updates on pregnancy, moving, life

last week i felt good.. surprisingly good actually for being 37 weeks pregnant. In fact I was thinking this baby must be coming late because you always feel like you couldn't possibly be more miserable a good week before the baby makes an entrance. Well I am now in that boat. This week has been awful. Starting wed i got some nasty virus with diarrhea and projectile vomiting. After a whole night of this I tried to drink a sip of water at 5 am that resulted in vomiting and ten minutes of violent dry heaving so much so that i broke blood vessels in my face. Now sporting some new red freckles i finally called in to my midwife and she told me to head up for some fluids and to check baby. Once there at 6 am and hooked up to the IV i was given some phenegren (sp?) for the nausea... ahhhhh sweet relief. At which point i also wondered why i didn't go up sooner! Since then I have been nauseated a bit, but mostly weak and tired. My whole body aches and I just want the baby OUT. Last night in the bed i was so uncomfortable and had to have Cory help me roll over because my hips have separated and i cant maneuver myself anymore. Its really quite pathetic. So now that I have entered the " I cant stand to be pregnant one more day" phase i hope the baby comes out in a week or so... You also know you are ready to have the baby when you think about all that labor is and how much it hurts and is awful and you STILL would rather do it then stay pregnant. With my long marathon labors that is saying alot. I have a NST on Monday to check on baby, and again on wed with a midwife apt too. Will let you know if anything happens.

Now onto the next part of my life that is giving me anxiety and stress. Cory got the letter from the FAA and the position is in Midland Texas. Where you ask?? Well its in west Texas halfway between El paso and Fort Worth.

If you ever saw the movie Friday night lights it was filmed there, as well as based on their high school football. Its a dryer climate, but still hot most of the year. I don't know much else about it really. Cory has been busy trying to get all the background paperwork done as well as the tests. He has already don't the drug test, and on Monday is his medical. Already did the fingerprint cards and other paperwork needed. Assuming he passes all these he will be getting a final offer letter with his start date at the academy in Oklahoma. We know this will last 3 months based on the facility he is going to. The kids and I would go with him to Oklahoma and then strait from there to Texas afterwards. From what i can find online it looks like he will be going in September.. but it all depends on how long they take to do his back ground. More info on this all if he gets hired. No use in boring you all with every detail i have learned from scouring the internet ( well not yet anyways!)

I am excited for the job opportunity, and even to go and live somewhere new and for the adventure that will be. I am dreading selling our house. We have only lived here one year. Housing prices have not gone up at all since we bought and the market is real slow right now. Which means we don't have any equity to pay for things like a realtor or the buyers closing costs or anything. In fact last year when we bought we payed our whole closing costs ourselves.. but based on the people that are selling now in our neighborhood, I guess buyers expect you to pay some if not all of it now. Not sure how this is going to work... but i am hoping we can sell this house without ending up it 10,000 of debt! With the expensive move to another state I just dont want to dig us into a deep hole of debt.. ugh!

Of course i keep telling myself not to panic.. as we are not positively moving yet. And I am 9 months pregnant so everything seems so overwhelming right now. I am trying to just think about the baby and nothing else till after the birth.

And more pictures...

A woman in my ward at church does photography out of a studio in her basement. I was lucky enough to win a free photo shoot in a service auction we had at church! Here is a small sampling of the pictures we got out of it.

Theo was not a big fan of this photo shoot. He was cutting molars that day and just a cranky pants to start with. Couple that with the fact that he wanted to run away, hated sitting in the chair, and we had the hardest time getting any sort of smile out of him!

Porter did really well, smiled on command and was just adorable. Its always nice when your kids are old enough to bribe! All we had to say was hold still and smile and then you can have some candy!

summer time...

Thought i better throw some pics on here for my out of state family, since i know they will want to see them! These first ones are from the Zoo. They just added this new carousel.
Nana and Theo.. He is terrified of actually riding on the animals so they just sat and rode.
This is on the train they have there.. Behind me and the boys is my cousin Heidi with her son. They were in town and visited with us for a few days.

Porter really likes the snakes.. no idea why!

The big elephant.. it sprays water out of its spout. Its right by the real elephants, but porter was much more interested in this one.


Theo checking out the giraffes while Nana puts his shoe back on.
Looking at the alligators.

Playing in the pool in the backyard. The boys love it! This day I actually put on my swim suit and was playing with them.. but spared you all from having to see two whales in the pictures! I am sure the neighbors enjoyed the show if they looked out the windows!

I was taking a belly picture on the mirror and took a quick picture of porter while in there.. he looks so grown up!

Mmmmm watermelon! Both the boys love it! We have to eat it outside though because it seems to get everywhere.... Theo's whole front is soaked in sticky pink juice by the time he is done!

Air Traffic Control Job Update

Cory interviewed today for the air traffic control position in Texas. He interviewed with a woman at the salt lake location. He said it went really well. They gave him a tour of the facility and after that and talking with her for over an hour Cory is really optimistic that he would enjoy this line of work. The location in Texas has not been set in stone yet, but we will keep you posted. We are hoping for El Paso since its the closest to Utah ( 13 hour drive) so it would be the easiest to move to as well as cheapest for visits home as the other locations are too far to drive with three kids in the back!

The next step is a background check.. one of those government ones where they want to know everything about you from the past seven years. ( every address you lived at, job you worked, your finances, parking tickets, everything!) We are not too worried about this part, since Cory hasn't had any problems with the law or anything. It will just be tedious to fill out since he has had 7 addresses in this time period as well as multiple jobs and you have to have two references from every single place with current phone numbers so they can call and harass them about all your dirty secrets! lol. He also will be getting a letter in the mail about where and when to report for a medical screen. After the two of these he will have a psych test done as well. Once he hopefully passes all of the above then he will get a final offer letter that will disclose the location and also his date to start at the academy in Oklahoma for his three to four months of training.

