Summer begins

Summer has officially begun and we finally know for certain that we will not be moving to Ireland for the year.  While we are a little sad that we won't be moving, and frustrated with the prospect of a potential job lay off, we are happy that we can finally plan things for our summer.  It's a little late for planting a vegetable garden now, so it's not likely that we'll have home grown vegetables this year, but we plan to continue work on the exterior of the house (mainly getting the grass established) and small projects around the house.  

Aaron turned 1 month old last week and caring for him will, no doubt, consume much of my time this summer but I hope to be able to spend a lot of time playing with the kids and doing activities as a family.  I took Aaron for his 1 month check up (at 5 weeks) and is now 10 lbs., 9 oz. and 22 1/2 inches long.  He is growing and gaining weight at a steady pace and even offered his first smiles last week!  He still seems to be pretty fussy, constantly wanting to be held, and hasn't gotten into a good routine with his sleeping patterns.  But he did offer me 2 nights last week each with a 4 hr. period of uninterrupted sleep.  During his first couple of weeks, he spit up quite a bit but that has slowed down significantly (which helps a little with the amount of laundry I've had to do!).  We took him to get his 1 month portraits at Sears last week as well and so I'll post them once we have them.

Many of you know by now that our initial plans of moving to Ireland for the year have been trashed and I'm happy that, at least now we can start putting things on our calendar for the summer.  There is so much uncertainty in life, I'm learning, and I am once again being forced against my natural instincts to control and just "go with the flow" of life!  We are now trying to shift our focus on saving for improvements to our home (that we really wanted to complete in 2008 during construction) and filling our calendar with events that will create many family memories for us. 

And baby makes five ....

Well, life certainly has changed for us again!  Very early Sunday morning (5/17/09) at 12:16 am we welcomed Aaron Patton into our family (yes, that's his middle name!).  After over a week of false labor days, he was nice enough to bless me with a quick delivery at Samaritan Hospital.  Many of you have inquired about how things went so I'll recount our story here.  I began having regular contractions that were 10-15 minutes apart around 9:30 pm on 5/16.  By 10:30pm the contractions were a little over 5 minutes apart and getting stronger.  We called the doctor at 10:55pm and were on the road within 10 minutes.  The hospital is only 15 minutes away but we sped down Rt. 7 (passing 3 cars in the turning lane and running 2 red lights) because my contractions were coming 4 minutes or less apart and very strong.  We arrived at the hospital at 11:25 (ish) where the nurses told me I was 7-8cm.  After several more contractions  (they were coming 1-2 minutes apart now) my water broke, I was 10 cm and the nurse was telling me that she "could delivery the baby if needed" since the doctor wasn't there yet!  As soon as I heard the doctor's voice I began pushing, which was somewhere around 12:05am and within a couple of pushes, Aaron was born!  He was 8 lbs., 2 ozs. and 21 inches long.  I was so surprised as, given my pregnancy size, I was sure he'd only be 7 lbs.!  The doctor was able to get some cord blood into the collection kit and the courier arrived to collect the cord blood within the hour!  I am so thankful to have our new baby boy finally here with us!  He is healthy and, so far, has been relatively easy-going (I know, it's early still!).  We arrived home yesterday from the hospital at 4:30pm and are getting settled in!  People have asked who we think Aaron looks like and I would have to say he looks a lot like Alex when he was born.  Both Alex and Emily have been SO happy to have a baby brother and have been so well behaved throughout the last couple of days!  We are truly blessed!  

As many of you know, we are most likely going to be moving to Ireland for about a year beginning this summer (probably July).  I've been informed that the job of documenting our travels has been officially given to me so I'll use this blog as a primary sounding board and resource for getting info out to friends and family.  

As I look back on the years we've had together as a family, I originally thought that 2007 was a crazy year of change with the construction of the house and job changes for both Tim and myself.  Little did I know that 2009 would trump that year ten-fold!  Thank you to everyone for your continued support and prayers for us as we continue on our journey. 

Keep checking back in the coming weeks for more photos and stories of our new adventures as a family of five.  

Still here, still pregnant!

At the request of a fellow mom friend,  I'm letting you all know that I'm "still here and still pregnant"!  Although I thought for certain I would have this baby over Mother's Day weekend, I was wrong!  Life is always teaching us things, right?!?  Well, the lesson I'm learning here is that each pregnancy is different!  I've never had the pleasure of experiencing false labor, until now.  While the contractions haven't been terribly painful, I've had several days in a row with a few hours at a time of on and off contractions that are uncomfortable.  Every time they start, I think "okay, this is it" and just wait for them to get stronger.  To my disappointment, they just go away.  I remember very clearly when I was in labor with Emily, I awoke in the middle of the night with one contraction that felt much like the contractions I've been experiencing lately.  Twenty minutes later, I felt another contraction that was noticeably stronger, and then 8 minutes after that, yet another one even more strong.  It was clear that I was in labor.  This time around, it's different!  I keep expecting that same course of events to unfold as it did 4 years ago, but nope!  This one is just taking its time getting ready!  I'm anxious for my next drs. appt. to find out how much more I've progressed.  With all of the pressure and contractions I've felt, I keep thinking to myself, "I MUST be more than 3 cm by now!".  I keep trying to tell myself that it's still early yet (I'm not due for another week) and to let nature do its thing.  It's difficult to maintain that perspective but I'm trying!

Baby will be here soon!

Disclaimer:  If you don't want to read about the stuff that happens before a woman goes into labor, stop reading now, although I promise it's not too graphic!

