I realized yesterday how strange it must look when someone sees me with all my kids. I get stares, often people ask me, "they aren't ALL yours are they?" I have strangers constantly asking me, "how old are YOU?" I swear this happened last year when A was just a tiny baby, I took the kids out for ice cream and this lady asked me the are they all yours question then said, you have to tell me how old you are, at that time i was 27. Then people are even more shocked when they hear I work, I suppose they typically assume I am most likely single, and having kids for a bigger cheque. :( I had this friend that would mention to her friend about me and quickly say, but she's a nurse and so is her husband. It's kind of awful that she felt the need to defend me quickly. Even when I was with my mother yesterday, at the mall, the lady at the checkout was commenting on how cute A was and then was surprised they were mine, the usual, blah blah then she said, I suppose you don't work, and I was like uummmm, yah full time, I have vacation time.

Even at work, when patients or family members see I'm pregnant they'll say, "your first?" then I laugh hysterically and say, no, guess again, and keep saying no until they guess #5. I often get told I look like I'm about 20 yrs old, certainly not old enough looking to have 4, almost 5 children.

Does this happen to anyone else??

We did the whole getting ready to go back to school shopping the other day, I had to get little E a whole new wardrobe! Everything she owned was stained :( Her brother's things were great, didn't look like they were ever used. I did get him a few things. R had her clothes bought earlier in the summer. So she was ready for school a month ago. So a week from today the kiddo's are back in school! then it's just me and A.

The weather here is still hot, going to go the beach later, but most likely won't stay for long, A has a tendancy to run away and everywhere, she's too busy and I'm too fat! hahaha. So it'll be long enough to cool down, that's about it.

New belly pic

I'm really starting to get big fast now! I find I'm carrying this baby higher than my last. This picture was taken today, a week after the last one on here, what a difference.

26 weeks

I'm almost to my 3rd trimester~ Time surely is flying by. When I started this blog with A i was about 28 weeks along. That's when I went off work last time because I was so sick with my crohn's. This time I'm doing quite well, still on a low dose of prednisone but the 10mg seems to be enough to make me feel fine.

Lately I have been having the worst backaches in the world, I guess from standing for such long hours at work, with my back all arched :( My legs have been swelling like crazy too. I have gained almost 33lbs so far. :O I'm exhausted, but love every minute of it, when I wake for one of my 4times to pee through the night missions, the baby wakes and gives me a kick.

I have the worst cravings on earth, all I want is KFC popcorn chicken and sweet & sour dipping sauce. I absolutely hate that place normally, but that's all I want now, it's all that I have not to go there and give in! lol I also could eat fruit & nut bars all the time too! Why couldn't I just crave broccoli and carrots, something good for me???

Sorry in advance for the terribly randomized post here, just have a few thoughts to put down...

Hubby's grandmother died on Sunday after a 1 1/2 yr battle with lung cancer. She had many treatments with just chemo, needing frequent hospitalizations and blood transfusions. She certainly was a fighter, she tried the chemo enough to know that at that stage, she wasn't getting any better, the cancer would never leave and her quality of life was awful. She finally decided 4 mos ago to stop all treatments. She knew she was palliative at that point. She had always wanted to die at home so hubby's mom helped her have her wish. For the last 2 months, his mother was taking care of her while she continued to deteriorate. She was a bad diabetic with retarded sugars, often in the 30 range, so she required insulin towards the end, hubby's mom did it all for her.

It was tuesday last week that she was at her sickest, at this point she no longer was responsive. The palliative care Dr. came in and ordered her dilaudid, versed and robinal around the clock, every hour. She was tough because she continued like this for almost 5 days! It's terribly sad to see her go, be we all know she's better off, she was a christian and knew she was going to a better place. The funeral was yesterday, hubby was one of the pallbearers. It was sad, but the service was quite nice. We all went to her house yesterday, it is just so hard to believe that we won't see her there anymore, especially at the holidays. I feel so sad for my mother in law since she cared for her for so long and had to watch her die, but worst of all, her damn house is destroyed and can't even get away to her own home! She's still staying at her mom's house. :(

Her home is in the works of being repaired. So far the ceilings have been torn down, up and down, the carpet, hardwood and walls have been removed. She even needs to have her cupboards replaced. Anyway, hopefully it won't take that long, one guy told her it could take about 3 mos. Shit that's how long it's supposed to take to build our new home.