So you now you know about as much as me! Which is not much, but we are just pleased that things are moving along. We just hope they don't move along too fast, since I am due in 6 weeks and i want him here for that!

In the meantime he actually got a promotion at his current job along with a nice 4,000 raise so we are glad that we can finally get me that van regardless of what happens! Good thing too since this little boy will be here soon and we have no where to put his car seat!

NST ( Non Stress Test)

Some of you have asked about how these have been going so I thought I would just post about them. The reason I get NST is because I have had a stillborn because of a placenta problem. The NST measures the baby's heart rate and also amniotic fluid both of which are impacted from the placenta so if they usually can tell if baby is doing okay in there. I get mine done at the University of Utah hospital up on the second floor the same place that the ultrasounds are located, just across the hall from labor and delivery. They have you sit in a lazy boy type chair and first they have me recline it all the way back. Then then they use a little ultrasound machine to measure the amniotic fluid levels. I also get to have a peek at my little boy ( yep still a boy! He likes to show us the goods every time) They check his position and then put a heart rate monitor on him. Also they put a contraction monitor on because if i have one they like to see how it affects his heart rate. They tell you the test takes 20-40 minutes. What they are looking for is his heart rate to accelerate twice in a 20 minute period and then return to baseline. The heart rate accelerates usually when the baby moves, just like ours does if we ran up the stairs. While I am waiting I also am supposed to push this little button every time I feel him move and it makes a mark on the paper strip that the other things are recorded on. I can choose to either sit up for this or stay partly reclined but turned to the side with pillows supporting my belly and back. I usually recline and then read a magazine or chat with the lady doing my checks. I know her pretty well by now since she did all of mine with Theo twice a week for 2 months!

So yesterday I had a NST. I hurried up there as soon as Cory came home to watch the kids. I was late so instead of taking the elevator i walked up three flights of stairs from the parking lot, and then another two flights in the hospital. I got lots of looks from strangers.. but hey just because i am pregnant doesn't mean my legs are broken! I got up to the second floor, used the restroom, and got settled in my chair. She got me in there and hooked up, then got me a cup of water because i was sooooo thirsty! I love water at the hospital, because they have this ice that is little balls and I love to chew it. I sat there for about 30 minutes.. she kept checking the monitor print out and sat there right by it after a bit. By 60 minutes I was starting to wonder why i was still there?? I could feel him moving around a bunch, so I assumed they had lots of good accelerations. With Theo my problem was he would sleep and be lazy so his heart rate would not go up and they had to wake him with a buzzer. So this baby being awake and kicking i thought would produce a quick session. She called over the other lady that works in that area to look at my read out. They talked about it for a bit both acting concerned. The woman that does mine has been working there for 31 years, so i assumed she could have read the results on her own by now and was a little worried she needed to talk to the other nurse! I asked what the deal was as i could see the print out and it looked like a tight zig zag so i knew his heart rate was fluctuation and didn't see the problem. They told me that it just keep going from 130 to 140 then back again. Even when he moved it just kept the same pattern.. I guess it needed to go up higher like 150 or 160 when he was moving. At this point she left me on the monitors and riped off my sheet to go show to a DR across the hall at Labor and Delivery. Of course now I am on the verge of freaking out. In all the times i saw them with Theo they only talked to the Dr once and they just called him and asked what to do and then i had a high level ultrasound since he wasn't moving. ( he was fine, just liked to sleep alot) She came back and said they were going to monitor me a bit more.. so for 30 more minutes she manually held the monitor and chatted with me. After that they consulted some more and decided to just send me home, and my next visit to have me come in the morning to see what he does then.

So of course i come home and scour the Internet to see if i can find anything about his heart rate doing that. I couldn't find a thing. This little boy likes to give his mother anxiety. I hope that he is okay in there and things just were not showing up right for some reason that is no big deal.

Porter, star wars, and name my baby!

Porter was running around the house with his two bowling balls like this. I didn't think much of it at first until he shouted " mommy look at me! I am a woman!" Hehehe.... Kids are so funny.

Porter is so big now.. I cant believe it! He is on the verge of learning to read, and he is really into spelling right now. He loves to assemble words ( with foam letters) and then asks me to pronounce them. He also will pick out letters in signs and such and then tell me what they are in... like he will see the T in exit and tell me there is one in his name too.

We went and played miniature golf on Saturday and this kid is actually good! He had a purple ball of course, and got it into every single hole on his own. He then wanted to play at the batting cages.. but I don't think he is big enough for that and all i could picture was a fun ER visit with him and a bloody face. He screamed all the way to the car over that one. Theo was there too.. but all he did was follow us around the court while carrying three balls and trying to kick our balls.

In other news.. we still have no name for this baby boy. Any and all suggestions would be great! We can not agree at all. Right now Cory likes the names Arthur and Austin and I like Preston and Elliot. I guess we need a new name we both can agree on because we are too stubborn to agree on the ones we have already. Porter wants to name the baby ArthurD2... which he thinks is the same as R2D2 from Star Wars ( he says them the same) So Cory has him on his side.. I told Cory porter doesn't get a vote!

funny side note, porter also told me " Mommy i don't want my name to be Porter " I asked what he wanted it to be then and he said count duko (not sure how its spelled...from star wars... he is a bad guy)

So yes.. Porter is just a tad bit obsessed with Star Wars right now... he loves to play fight with his light sabers, and will use the force on you ( he makes a krshhhhh sound while holding his hands up towards you) He has played the Lego star wars game on the x-box for countless hours and you would be amazed at how well a three year old can handle the controller! Its his new obsession... Cory is thrilled. Every fathers dream, right? star wars and video games.