Let's play catch up

I haven't posted in what seems like eternity.  I apologize, but whenever I sat down to write a post I would start and then, get side tracked or feel the whatever was coming out wasn't, well, good. My life has been, interesting in 2013 to say the least. I will stick with just the new year for this post. There may be some gory details and personal stuff, if you are squeamish- you have been warned, there is lots of lady parts talk.

January 1, get sick with the horrible, nasty, no good flu that is going around and filling hospitals and killing children.  Horrendous. I didn't eat for 12 days. Literally, lived on water and no food. I lost 9 pounds, so there is my silver lining, I always said I was a stomach flu away from my goal weight. Hehehehe oh did I mention that I had found out that I was pregnant with baby #3? No, oh, well hold on to your seat, this is where the fun begins.

Saturday, January 5: Still have the horrendous flu with the fever and the chills and the puking except now I have started spotting. I tell R I need to be seen & we head to emergency. They diagnose me with influenza B and an upper respiratory infection and threatened miscarriage. My blood work comes back with a hcG count of 290ish, which is crazy low for as far along as I knew I was. (Thank you iPhone period tracking app, I knew my predicted ovulation date and when we conceived.) I am sent on my way with reassurance that dark brown spotting is rather common and to get my levels checked again in 48 hours. I leave with a Zofran in my system and a broken fever.

Monday, January 7: Bright red blood. Not the thing you want to see. It wasn't a tiny amount either. Back to th ER I go. During my blood draw I tell the tech that I am about to hit the floor, my blood pressure is unreadable for the first 4 times they check. When they are finally able to get a reading I have the outstanding blood pressure of 68/39. I am put on an IV immediately. The hospital is full to The brim and they end up sticking me in a consultation room until they can find a spot for me. Good news, I get to have another pelvic exam! My hcG level has tripled, this is good news, my levels are around 968. The ER dr. Looks at my after my pelvic exam and tells me I am bleeding actively from my uterus and I am miscarrying. I am also told to get myself to the lab in 48 hours and have my levels tested again. My levels were not high enough to see anything on an ultrasound so we were basically playing a waiting game.

Wednesday, January 9: blood draw at the lab- get results in the morning.

Thursday, January 10: bad news, my levels dropped to 940 something, which says I am losing the baby. Blood draw ordered in 48 and 96 hours to track my levels.

Friday, January 11: another blood draw, won't know anything until tomorrow

Saturday, January 12: Call the hospital per my instructions and have an OBGYN resident paged to read my results and tell me. My numbers have jumped up to 1700ish. Now, we have confusion. Dipping numbers say no baby, but then they jumped up but didn't double. Told to have my blood draw as scheduled and follow up with the doctor on Monday.

Sunday, January 13: blood draw, again. My poor arms are a rainbow of yellows, blacks, purples and blues. I look like an IV drug user.

Monday, January 14: numbers jumped again but they aren't doubling like they are supposed to, something is wrong but we don't know what. I have stopped bleeding randomly after a full week, so that seems encouraging. An ultrasound appointment is set up for the afternoon as my levels are high
enough to see something. I know nothing, the ultrasound tech is silent during the process and informs me to call my dr for the results. The transvaginal ultrasound isn't comfortable and that worries me, I have had them before and I wasn't in pain. The news from the doctor is that the pregnancy was not detected in my uterus, I was to come into the office for my scheduled appointment th next day and we would figure out what the next step was. I was told the best case scenario was the MTX shot which is basically chemo, and it would take care of the pregnancy. I was told to go in for more blood work so we could have baseline levels ready for my appointment.

Tuesday, January 15: please note this has been going on for 10 very long days. I go in for my blood work first thing in the morning, my appointment was scheduled for 2pm. I head to my appointment and am sent back right away. I was told my liver enzymes were elevated so I wasn't a candidate for the shot like we had hoped. My hcG dropped since Sunday so we had a couple options, we were going to do another ultrasound and see what we could see and if I wasn't in any pain we could be conservative about treatment as my body seemed to be taking care of it. My body had other plans. My ultrasound was incredibly painful and the doctor plainly told me I needed to go over to pre-op as he was concerned about a tubal rupture. I quickly figured out plans for the girls, and headed to pre op and was checked in just after 4pm. I was told they suspected the pregnancy to be in my left tube, but they weren't entirely sure. I was having a laproscopic surgery so they would know more once the scope went in. It was explained to me that less than 50%  of the time are they able to save the whole tube, so there was a decent chance I would lose a portion or my whole tube. Unfortunately, now e waiting game started. I was prepped and ready to go and was transported to the OR waiting area at 6pm, where I sat until just after 10pm. Surgery was scheduled to last 30-40 minutes. I was in for an hour and 15. It wasnt my left tube, it was my right tube, ,y left ovary had a sizable benign cyst on it that was likely causing me some pain that was removed as well. 1 hour and 20 minutes in recovery ( where the first thing I remember is asking for underwear.) I then spent the next 3 hours getting my laundry list of requirements checked off to go home. 4:30am and I was in my own bed. 3 small incisions later ( one on the left about an inch long, one in my belly button about a 1/2 inch and one on the right about 1 cm), a belly full of gas from surgery, and pain I was safe and healthy.

