet, but that's my Hannah bug for you, so sweet. I was very sad when she had to leave to go back home, but she will be here again next year. We all had fun with my mom visiting us. We love you, Grandma Lorene!! So here are some pictures I took. Enjoy.

Alexandra's birth...

On May 14, 2011 we welcomed our newest additon, Alexandra Grace, to our family 6 weeks early. She was born at Good Samaritan Hospital at 10:56am and weighed 4lbs. 3oz. and was 16in. long. She is beautiful, and doing wonderful. I am doing great as well. Alexandra had to be sent to the NICU to make sure she was doing well. She did very well, was breathing on her own and kept her temperature up as well, the only "problem" she had was learning to eat. She was just a very tired baby and having to eat was a lot of work so she wouldn't do it. They ended up having to put a feeding tube in her nose so she could get all the nutrition she needed to grow. She was so teeny tiny the first time I got to go to the NICU to see her. My husband was wonderful, he made sure that I was the first one to hold her. That was so sweet of him to do. The birth was an exciting time, the night before, actually several nights before, I was having a lot of pain to what I assumed was heartburn, really bad, painful heartburn. I tried to go to bed thinking that I just needed to get some rest, but couldn't go to sleep because of the pain. So I got up and went to the living room, my pain got so bad that I actually got sick, and when I stood up my water broke. I called everyone that I had to, and went to tell William. We finally left for the hospital around 10:30pm. When we arrived at the hospital, I was taken to triage to get everything started up and check all my vital signs. Apparently, my blood pressure was up so high that I was developing preeclampsia, which was part of the pain I was feeling. That's when they knew they needed to get her out as soon as possible. They let me go on my own for a while before inducing me. When I first arrived I was only at 1cm, then in one hour I was at 3 then quickly went to a 4. That is when the Dr. recommended that I have the epidural because of the issues I've had he wanted to be sure that I was comfortable and if for any reason something happened I would already have it in. So I got the epidural, which to my suprise, wasn't too bad to get. The Dr. that gave it was wonderful, he talked to me before doing things and made me feel very comfortable. I liked that. Once the epidural was in I was a bit more comfortable, no more pain in my chest which meant that I was able to go to sleep for a bit. The dr. came in to check and I had progressed to a 5/6 at around 10:40. Then comes the exciting part. It was like maybe 10 min later that the nurses came running in and threw the covers off me to discover that I was bleeding a lot. Apparently my placenta was pulling away, and they needed to get her out asap. I was fortuanate enough to be fully dialated and pushed her out with two good pushes, I think the dr. helped too by pulling her out. I was so glad that I was able to push her out instead of having to have an emergency c-section. Later he told me that my preeclampsia had gotten so bad that I started having placental abruption, and if I wasn't at the hospital when this happened I and baby could have died. I am glad that I had the epidural too, because from what I hear having the placenta tear away is very painful, and lucky for me I didn't feel a thing which is why I was a little scared about all the hussle and bussle going on moments before her birth. I believe that someone was looking out for me, and that is why the Dr. recommended the epidural. I wanted to have a natural birth like I had with Aiden, but even though it didn't end up that way I am still very happy and thankful to all those that helped.

This past weekend was Mother's Day (May 8th) I am so grateful to be the mother of these 3, almost 4, wonderful children. I had the best day ever with my husband and our children. We woke up early that morning and took them to Pump It Up. It's a place here in West Chester, that has inflatables for kids to jump around in, along with a big inflatable slide too. They had a blast, and because it was Mother's day they extended the playtime to 12 noon. We ended up playing from 8:30-11. It was so much fun to see how happy they were. Then we went to Lynn's (My mother in law) house and had pizza and played outside with kids again. It was such a special day. I got the greatest gifts too, I got a wonderful new cannon camera and a new purse. I am so happy, now I have an excuse to take more pictures of my kids, besides using my phone. (Not such good quality) Great news for all of you guys. The day before we took the kids to Build a Bear Workshop in the Kenwood Mall. They thought it was the greatest thing to be able "make" their own bears. Sarah picked out a pink multi-colored bear and dressed hers in a sleeping beauty dress. Hannah picked out just a pink bear and dressed hers in a Tinkerbell dress. Aiden he liked the brown bear, I tried to see if they had some Toy Story outfits since that is his favorite movie, but alas they did not so he picked out a boy outfit, some jeans and a nice shirt. Needless to say they had fun making their bears.

Well tomorrow marks my 34th week. I can not believe we or should I say I have made it this far. Just from what has happened in the past and with being put on bed rest then taken off, it has been quite a trip. I am very happy to have made it to this point in my pregnancy because even if she is born this week (which I doubt) she has a 98% chance of survival. So I feel at ease. I also found out that my darling little Hannah was born early, I had no idea, but she was born on January 26, 2007, but her due date wasn't until February 18. She wasn't too premature but 36 weeks 5 days. I always thought she was 37 weeks and something, guess I was wrong. I just can't believe that my due date is only 6 weeks away, unless she would like to join us sooner, but not too soon. I would like to leave you with some videos of my wonderful Mother's day.

a long time...