Well folks, with any luck, this will be my last post before you get to see a picture of our little bundle of joy!  I had an appt. with my doctor's office this afternoon and to my delight, the doctor informed me that I'm 3 cm dilated, 50% effaced and the cervix is soft (which we knew from 3 weeks ago).  I went to the appointment hoping that he would tell me I was 1-2 cm dilated and was prepared to be happy with that.  I suspected, though that much more has been happening since I've felt a lot of pressure really low for the last couple of days.  The Braxton-Hicks contractions have continued to occur often as they have since the fifth or sixth month of this pregnancy.  Now, technically, I could go another 1-2 weeks without dilating any more (so I have to put in that disclaimer) but my prediction is that we'll have our baby in the next week.  I'm hoping for Mother's Day!

Simply put... life can be crazy!

Crazy almost seems to be an understatement.  Just when you think you've got control of life and things are going great, life whispers "ha ha, that's what you think" into your ear and turns your world upside down, and then upside down again.  

Of course we knew that the arrival of our third child would likely change our routine and make life a bit crazier.  We still have yet to experience this pleasure in roughly 4 weeks (or less).  But Tim's diagnosis of lymphoma/chronic lymphocytic leukemia has left us dumb-founded and filled with emotions.  For those of you who have not yet heard, the diagnosis came about three weeks ago after Tim had a lymph node removed from his neck.  Ironically, he probably would not have had the node removed since a previous needle biopsy came back negative.  He decided to have the node removed because he was already scheduled for surgery to repair a deviated septum.  So that's basically where his/our journey into the next chapter of our lives begins.  I'll call it that because I've always viewed my life as being in chapters.  You know, Chapter 1 - Childhood, Chapter 2 - Self Discovery (Teenage/College Years) and so on.

There is much to be written about what life has been like for our family over the last couple of weeks.  While I don't want this blog to focus on Tim's cancer, I will provide an update from my perspective from time to time.  Tim has made mention of the possibility of starting a blog himself, and so I'll post a link to that once he's up to getting that started.  Some recent activities include a trip to NYC to meet with a specialist at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center.  We were accompanied by my sister and mom to help out with the kids (a HUGE THANK YOU!) while Tim and I met with the doctor.  The kids really enjoyed the train ride down and after the appointment we took a taxi to the NY Museum of Natural History.  Alex and Emily both wanted to know immediately when we can go down to NYC again!  

One aspect that I've been working diligently on is getting information about Cord Blood banking and if/how it may benefit us/Tim in the future.  It turns out that the list of diseases regularly treated with stem cells from cord blood includes Tim's cancer.  Whether our baby's cord blood will be a match for Tim is yet to be discovered but it's worth saving if there's a chance.  The first problem I discovered was that the cost is rather high (although we agreed we would bank the cord blood regardless of the cost at this point because of it's potential benefits). Most companies charge roughly $2100 for processing the blood and then a $125/yr. fee is charged for storage.  After some info-hunting I discovered that there are federal programs designed to provide financial support for pregnant mothers that want to bank their baby's cord blood to be designated for use for a sibling or other relative with a disease that's treated with stem cells.  My first phone calls into the federal programs were unsuccessful, however, I came across a list of family banks that offer "charity" programs similar to the federal programs.  The first family bank I called was the Cord Blood Registry, which, as I understand, is a cord blood bank that has been banking cord blood for one of the longest amounts of time comparatively.  The representative that I spoke with was friendly and, although I felt as though I was listening to a sales pitch at times, I agreed to enroll with the company for family/private banking with the intent of applying for the "Designated Transplant Program".  I was sent the application for the program via email within minutes of talking with the rep and had all of the paperwork completed (by us and Tim's oncologist) within a week.  On Tuesday of last week I faxed the paperwork to the rep at CBR and asked that he put a "rush" on it since our baby is due in just a few short weeks.  I was pleasantly surprised when I received a phone call the following morning from my rep stating that our application was approved and that we would only be charged $150 for the shipping of the blood to their facility on AZ when the baby arrives!  I've had my cord blood collection kit packed in my hospital bag for a week now and informed my OB & midwives about our choice to bank the cord blood.

If you want more info about cord blood banking, you can visit CBR's website: http://www.cordblood.com/

Updated Nursery Pictures

HAPPY St. Patty's Day!  We had a very busy and fun weekend celebrating Mom P's 50th birthday, which is today (Happy Birthday, Mom).  Tim also arrived home late Friday night from his 5 week long trip to Virginia.  The kids and I were missing him very much and are happy to have him home again for a few more weeks before he'll need to travel again.

Meanwhile, I've taken some more (updated) pictures of the nursery.  I finally added a second book bin on the wall next to the window and applied the phrase lettering over the ledge shelf.  I also installed some blinds.  There is still a few things left to do (like add more lettering under the ledge shelf with the baby's name) but most of the little touches I've planned for will be done after the baby arrives, which, will be in about 8-9 weeks!

Another update on baby:

Today I had another ultrasound and appointment with the midwife and Mom L was able to join Emily and I for the visit.  It was nice to see the baby again on the monitor and No..... we are STILL not finding out the baby's gender!  ;-)So basically everything looks good.  The technician said that the heartbeat was normal and all of the baby's limbs/organs looked good.  They estimate the baby's weight to be 2 lbs., 13 ozs. today, which puts our little peanut in the 41st percentile.  The due date is still unchanged (5/19/09) and the baby's head was down.  I visited with the midwife after the ultrasound who indicated that all of my bloodwork is "right down the middle for values" so basically, I'm average!  I'm down to scheduling appointments with the midwife/doctors now for every two weeks.  The picture below is of the baby's face (although it's probably hard to tell for most people).  The forehead and eyes are to the right of the image and the nose and mouth are toward the center from the right.  The blurry spot in the middle of the image is an arm that was sort of crossed over part of the face.  At one point, we could see the baby opening and closing it's mouth, which was neat!