I am not even a full week post op yet but I feel ok. Not great, but ok. I am still super sore and can't do basically anything, but I am alive. Emotionally, I don't think I have processed what has happened yet, I don't know that I will for awhile, my main priority is getting healthy and recovering. Being helpless is not my forte.

Next update will be soon, promise. I don't have anything else to do.

I apologize about any weird formatting or spelling errors, I am typing on my iPad for the first time to post to blogger, I have a feeling there are a couple things that will be funky.

I made it.

This past week was one that I wasn't particularly looking forward to. It was a week filled with book fair, mileage club and grant team review with the United Way. I had scheduled myself around 32 hours of volunteer time. I am just happy to report that I made it through the week and I didn't lose my mind in the process.

As my first year as book fair co-chair, I was kind of unsure about what I actually got myself into. We had set our goal higher than we had in the past and we hoping to be able to attain it. Well, we kicked that book fair's ass!! $500 over our new and improved higher goal! Being able to tell the teachers that they had more money per student than they expected was AMAZING!

The kids at school have been rocking mileage club. (*For those of you that are unsure what exactly mileage club is... we set up a course that is 1/4 mile long. Every lap that is run is tracked by a hole punch in a card. Once a child reaches 5 miles, they receive a small plastic foot or toe token. There are special prizes along the way- certificates on their lockers, water bottles, special toe tokens and pencils.) Our kids are KILLING it!! Not only do we have 300 of the 325 kids signed up, but our average miles per student is over 5 miles higher than the program average. I am honestly so proud to be a part of this program and love being able to watch our kids being healthy.

Grant team was really cool. I was able to sit down and watch the entire grant process deliberation and awarding. I was asked again to join the community investment committee which is yet another huge honor. :)

I finally feel like I am finding my place in this community.

A Muppet themed party

In 48 short hours, Arabel will officially be 4 years old. (How in the heck did that happen by the way?? I never approved this growing up stuff she has been pulling lately.) We had a gathering with family yesterday. I don't typically go all crazy with themed decorations and everything, honestly it seems like kind of a waste unless we are having a ton of kids that would appreciate that type of thing. Adults just don't get all excited about paper cut outs of characters the way kids do. Well, Arabel declared last week that she loves the Muppets (love is an understatement, we watch a Muppet movie at least once a day.) She wanted a Muppet party. The problem?? THERE IS NO MUPPET ANYTHING to buy in the stores. Seriously, NOTHING. It was up to this mom to try and create something out of nothing. Here is what I did. (I apologize for the lack of pictures, the party was a blur I only managed to get 4 pictures of the whole thing.... sucky mom.)

I bought a (Kermit) green plastic tablecloth. I prefer using plastic as it is super easy to clean up and after having 20 people in my house, I am all about ease. The standard size that they sell was a little long for my table, so I chopped one of the ends off and used it to cover up the area of my counter I used for food. I made little signs to put in front of the food with our Muppet themed food names... The Swedish Chef's Meatballs (swedish meatballs in the crockpot), Miss Piggy's Pink Lemonade Spritzer (pink lemonade and Sprite), It's Not Easy Being Green salad (simple green salad with dressing on the side), Fozzie's Funny Bean Dip (7 layer bean dip), Pigs in Space in blankets (mini pigs in blankets made with cocktail weenies), and Rainbow Connection cupcakes (rainbow cupcakes with cool whip and sprinkles). I bought pink and orange cocktail napkins (think Scooter orange and Miss Piggy pink.) I decorated with a couple animal print bandana's I happened to have around the house. ("Animal print"... get it?) We also played the Muppet movie and Muppets Take Manhattan while people were here. It wasn't overkill on the theme but lots of people commented on how cute it turned out. 

Here I am

I have been mentally composing this blog for what seems like forever. Really, it has been a couple days. I apologize in advance for being overly vague.

