get your votes in!

5.5 weeks:                                                                        14.5 weeks:



This little baby must be takin' steroids or something because my belly feels HUGE. Already, at just 15 weeks.  And, as you can see, my bum decided it needed a growth spurt too! But apparently I've only gained 1 lb. Now would be a good time to cast your votes for boy or girl, because we will (hopefully) be finding out the gender in less than a couple weeks! YAY!

In case you find this info important to your decision:

Baby's heartbeat at 10.5 weeks: 168-170

Baby's heartbeat at 14.5 weeks: in the 140's

(confusing, right?)

I feel like I am carrying weight differently this time around. Less basketball-in-belly, more "blob".

Sickness: about the same as when I was pregnant with the boys

Cravings: depends. Steak. KFC biscuts. Sour Punch Straws. Fresh fruit. Pizza.



yee-haw!

Or as Collin would say, "eeeee-aaaahh!"

The Big 3-0

This past weekend we celebrated Nate's 30th Birthday (twice actually- once with my fam on Sat & with Nate's fam on Sun). I think I was more excited about it than he was- I am married to a guy in his 30's. What?! Awesome!! :) When I asked Nate what he wanted to eat/do for his special day he said he wanted to get up early (5:45am) & go fishing with his dad & brother. Then he wanted to come home and sleep until around 1pm when he wanted to go shoot clay pigeons with the guys. For dinner he gave me 3 options: homemade gnocchi w/ pesto, chicken putanessca or a bucket of KFC grilled chicken. I opted for the chicken since his birthday cake requests took me while to complete. For his birthday I gave him the Cabela's Dangerous Hunts video game & two rifle controllers. Then it was the BYU game at 5:45...awesome since we made it into the sweet sixteen!
You can probably see why I dubbed this Nate's Redneck Birthday! (fishing, shooting, KFC, Cabela's game)

brownie with nutella/white chocolate/whipped cream frosting

chocolate with buttercream & fresh fruit

I love Asher's faces in these two...

Anyway, Happy Birthday Natey- 30 looks really, really good on you! :)

Surgery for Asher

Last Wednesday was Asher's surgery to have his tonsils & adenoids removed, as well as some new tubes put in. Here are some pictures from that morning. I thought to bring a portable DVD player, which was genius of me :), because it kept him distracted right up until they brought him some warm blankets & wheel his bed away. As a result of the hospial experience, Asher associates warm blankets with getting poked..poor buddy. The surgery lasted about an hour. The Dr. told us that Asher's tonsils were very badly scarred, filled with pockets of puss & therefore a little more challenging to remove. He asked us if Asher had had lots of strep or constant sore throats- to our knowledge he hadn't had much of either...but maybe he has always had throat issues and just thought it was normal?? He also told us that Asher's adenoids were some of the largest he had seen in a kid this age. CRAZY! We thought it was funny that Tessa was sad we didn't ask to save his tonsils & adenoids for her to look at...hehe!

Anyway, it took Asher a while to calm down when they brought him to us- effects of the aenesthesia no doubt. We were given strict instructions on his diet & activity level & warned that it would be normal for him to be drowsy for the remainder of the day. By early afternoon, I swear you would never have known that he had had surgery...we had to try (unsuccessfully) to keep him from running all over the house.

The few days following that were extremely rough. Asher was just completely miserable. I am so grateful my parents came to help us (they arrived the night before surgery)- in fact, just saying that feels like a HUGE understatement. Asher wanted no one but his Grandma- she nick-named him her "right hip growth". :) They made the entire experience so much easier.

And, for the record, my buggie, my feisty little ham...he kept us all smiling...

welcome, little lime

I'm pregnant! And I've waited as long as I could stand it to make this announcement. I'm 12 weeks and due mid-September. Nate and I heard a brief, but strong, heartbeat last week. Our littlest (currently the size of a lime) was cruisin' away at 170 beats/minute. I've never experienced a miscarriage past 9 weeks, so we're feeling pretty good about this pregnancy making it to the end!