Oh I had a Dr. appointment on Tuesday, all looks well with baby, I'm measuring now at 27weeks. My weight gain now is 31lbs ACK!!!! shit I have 14 weeks left, i'll be a monster at this rate. I had my u/s on Monday, baby is fine, still a he from what the tech could see :P
His newest trick is grabbing his foot up by his head then letting it go and smacking himself in the forehead, I told the lady that he's just like his dad! hehe.

Picture post!

Yesterday was our 8 yr anniversary, hard to believe that I've been pregnant for half of my marriage. He had to work and I stayed home, didn't do anything at all. After hubby came home from work the kids were out playing in the yard, at around 8pm his brother came running over to our house, in a panic and told him to come right to his house, there's something wrong, he couldn't even say what was going on, instantly I thought someone was dead, or dying. Hell it was a scare of a lifetime that's for sure, because I knew the kids were close to his house. Turns out that sometime during the day, since no one was home the upstairs toilet cracked and the house was flooded. I mean, flooded. The roof in the kitchen was caving in, there was about 2 feet of water on the first floor not to mention the basement. The smoke alarm was ringing the wiring was fucked, needless to say, it was quite surreal. The walls are ruined in the basement, all need replacing, the cupboards in the kitchen need replacing, the hardwood, carpet you name it, is all destroyed. It's expected to at least be a month before it's fixed. This is where we're supposed to live while we build our house. LOL. I'm sure it'll be fixed by Oct. haha, if not, well then I have no choice to rent an apartment.

I had posted last year about my hubby's grandmom that was diagnosed with lung cancer, she's pretty much actively dying now. She's basically non-reponsive, getting pain meds regularly to help with her breathing, that's why his mother wasn't home, otherwise the water would have been turned off shortly after it was found. I feel awful for her, what timing for this shit to happen though.

I guess I am experiencing a blogging slump. I have no desire to post anymore. I'm not sure what this is all about. Have I finally gotten bored of blogging? I found a new site where I "chat" with other expectant moms. I guess I just get lonely (I know how the hell with all the kids and hubby) but hubby doesn't really want to talk about anything regarding pregnancy, so I guess it's just me at home with no one to talk about my pregnancy woes.

Work has been consuming my life also. The 12 hr shifts, leave me exhausted, mentally and physically. I only get home long enough to pretty much sleep. I dont' want to be a whiner but that's what I find myself doing more and more, I'm thinking my lack of readers is due to this too!

Well since I started this while pregnant with Ava I'm going to finish this blog with this baby. So next appointment is Aug. 22 for a checkup. My next u/s is the 20th of Aug for growth and to check on the band. Other than that baby is active, I'm on 15mg of prednisone and that's about it here.

I had the follow up appointment to my son's testing.

It shows that he has phonological processing deficits as well as low attention. The man told me that while doing the test E did alright with the easy questions, but once the difficult ones started that's when the attention shut down. It seems that the way to try and deal with this disability is to have him go to a speech-language pathologist to learn the basic phonics of speech. My hubby's brother has the exact same disability. He did alright, graduated from high school, still had a hard time with university and failed, but his desire to do it may not have been too high at that point in his life. So there it is, the boy had a blood test showing a marker for celiac, ironically showed symptoms but his nerves were so damn shot from his inability to do school work! So this school year should be much better for him, he'll be in a normal class but will have his own work, and time to do it, and the man doing the test said that it's a good idea to put him forward a grade because the ciriculum of grade 1 doesn't matter, he has to work on this first to get the school work down.

I had another OB appointment on Wed. The band is still there, he showed me it on the u/s screen, it is amniotic band synd.rome, but a benign form, hasn't touched the baby and the baby is nowhere near it, the band is on the lower left of my uterus and the baby hangs out on the right side away from it. So far it all looks fine, but closely monitoring it, another u/s in 2 weeks.

I'm back on 20mg of prednisone for my crohn's disease, of course had another flare up :( There's really nothing much going on here. I have a wedding to go to today, a friend of hubby's. I have to try and find something nice to wear in my wardrobe, I refuse to buy something. Hope all are well. :)