It is time for a change. I am looking for a job, but not necessarily because I want one. I think that it is high time that I head back to work though. I am not looking forward to it, but I am. I know that makes no sense and I can't help it. Going back to work will mean a couple of great things... a job means money, time away (let's be serious, we all need at least a little time away) and money. As you can see money is a driving factor for me. I am getting older and I hate that I have nothing to fall back on. I want a little something for a rainy day, a vacation, a car, a new pair of shoes and just because I am sure being rich is way cooler than what I am doing right now.

The winds of change are a comin'. I can't say for sure what they may bring, but there are some serious possibilities. I do know that there is likely to be lots of tears, tons of swearing and hopefully some good thrown in there too. I will survive and be better on the other side, no matter how hard it seems to be while I am weathering the storm.

Learning to say no

I happened upon this little nugget the other night when I was postponing my bedtime and playing on pinterest. 

It kind of sums up my life right now. I REALLY need to work on saying no.
Here is what I have on my plate right now: Mileage club co-coordinator, Book Fair co-coordinator, Box Tops for Education contest coordinator, helping with science night, VP for PTA next year- which includes throwing the first 2 events of the year... first day of school parent breakfast AND the ice cream social open house (all in the first month of school), active PTA mom, parent chaperone for field trips or anything needed in the classroom, United Way volunteer, mom of 2, wifey and friend. So.. yeah. I think this might be the limit where I have to start turning down things. Remind me of this the next time I start talking about taking on another project.

I need wine.

Back to the grind

School is back in session. I survived having to get up early, but just barely. The holidays are over and so are my excuses for not being in better shape. That means: it is grind time. I have this friend who goes to the gym 4 times a week plus does a yoga workout... it makes me feel like I am a shlub. In effort to make myself a super hot mama once again, I will be attempting to complete the 30 day shred. Every day for the next month, I will be shredding. 30 minutes, I can handle that. I mean if Rob can lock himself in his office for hours at a time working, I can probably sneak in a 30 minute workout. I already know that Jillian is the devil, my body is going to hurt.

I survived 2011

I have pretty much sucked on keeping the blog updated lately. I am calling it my holiday hiatus. Well, hiatus is over and here I am.

2011 was a decent year. No major complaints. I have a home, a family that is healthy and we are pretty damn happy. I am hoping 2012 will be even better to us. :)

Christmas seemed like it snuck up on me and then came and went as quickly as possible. I feel like it has been a whirlwind 2 weeks of vacation. I could honestly use another few days before I have to get Em up and around in the morning.

We crammed 4 christmas celebrations in 3 days. It was a flurry of wrapping paper, bows, gifts, family, food, and drinks but I wouldn't ask for anything more. I know that everyone is just dying to know what we got...

Emma & Arabel:
bunk beds
room makeover
3D horse and unicorn that you color yourself
Easy bake Oven cookie and cakes kit
DQ blizzard maker

Emma:
iPod shuffle
LalaLoopsy doll (if you haven't seen these... get on it, they are freaking adorable!!)
VTech InnoTab
InnoTab games
clothes
iTunes gift card
Toys R Us gift card
coloring stuff galore- activity books, markers, crayons, paint
color your own messenger bag
friendship bracelet kit
make your own beaded necklace kit


Arabel:
Littlest Pet Shop treehouse
Littlest Pet Shop walkables
More littlest Pet Shop stuff (she is obsessed)
LalaLoopsy doll
clothes
VTech MobiGo
MobiGo games
Toys R Us gift card

Kimm & Rob:
framed picture of Rob and his brothers & sister
framed picture of the 2 of us
gift cards to Applebee's and BW3
Visa Gift cards

Rob:
Arcardia Brewing Co. variety pack
slippers
new pens
electric pencil sharpener

Kimm:
laundry baskets
KEURIG!!!!!
Keurig k-cups
Ugg type boots
coupon book (all sorts of awesome stuff in there for local businesses)
variety pack of beer
MSU pullover

*I am sure that I am forgetting a ton of stuff. I will be back to update and add more links. I am running on battery power and laying in my comfy bed now. I feel like I need some more motivation for that. HA!

Resolutions:

I don't know that I really love the idea of resolutions. Last year, I didn't have a set resolution but I knew that I wanted to be healthier. Well, I quit smoking in August so I feel like that was a huge step in the right direction. I don't drink as much as I did before (not that it was a ton to begin with) and in general I feel like I did alright at being healthier.
This year, I would love to save money and continue being healthier. Who knows, maybe I will even start running or something. (HA!!!! Who am I kidding... I HATE running.) I am ready to move to the next level in my relationship with Rob... seriously, 2012 HAS to be my year right?? I am ready to have another baby and be on our way to the next phase that awaits.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and I wish a prosperous new year to all.