Tidbits from Life (19w3d)

Sorry I've been such a bad, bad blogger recently! Time is flying! It always does when I start to feel better!

First, the medical details:

I am feeling really good. Ridiculously good. That is, tired, off and on nauseated, but only enough to interfere with life a couple of times a day. Our life is almost-kinda-sorta back to normal, at a slower pace. I have never, never, NEVER been through a pregnancy this easily. It is beyond crazy. Either it's a girl, or it's an incredible natural variation in pregnancies, or something is wrong, or that diet really worked. Or some synergistic combo of the above.

Meds:

Last Tuesday (18w0d) I cut out one Diclectin, down to 4 Diclectin and 20 mg Zofran per day.

This past Tuesday (19w0d) I cut out one dosage Zofran, down to 4 Diclectin and 16 mg Zofran per day.

The eventual goal is to be off meds by 25 weeks or so, earlier if I can swing it. Each time I cut a dose, I feel good and shaky for a few days, then stabilize. Trying to cut something every 5-7 days.

Current weight gain is [*censored*] pounds. Is that ridiculous, or what? Unfortunately, I do seem to gain quite a bit of weight during pregnancies when I'm not in HG. For one thing, I'm eating constantly to ward off the nausea, and when I'm not in HG, I'm not throwing it all back up (not that I'm complaining!). Secondly, when I come out of NVP, I find myself with an utterly ravenous appetite. I guess I should have known that by the fact that I still managed to gain 25 net pounds even during my HG pregnancy! So here we go again. But again, anything is preferable to HG. Weight gain, floods, tornadoes, whatever.

Some brief snapshots of what's going on around here:

- God's timing for this pregnancy has really been perfect. As a matter of fact, His timing is always perfect, but sometimes it's just more obvious than others - this is one of them! I am feeling better just in time for fall activities, and they have started just as I am ready to pick up the activity level.

- AWANA started last week, and our eldest is having a blast. AWANA is a church kids' club, where they play games, learn Bible stories and verses, and have an amazing time. It has been a tremendous blessing to our family. I highly recommend it!

- My women's Bible study also started, last night. The teacher, a friend of mine, is teaching for the first time - but goodness, it looked like she was a seasoned veteran! She took to it like a duck to water. I'm enjoying being present - I haven't done women's ministry activities in several years now.

- We finally finished watching Prince William & Kate's wedding - or at least our recording of it, which unfortunately cut off before the end. It was just lovely! With such achingly beautiful music - just lovely. To celebrate, I went out and got a copy of a biography of Princess Di from the library to read. I love biographies!!

- I am also reading a just-released book called Wheat Belly, examining the health problems associated with modern wheat strains. Great book! DH has been wanting to try a gluten-free diet for some time now, so we're going to give it a go starting tomorrow. We'll see if it's a success or not! I do have some experience with that now, having done both the very-low-carb diet and the Paleo Diet (which is grain-free). We're going to try to cut all wheat, most grains, and white sugar. If we last more than 24 hours, I'll let you know. :)

- Other books I'm reading: More Than a Carpenter, The Essential 55, The Three R's at Home, and Top 100 Picks for Homeschool Curriculum, Raising Godly Tomatoes. Also just finished High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly.

- Something I'm very, very behind on - answering emails and blog post replies. If you're waiting for me, I am so very sorry! I have been so bad.

- Last week's neurology appointment for our little dude - We saw an amazing neurologist over in Phoenix. He went over last year's brain MRI with us. Or rather, he pointed at the screen and poured forth an amazing stream of techno-babble, while we did our desperate best to nod with some semblance of intelligent understanding. The basic conclusion seems to be that while normal on the whole, our little dude's brain has some spaces where there should be tissue - lower brain volume than expected. He's going to confer with the radiologist to see if they can come up with any genetic diagnoses based on the MRI.

- This week's cardiology appointment for the little guy - Awesome! They repeated the EKG and heart echo, and then the doctor came in cheerfully and said that in his opinion, heart surgery was unnecessary. His first heart defect (PFO) is so common (in a quarter of the population) that it's not even worth calling it a defect, and his second (a PDA) is so small in extent that it's not worth repairing. And what's even better, we don't need to go back at all! So farewell to cardiology! At this point, we have shed enough specialists that we are down to pediatrics, neurology, and genetics - which is much more manageable than our original load (which included cardiology, developmental peds, GI, and some others). Hurray! Thanking God that we are not now planning heart surgery!

- Homeschooling.... I am starting to see that getting started is going to be a whole lot more complicated than I anticipated! Primarily because our little guy is so anti-academic. He's just not one of those little kids (of whom I know a lot) who just love workbooks and coloring sheets and flash cards. He is naturally allergic to all of them! I talked to another AHF (Amazing Homeschooling Friend) of mine this week, and she says that for Kindergarten she kept things mainly informal - teaching by games, by cooking, etc. - I aim to emulate her, especially considering where her kids have ended up now! (Let's see.... One is an academic genius, one is singing in Broadway musicals, one just put a rocket into near space, all are passionate about their faith, and all have the most amazing relationships with each other and with their parents. I think - YES! I'll take that! LOL!)

But it's going to take longer than I thought to get started.

Something we did last week which surprised even me - we decided against preschool for our eldest. I had already signed him up and was getting ready for school to start, but I just had a nagging feeling that it was not the right decision for this year (much as it had been the right decision for last year). Don't you have those spiritual promptings that push you in a direction you don't want to go? Dang it, I was looking forward to the free time!!! But I couldn't shake the feeling, so I talked to DH and we eventually decided to pull his registration. So we are now full-time homeschoolers, for better or worse.

There's more to write, but I am out of time! Actually, I was out of time before I started, as I slept in horribly. I guess I was just exhausted!

Oh, one final note - my appreciation truly goes out to any woman who makes it through an entire pregnancy nursing! This is NOT easy! Youch!!! :) But we forge ahead.

Have a great weekend, everyone!