$100 per vile!

I've decided I'm going to start charging per vile of blood. I'm in that dinky little lab at the dinky little hospital having that not-so-dinky needle plugged into me it seems at least once a week if not twice! The phlebotomist there has started calling me "sweetie" and "hun" and you know that just means that now she feels sorry for having to steal my life juice in such large quantities!

Anyway, I finally got in to the OB office yesterday for my first appointment. Baby is fine and is measuring exactly right (12 weeks 3 days). We couldn't hear the heartbeat with the doppler, but no surprises there. We did see it beating on the ultrasound though (whew!).

Dr. Patton, who's last day is Monday (love it), ordered the fresh viles of life juice to test my liver, which may or may not be functioning up to par, and also my HcG levels, which may or may not be way too high, which may or may not mean my placenta isn't functioning or attached properly. He said this level of something (can't remember...too many terms!) in my blood was way high, but the level of the other something that is normally high with it is fine. Apparently this is unusual and indicates some type of autoimmune something going on. Confuse you? Not make sense to you? You aren't the only one! I'm just glad he's willing to test for the PROBLEM and not just give me more pills to treat the symptoms.

P P in the P!!

That's short for pee-pee in the potty! Yes, its true, Mattea has gone twice in her potty now! She thinks its her ticket into the bath, so I'll just let her think that until she gets used to going. Maybe there's hope for having her P-trained by the time he/she comes along after all!

Babel...or Babble

So my sister made a post once that listed the cute words her daughter Maddy says with a complimentary translation for each one. All so she wouldn't forget the babble that was Maddy's language at that age. The way toddlers can move their tongues, lips and vocal chords to make what they think are complete sentences makes me giggle and fascinates me at the same time. I decided to make my own list for what my daughter Mattea speaks. I call her languague "blugga blugga". Her favorite, yet to be translated, phrase.


"won dow" - I want down

"won dow" - I want up (multi-use phrases....she's a genius)

"sgo" - Let's go

"doddy" - Dog (or really any other animal or object that resembles an animal)

"oh" - No!

"diss" - This...or anything she points at she doesn't feel like speaking adult for

"blugga blugga" - Usually spoken randomly, we have no idea what this one means but she's been saying it since before she turned a year old

"bye eye" - Goodbye

"teh" - Thank You

"moah" - More

"fiss" - Goldfish...the snack, not the actual fish

"whu daaaaaa" - What's that

Goodbye Benadryl

I got in to see a new doctor yesterday, one who actually asked relevant questions pertaining to my symptoms AND took a family history, and I've been prescribed a daytime medicine to take which cures the burn/itch/insanity of the welts all over my body without knocking me out for hours on end. It doesn't make them disappear though. This morning I saw they are merging. They're ganging up and are planning on taking over every inch of me...I'm convinced. They are popping up on the bottoms of my feet and the palms of my hands as well.

So this doctor asked me some questions, did an exam, and I am now having my thyroid ultrasound-ed (new word) next Tuesday. They also stole 4 viles of blood from me. My vein is getting stubborn so she had to expertly, but not painlessly, move the needle around to get the blood to flow. Ooooo...ouch a little!

I'm nervous about the ultrasound. I know she wouldn't have ordered it unless she noticed something when she palpated my thyroid three different times. My sister and first cousin both have endured (and my sister still endures) thyroid cancer. I just pray that whatever happens I will be able to handle. Perhaps everything will be fine and its some strange virus that will eventually go away. Although when I suggested that to the doctor she didn't look like she wanted to jump on that wagon with me.

I plan on posting some updated pics of the kids soon. Tate is doing well in Iowa with his dad, is liking his new school, and is working on a bathroom remodeling project. I reminded him if he'd open up his Webelos book every now and then I'm sure there are plenty of goals that can be met by doing this! We talk on the phone almost daily (although he'd rather it not be so often) and he's finally opened up a little and told me he misses and loves me. Those words are the sweetest words I could hear from him right now. He is looking forward to coming for the summer and we're anxious to have him here (or wherever we live then!).

Hives and my Honey

I'm nearly 11 weeks prego now and for about 8 days have been experiencing...more like enduring...hives and fatigue. I have never in my life had hives. Actually the word "hives" really creeps me out and now seeing them all over my body makes me feel, well, alien. I've gone through the list of things I've eaten, things in my environment, nope, nothing new. I can't figure out what is causing it. The fatigue is so beyond anything I've had before! On Saturday I decided I'd get out of the house and go for a walk with the hubs and my daughter. I can only stare at the school-hallway floors of my house for so many days without feeling like an insane woman, so we put Mattea in the wagon and set off. We got to the corner and went a little further and my butt was kicked. I was done. We came home and I plopped back down on the couch, which by now has a permanent indentation of where I've been sitting/lying for a week, and rested for a few. Then my honey remembered we needed a new nose-sucker (bulb syringe) for Mattea, whose nose is draining like a river of sludge) so he needed to go to the PX. What does genius here do? I whine and say I want to go with him because I was tired of sitting at home alone anytime he went somewhere. So I get in the car and by the time we'd picked up the nose-sucker from the baby department I was sweating and dizzy and felt sick to my stomach. Pathetic, indeed. We came home and I was exhausted the rest of the evening. Sunday morning brought the record number of hives yet and they'd moved up to my face and eyes.

