Crazy Life Catch Up!

To say that I've been missing from the blog world the last few months would be a huge understatement, so lets just not say it. Let's see if I can catch you all up on my crazy life....

For those of you who don't know, I'm currently 29 weeks pregnant with my fourth child. Not planned but deeply loved none the less. This pregnancy has been so different from the other three. I blame it on Josh since this is our first together. Did I say first? I also mean last! lol. Between us, this will be our 7th child. To say our household is crazy and busy is another understatement. But it gets even crazier! We also have three roommates! There's Josh's cousin Nena, our friend Dani, who I believe I've mentioned before, and then we have Sir Echo. The interesting part here is that my name is also Echo! So yes, as I said before, our house is definitely CRAZY!

Ok, back to the pregnancy part since that consumes about 90% of my thoughts anymore. Like I said, I'm 29 weeks and I feel freaking huge. This is the biggest I've ever been before! The other day I discovered to my utter horror......stretch marks!!! (gasp) Seeing as how this is my fourth pregnancy some of you may be thinking I'm over reacting here but except for very light ones on the sides of my boobs, I never got stretch marks before. And these new enemies of mine are right on my belly. Hell, the only reason I even found them was because I caught a glimpse of them in the bathroom mirror seeing as how I can't even see the bottom of my stomach where they have made their new home. Yes, I got lucky with the other three so I really should stop my whining but I'm not going to. lol.

Next thing on the list of Josh's faults, the glucose test. Before this baby I only ever had to do the standard one hour test. Boy has that changed! Doctor told me I tested high on the one hour and sent me to do the three hour test, with four needle pokes! Have I mentioned how much I hate needles? So I go in to drink this super sugary nasty drink after not being allowed to eat or drink after midnight the night before and while I'm already nauseous from not being allowed to eat breakfast. Get poked the first time, manage to drink the crap, go back out to the waiting room to wait one hour and then be poked again...except right at the one hour mark, I threw it all up! So they continued doing the every hour blood work hoping that enough of it was still in my system. So it wasn't much of a surprise when the following week they called and said I needed to come back in. But for some reason they said I only had to redo the one hour test that I missed. Doesn't make much sense but ok, they're the professionals right. So I get there and they have no record that I was ever there other than the fact that the recognize me. So then they tell me that I have to redo the entire test! At this point I'm frustrated and disgusted with these people so I refused the test until I talked to my doctor. Here it is almost two weeks later and I'm going back tomorrow to take the nasty test again.

So next reason this pregnancy is a pain in the butt. Last week I had tons of braxton hicks contractions all week long! Some of them were pretty strong. Finally got past that, then little miss Riley, that's gonna be the baby's name, decided to suddenly slow down on her movements. Seriously freaked me out! She seems determined to be a pain in the butt already! lol. She's back to moving a bit more again so hopefully everything is back on track and fine again, except for the stupid glucose test that is.

Well, that's enough catch up for now. I really will try to write more often again. I really miss blogging. :)

The Joys of Motherhood

"Your baby's skeleton is changing from soft cartilage to bone, and the umbilical cord — her lifeline to the placenta — is growing stronger and thicker. Your baby weighs 5 ounces now (about as much as a turnip), and she's around 5 inches long from head to bottom. She can move her joints, and her sweat glands are starting to develop." From Babycenter.com

I'm up to 17 weeks on this pregnancy and I already feel huge! I know things happen faster with each pregnancy and this is my 4th one, but wow, this looks like a 5-6 month belly for my norm! My friends all tell me I'm still pretty small but since all of my other pregnancies were in a different state, my well meaning friends weren't around for the other three. I wish I had belly pics of the other pregnancies so I could compare them.

Wow my bathroom mirror needs cleaned! lol

On a positive note, my morning sickness is gone and the headaches are a little more bearable. I'm still pretty tired but then I do have four other kids to raise! That would tire anybody out! lol. Although, I can't take all the credit. J, father of the baby, and Dani, our awesome friend, roommate, and honorary Aunt to the kids, are both wonderfully great helps. They both really do help make things a bit easier on me.

Now, if I could just convince my two year old, Holly, to be a little less glued to my hip. I don't know if it's separation anxiety or something else. She does fine if she goes somewhere with J or Dani without me but when she's with me she's closer to me than my shadow. I love her to pieces and adore spending time with her, but she does get a little ridiculous at times. I can't go pee, sit alone, cook, clean, leave the room or anything without her. I know I need to do something to help her through this, especially with another baby on the way, I'm just not sure how to go about it. Hunter was 2 years old when I had Holly and while he definitely loves his Mama, he wasn't as glued to me as Holly is. It wasn't very difficult to help his adjust to his baby sister. Holly loves babies but I can see where breastfeeding the new baby might be a problem.

I remember after Holly was born, Hunter would sit next to me on the couch while I fed or just cuddled with Holly. He loved to rub her head and give her kisses! I actually taught him his colors sitting like that using the colored hearts on Holly's onsie. It was so cute! Sitting that same way we practiced drawing and recognizing shapes using one of those little toys where it has the magnetic pen attached and you slider the lever to erase it. They both love those toys and I can't remember what they are called!

Hunter and Holly as a baby.

Ahh, memory lane gets me every time. Now I just want to sit and snuggle with both little monster babies! On that note, here they come yelling at and tattling on each other! lol. The joys of motherhood!