Lilypie Third Birthday tickers

Friday, April 6, 2007

Caution: Women at Work

We continue to work on Riley's room. It's definitely been an adventure. Thank God for Shelly's brother Steve! Unfortunately he has to do all of the hard labor, putting up bead board, hanging the blinds, putting up molding, etc. Yesterday and today his big chore was to put the closet organizer in Riley's room. Well, right now he'd be happy if he never heard the term Closet Organizer AGAIN! What a piece of crap. Yes I bought the most basic closet organizer kit at Home Depot. But, for over $100 you think that it would at least come with good instructions and all the right parts. Hell no! It's been a complete nightmare. There have been several times in the past two days that I thought if I said one more word he'd seriously slug me. But, as of tonight, the closet organizer is in!

Meanwhile, I'm washing, washing, washing all of Riley's clothes, bedding and bankets. And, I've even started putting it away, in her new closet organizer! For weeks now I've been worried we didn't buy enough Jammies for her. I must have lost my mind because I've put enough Jammies away to last at least two weeks without doing wash. And that includes extra changes if necessary. So, we're good on Jammies!

Riley's room is getting close to being ready. I've spent quite a bit time the past two days working on her room. Shelly has been helping me whenever possible. We're so close. Soon, very soon, I'll be able to post pictures.

Once we get Riley's room done I can move to the next items on my list. 1) Get the cars detailed before Riley comes and 2) Box up my Scrapbook room. Hopefully in three weeks or so my new and much bigger Scrapbook room downstairs will be ready. Can't wait to post pictures of that! After these "To Do's" are done I have plenty, plenty more.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend!

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

32 Weeks!

We hit the 32 week mark on Sunday!

We had a super busy weekend with continued celebrations of Shelly's birthday. We also spent time working on Riley's room. We're getting closer. And for those of you asking for pictures there will be no sneak peaks! No pictures until it's done! :)

Today was our weekly non-stress test. Shelly's blood pressure was perfect and the amniotic fluid is right in the normal range.

Riley's heart beat baseline was lower but still fluctuated in the normal range. The concern is Shelly's having what they call "Uterine Irritability". Her uterus is active and showing tightening but it doesn't seem like she's having full contractions. She's supposed to rest more and stay hydrated. It wasn't serious enough that they asked her to come in again this week. So, she needs to take it easy, and I'll keep an eye on her, until our appointment next Tuesday.

Shelly describes it as that she "just feels different" this week. She explains part of it as a tightening feeling below her belly button when she stands up. She's also feeling tightening and pain in her back as well. Anyone out there experience this? Any suggestions? We're just 32 weeks and want to make sure we make it to at least 36 weeks.

Our Conception Story

After eight years together we were pretty sure we'd spend our life with our four legged kids, doing lots of camping, and traveling the world. On August 12, 2004 that all changed with the birth of our God Daughter Tate. We immediately fell completely in love with her and soon began to re-think our decision of not having kids.

In October 2005 we began the process of trying to conceive. As soon as we started trying Shelly began having very erratic cycles which made the process that more complicated. After four tries over six months we decided to schedule a consultation with the a Reproductive Specialist. We were desperate to conceive and on a limited time frame since Shelly had just turned 41. Dee was 35 at the time but not able to conceive due to a medical procedure.

Our first appointment with the Repro Man was May 2006. He suggested we try IVF using Dee's eggs and Shelly as the gestational mother. He felt this scenario would give us the highest chance for success of a healthy pregnancy. We spent a short amount of time weighing our options and decided this was the best choice. We began our first IVF cycle in August. They did the Egg Retrieval and Fertilization on 8/31. Three days later, 9/3, they transferred three embryos into Shelly. Then the wait began.

Shelly promised not to begin the home pregnancy test too soon. Dee had to travel out of state for business a week after the transfer and asked Shelly to please wait to test. BUT, the wait was too much for her and she started testing after a week. At first there was no line. But after a couple of days testing a faint line started to appear. When Dee came home from her trip Shelly told her, "I know I'm pregnant." Dee didn't believe her and insisted the line wasn't dark enough so she tested herself to compare. There was absolutely no line. She began to believe Shelly was pregnant but still had doubt. Dee went to the store and bought another brand of testing strips. After five home tests, we were convinced we we're pregnant due to all positive results. A blood test at two weeks confirmed it; we were going to have a baby!