Merry Christmas to everyone (Happy Holidays no matter what Holiday you celebrate!!! I know I have some Jewish readers also!)

This has been a very interesting Christmas. The first Christmas in 27 years that I haven't done the whole family thing. It's just Charles, Chip, me and ofcourse we can't forget baby Skyla (she won't let me forget .. lol .. she keeps kicking me .. she's gonna be a martial artist or a Rockette one with all these high kicks).

There are several reasons for why we aren't doing the family thing. For one my mother is in Georgia with her husband and his kids (a whole nother post there!!! GRRRR.. I can't get over how she keeps asking me when I am coming to see their new house!!! Um hello mom .. did you forget I'm on bedrest to try keep me and your only granddaughter safe and sound and maybe a 6 hour car ride isn't the best thing in the world for us right now?). My brother is spending his little boys first Christmas at their house in Greensboro, which is totally understandable, their first Christmas only comes once. As for all the other family functions that we have been invited to that we are skipping alot of it has to do with the bedrest and my low sodium diet. I stay so tired and exhausted all the time and I am not supposed to really do anything so traveling to family members places and doing the whole loud hectic Christmas thing well it would probably be too much for me this year. Not to mention thanks to my diet .. I couldn't eat anything anyone cooked if we did go .. because no one on either sides of our families does the whole low sodium thing .. so it would totally be torture for me not getting to eat anything. I tried eating at Thanksgiving thinking one meal wouldn't kill me .. it sent my blood pressure sky high and I got dizzy and almost threw up. So I learned my lesson then. Another reason is we have been having crazy weather in NC lately .. hot cold hot cold and it's prime sick weather and with the flu going around and me still not having been able to get my flu shot we just didn't want to risk it. After miscarrying 4 days after getting the flu last year .. well we are a little paranoid .. even though I am much farther along now with Skyla .. we are just scared to take a chance.

I am a little sad not to be seeing so much of my family this year .. some of which I only get to see once or twice a year anyways. But all in all .. knowing that I have my wonderful husband here with me, my son who is the light of my life , and Skyla my little miracle growing strong inside my belly .. I have everything I ever wanted for Christmas this year.

Our 25 week U/S!!!!

We finally found out the sex (after 4 ultrasounds). The ultrasound looked great.
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A beautiful healthy baby girl!!!! OMG .. I can't even get over it. I really really wanted a girl, but I was scared to get my hopes up because I didn't want to be dissapointed. So the baby's name is Skyla Rayann (finally after 5 years get to use the name .. woo hoo). The u/s was great!!! She is absolutely beautiful (no longer have a scanner and camera batteries are dead so you will have to take my word for it). She is measuring just right for our due date of April 3rd every except she has long legs (they are measuring like a week or so ahead of dates). I got to see a great shot of her face .. and I think she is going to look like Chip. I am so thrilled. Dr. decided not to put me on BP meds just yet and I don't have to go back until 2 more weeks!!! All in all a wonderful wonderful day. And the best Christmas present I have ever gotten.

Yesterday's crappy Dr. appt

Still don't really know anything. Yesterday's appt SUCKED A$$. Charles and I dropped Chip off at Melissa's house to play with the girls for what we thought would be a couple hours (Melissa was so sweet to keep him!!!) so we could go to the appt. and find out whether or not they were going to put me on BP meds. First off I peed in the cup. They took my BP .. it was 142 over 82 which wasn't as bad as on Tuesday but still not great. Then they tell me that I still have protein in my urine and now I have large Keytones and that I am dehydrated and need to drink lots of water. So they make me drink water. Then it's well over an hour and a half before we get seen by the resident Dr. We talk to her and she goes over all my medical history and how I am doing .. and she listens for the baby. Sneaky baby .. still took over 20 minutes to find with the doppler but sounded great. Then regular Dr. came in .. and we talked some more about my medical history. They still don't know yet whether they want to put me on meds yet. They want a more conclusive test on the proteins. They made me pee in a cup again before leaving. Then they wanted a 24 hour urine collection. But at this point it's too late in the day to do so. So they schedule me for today to come in. Then she want's blood work. So they send me to the lab for labwork. Well the lab was backed up because of only one woman there and they were having problems with something that had happened a week before and lab results getting lost (great huh? real reassuring). So she called for another phlebotamist. When finally it gets my turn I apologize in advance for any trouble my veins give her. So she sticks the needle in .. then has to dig around because the vein rolled. She finally get's the vein. Gets about a vile and a half of blood (they wanted like 4 viles) and the vein collapses. So then she had to stick me in the main vein in my hand. OUCHIES!!! It hurt really bad. But she was able to get the rest of the blood. So by the time all this was over ... we had spent 4.5 hours at Duke. I felt so bad that we had been gone so long but I hadn't stuck Melissa's phone # in my purse (DUMB ME!!) and couldn't call her to let her know what was going on. So we go pick up Chip. Apologize to Melissa for not calling and letting her know what was going on. We head home .. My explorer starts over heating (this is wondeful because Charles's car needed fixing but he hadn't fixed it because he was going to Dr. with me). So he started fixing the broken hose on my explorer this morning. He gets it all put back together and then test drives it .. and realizes another hose is broken. ARGH .. So I had to call and cancel my appt for today, and reschedule it for Monday because that would give Charles time to fix the car this weekend. Well when I called the receptionist said I can get you an appt for the 17th!!!! I was like look my Dr. wants to see me ASAP .. I'm only not going today because I have no ride!!! I said let me speak to my Dr. since you can't seem to help me. She was like I can't do that, but I can let you speak to the Nurse line. So she transfers me and I get the voice mail for the nurse. So the nurse calls me back in like 5 minutes (now that's some service .. normally at other places it takes like an hour to get a call back). The nurse was very sweet and said that she could get me in at 8:45 am on Monday. She did tell me that my labwork looked good from yesterday but Dr. still wanted me to come back in on Monday. So there's my story .. we still don't have any news really about whether I'm going to be on BP meds or not. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

So I'm on bedrest now.

Went for my BP check today at Duke. It was 147/91 and they made me do a urine test and I now have protein in my urine. So I am on bedrest now and have to go back Thursday afternoon to see the Dr. If they can't get my bp down with bedrest it may mean I have to go on Blood pressure medicine for the rest of the pregnancy to try to keep it under control. It's so crazy .. my blood pressure is so good when I am not pregnant .. but get me pregnant ..and it goes through the roof. If you are the praying type say some prayers for me and little bit that we get this blood pressure thing under control. I will be 23.5 weeks pregnant like tomorrow and we still have a ways to go to get this kiddo big enough and healthy enough to be born.