Since the clinics at Fort Irwin feel they need to take four days off and close down completely, I am waiting until tomorrow to go back to see the doc (and DEFINITELY not the same one I saw last week for this) in hopes that someone will be able to point me in a direction AWAY from the incapacitating Benadryl I've been having to take. And gee...I'd also like to see and hear my baby before I hit four months, too. Perhaps he/she is tired of being knocked out every time I take medicine and would like mommy to try a new avenue of treatment!

I have to say though, I owe a lot of people thanks. Especially my honey, my hubby, who has been doing E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g around this house, including caring four our daughter as soon as he's home and showered, since this starting happening to me. I owe thanks to the sisters at church who've been checking in on me and who saved the day last week when I was too weak to make my hubby dinner and brownies on his birthday. I also have the most rockin' counselors in the entire world. They've stepped up and handled conducting on Sunday and at Enrichment, and have effortlessly made things happen while I've been in the pit on my couch. As soon as I can move past this roadblock in my pregnancy I plan on repaying everyone as best I can. I pray for everyone's patience and understanding that I in no way enjoy what I'm going through and hate every minute that I'm not able to be running at the speed I'd rather run at every day. The Lord knows me, takes care of me, and I know He'll lead me to answers. Perhaps those answers are "Renee, become one with the hives, there's nothing you can do" or maybe if I'm super blessed "Renee, I'll wipe away all of your hives and those freckles you hate too!". Maybe not, but you get what I mean. I appreciate everyone's prayers. I just pray for energy. I'll deal with hives, but if I can't take care of my family, myself, or my calling, I feel that these next 6 months will be the longest of my life (and my hubby's!).

A jumble of stuff revisited

I said goodbye to my son tonight. Not for good, but it felt like it in the moment. Its too painful to explain exactly what I'm feeling, but if you can imagine someone squeezing your heart just enough to cause you to panic, and your lungs to tighten just enough to cause you to have to lean forward, your muscle fibers to tingle slightly from the energy and "toughness" slowly draining from your body, then you might begin to understand how I'm feeling. Putting my trust COMPLETEY in the Lord to care for my son is not something that is easy, although it sounds like it should be, right? Its the control that I feel slipping out of my hands that makes it nearly unbearable right now. I soon expect to feel the peace come back that I felt when I made this decision, but I suppose its required of me to feel this pain and emptiness so I can recognize even more clearly the influence of the Spirit and the peace of my Savior's love.

I feel old. Ages older than I should, and a little numb. I could compare myself to an old dish rag. You know, the big, square, white dish rags that your mom always has (well, maybe you do too, but whatever) that are used for many more things than just drying wet dishes. Some are made into bibs, aprons, turbans in the nativity scene reinactment, bandages for cuts, napkins, oven mits, etc. They eventually yellow a bit, perhaps dotted with brighter colored stains from wiping the jello off a baby's face and not being washed soon enough, and sometimes are frayed around the edges, but they seem to never get thrown out.

I seem to feel like pain and trials in my life are revisted more often in the past few years. Normally the Lord would throw a good, solid trial my way every couple of years. Apparently he feels I'm up for more of a challenge because this de ja vu of "mountain climbing" as I call it, seems to happen several times a year now. Perhaps I shouldn't look at it on a timeline.

I'm beginning to feel a bit nomadic, not settling in one area for more than a year, sometimes even a bit hunter-gatherer-like, too. Who knows what's going to happen with this med-board for my husband. We've been told 90 days or less but then what? I'm left with a husband that could possibly have brain trauma that was never even thought about until years after it probably happened (a big thank you to the Army doctors), a knee joint that will need fully replaced within a few years (no soldier, not now...wait until you're in excrutiating pain and can't stand it anymore...then replace it...again, thank you), and feelings of not succeeding at a career that he always dreamed of (although, if you ask me, he's definitely reached success). My children are spread across the country, I'm overweight from stress and pregnancy, my hubby is starting all over again in the not so stellar job market, and I hate my dogs....most days (the dog whisperer never answered my email).

We all have our own "plates". Some are small appetizer plates and, I admit, I envy those people. They don't have much to deal with. Mine, on the other hand, must be a flipping oversized serving platter which means I have a lot more room than I thought. However...I try to focus on the fact that our plates are only as big as we can carry and serve from, so I guess that means its true...the Lord won't give you anything you can't handle (or that is too big for your platter). I just wish it wasn't considered overstepping my boundaries to tell him I couldn't possibly take another bite...I feel stuffed!

I'm 9 weeks prego now and unless I've got two rascals in there, I've got one strong little sucker because I can already feel movement. Man...I was hoping for a laid back child this time. The kind that just likes to float around until its d-day. Not so much....