Hello everyone!! I know it has been awhile since my last post, please forgive me. We are all doing very well. Baby Ally is doing very well, I have been given weekly ultrasounds and they have not found anything wrong with her, for which I am grateful. They have also been keeping track of her measurments to make sure she grows well. At her last measurment she was 2 pounds 13 ounces. She is still on the small side of the scale but her weight is increasing everytime which is what the doctors (and myself) want. At this time I am 31 weeks along, so almost at the end of my pregnancy. You might be suprised to hear me say that I cannot wait either. The kids are doing great as well. Sarah has become interested in soccer, althought she just likes kicking the ball around. So we bought a kids soccer ball and some small size cones to set up as the goals. Hannah is still loving school, and this week happens to be her spring break she misses it a lot and asks when she goes back to school. She has also been interested in writing her letter preferably the letters in her name. She can do the letters H and A, yeah!! Aiden is, well, a boy. He loves to play ball sometimes stealing Sarah's soccer ball away. He is totally in love with anything Toy Story, clothes or coloring books whatever, but especially the movies. This coming Sunday is Easter, and we have planned an easter egg hunt for the kids, unfortunately it will have to be indoors due to all the rain we are getting and could potentially get on Sunday. I am very excited to see their faces when they do this. It will be a great day. I will post pictures of them on Easter Sunday shortly after. Hope all of you are doing well too. Take Care.

Update...

It has been awhile since I have last posted, so I thought I would post something today. As you are all well aware we got some fantastic news about my amnio test, it came back that all her chromosomes were normal. I am so relieved to have that come back normal, I was very afraid that something would be wrong and I would ultimately be left with making a very difficult decision. Now knowing that she is chromosomely sound the doctors have told me that I can do more things, but would still prefer that I not lift heavy things just to be safe. They also have me getting an ultrasound every week to make sure that she is doing well. The first 3 scans in the month will be limit scans to look for something called Hydrops Fetalis, then every 4th scan will be to track her growth. Hydrops fetalis is a severe, life-threatening problem of swelling in the fetus. There are two types of Hydrops, immune- results when the mother's immune system causes breakdown of red blood cells in the fetus, and non-immune- (more common) results when diseases or complications interfere with the baby's ability to manage fluid. They want to test for this because of my placenta issues, and just to be on the safe side. For me, I feel wonderful and am pleased that they are taking all the precautions to make sure that my baby is healthy. I feel a lot better than I have felt since this whole thing started. I have even felt her move a lot more to this point, she is quite active too usually when I am going to sleep, but hey she has time to adjust to my sleeping pattern before she comes, right? HA, yeah. Anyway, it is a great feeling when I do feel her move or squirm or kick almost like a reassurance she is doing ok. I love it when she does, it makes me smile every time.
As for the rest of the family they are doing wonderful too, my wonderful husband took me on the most wonderful date this past Saturday. He took me to the Iron Horse. It was fabulous, and very relaxing as well, a much needed date. Sarah is getting to be such a big help around the house, although she sometimes complains about having to "do so much" but she knows that she is helping mommy and baby Ally, so while she complains she is happy to do it. Hannah is loving preschool, and has overcome her fear of talking, although I still may not be able to understand she now talks more when before she would just stay quiet. Aiden is my little monster, he likes to pretend he is a monster or a ghost and ran around pretending to scare people. It is very cute, but sometimes he can get carried away. So, as you can tell, we are all doing very well at this point. Hope you are doing well too, until next time.

Great News...

Well as you all know I had an Amniocentesis test done two weeks ago this Friday. I was supposed to recieve some quick results as soon as Monday or Tuesday the following week, but to my dismay the results for that were inconclusive, so I was forced to wait for the final results. I finally got those results today. This Morning, February 16, around 10:30Am I got a phone call from the genetic counselor, Jamie, and she told me that the baby's chromosomes are normal. Meaning she has two sets of 23, nothing is missing or extra. I was so thrilled to hear this, infact I feel elated. I was so worried that there would be something wrong with her, but to hear that she is perfectly normal is such a blessing.
I also had to go back to Good Sam today for another routine ultrasound to make sure Alexandra is gaining weight. She is gaining weight just fine. She is currently 15oz. which means she has gained 5oz. since February 1. I may not be a doctor, but I think that is pretty good. I also found out that my due date has been changed from June 11 to now June 22. So I am currently, with my new due date, 22 weeks. They changed my dates because she was always measuring smaller than normal for the date I had. So now she is almost a full pound at 22 weeks gestation. YAY!! I do have another dr appointment tomorrow and will talk with her about what they may or may not do now that we know her chromosomes are normal. They are still concerned about my placenta so we will see what they want to do about that. I shall write more tomorrow after I have talked to my dr. so until then goodnight everyone. Have a wonderful night.