Oh, and I'm thinking it's a boy...we tried our best to work off the Chinese Gender Chart (hey! It's 80% accurate!) and found ourselves right on the borderline between boy and girl. Maybe I just don't wanna get my hopes up, but I know lots of families where 3 boys came first...and I am totally cool with that. :)

Thanks Joni & Jim

Asher loves the car you sent!

...And Collin didn't mind helping himself to those cookies!

Asher update

I feel like we have spent HOURS in doctor's offices this week...probably cause we have. :) But there is good news! Asher met with a pediatric cardiologist- his EKG's and Echocardiogram came back totally normal! What that means is that they can take Long QT Syndrome off the table of possibilities, for which we feel so relieved. In my opinion, that was worst option since it can cause sudden death. yikes. The :eh: news is that while they can't say he has VST (tachycardia), they can't say he doesn't have it either. They want Asher to continue wearing the ECAT monitor in the hopes of catching an episode. They taught me how to manually check his pulse if I ever suspect his heartrate is doing crazy things, but from what I understand from my sis-in-law & her son, a true tachycardia episode would be nearly impossible to count.

Since he currently has a clean cardio record, they cleared him for surgery on the 16th of this month. Asher will have his tonsils & adenoids removed & a new set of tubes put in. He currently has complete conductive hearing loss in his right ear, as well as sleep apnea- which could account for the purple hands/feet/lips he wakes up with. It might even explain what happened last Sunday morning.

The caridologist did suggest we see a neurologist to check out something called "staring seizures"..just to make sure we've covered all our bases.

So that's it! I'm feeling so much better about things...This upcoming week we don't have anything going on. I think our little family needs a week like that, just to normalize a bit. It's been really hard to try and comfort Asher throughout this process & attend to his (understandable) clingy-ness & occ. mood swings. It's been even harder to do that & make sure I spend lots time letting Collin know how much he is loved & not over-looked.

Anyway, thanks for all your well wishes & prayers...it truly means a lot. And just so this post isn't without some pictures, here are some that I love of Collin:

Asher in the Hospital

This past weekend marked a scary time for us. Asher was admitted to the hospital  after waking up Sunday morning looking like this:

He had woken up twice the night before cyring & saying that he hurt, but he couldn't tell us where. Aside from the purple hands & feet, he was lethargic & barely responsive. His hearbeat seemed rapid for a kid who was passed out in our arms. Upon arrival at the ER the attending doctor took one look at him and guessed he might have meningitis- which would mean a spinal tap. But he decided to do some bloodwork first and examine other possibilities. They never were able to run bloodwork on him- for whatever reason his veins were constricting and blown. They made 19 stick attempts on him that day. 19. On a child. With no aenesthesia. I'm mad at myself for letting them try that many times on him...but hindsight is 20/20 and we were desperate to know what was happening to our little guy.

They then ran an EKG, which came back with an abnormality twice. This led the doctors to think that it wasn't meningitis at all, but a cardio issue. (Possibly a condition called Long QT Syndrome) They started throwing around frightening questions like, "Anyone in the family- however distantly related- die suddenly? Any SIDS? Congenital Heart Disease?" I had thought all the answers to those questions was "No!" But we found out that Nate had a cousin who died at 4 months old of congenital heart disease. And eventhough it isn't supposed to be a family genetic thing- we have a nephew with Tachycardia.

Long story short, Asher is home now but he has to wear a 24/7 heart monitor. It's almost funny how hard it is to keep him attached to the thing. :)

I won't lie and deny that there haven't been times when I shut myself in the bathroom to bawl my eyes out. But the exhaustion & emotions of a few days ago are wearing off & being replaced by a strong determination and even optimism to find & fix whatever may be wrong with Asher's little body.

We have our first appt with a pediatric cardiologist tomorrow afternoon...let's pray it goes well. To our family who have been praying for him throughout this process- thank you thank you thank you. Those prayers have been felt & answered.