Baby Stuff and Randomness

Well it's been a few weeks and while I'm still nauseous 75% of the time with headaches plaguing 50% of that time I thought I'd take some time to post. DH has been gone for over 2 weeks now but is due back no later than this Friday. The boys are really missing him and can't understand that he will be home in just a few days. You'd think I was telling them that he's not going to be home for a year the way the react. The last 2 weeks have been very trying. The house is a disaster. No, literally a disaster- there is stuff everywhere, I have been so sick that I haven't been able to get things done and when I do feel good I'm doing the bare minimum, like dishes and some laundry so we have clean clothes, but not picking up toys or coloring books and crayons or balls of yarn that the kids have decided to throw at each other. Last week I did clean most of the kitchen- everything but the island, that thing is going to need a miracle- I even got down on my hands and knees, okay so I sat on my bum most of the time but that's not the point, and I scrubbed to floor clean. I bought 2 different mop heads cause I couldn't remember what I needed for our mop but neither of them fit and the floor had to be cleaned. It was so beautiful for about 3 days then one day the boys went outside dug in the dirt for about an hour then came inside wearing half the yard in their shorts and then the dog- well need I say more? I wasn't going to be doing any projects this month with Ben gone but, after reading one of the blogs that I read faithfully I just had to start a project. She pointed me to this blog which does wonderful mission projects. So I started a blanket and will be starting a hat and maybe booties if I can get at least halfway done with the blanket by the weekend. I wish I was a faster knitter/crocheter cause I would love to make a million layette sets for this project. But Alas, I am not too quick with the stitch so one set will have to do. So on the baby front, I haven't had any more issues with bleeding so I'm very happy about that. I go in the 8th for my 16 wk appointment and hopefully we will be able to find out the sex. The other day as I was listening to the heartbeat I thought I might have heard 2 heartbeats. I listened again later that night and could get two different beats again but if there are 2 we will find out in just over a week I guess. I have had three ultra sounds so far and none of them showed another baby but they also didn't really do a lot of moving around to check for 2. The last one that I had showed another sac like structure but the doc didn't press in to see it closer (mostly because it was a vaginal US and I was bleeding and my cervix was really hurting with the probe pushing on it). I haven't gained any weight so far but I am huge. I've had to wear maternity pants since 6 weeks pg, it could be just because this is #4 or it could be that there are 2 babies in here. Which ever it is, 1 or 2, I think I'll be okay. Although an extra baby will make it extra hard to keep up with the house, but if it is 2 then the next few months will be spent getting this house to the bare minimum (not like it doesn't need to happen anyway but it will happen a lot sooner). We never got to have a yard sale and I'm thinking that we wont be having one anytime soon so when Ben gets home he's loading it all up and taking it to the Salvation Army. I really wanted to be able to use the money from the sale to help out with cloth diapering stuff but right now I think just getting the stuff out of the garage is more important. I'm getting so frustrated with all the stuff everywhere, I don't want the kids to grow up in clutter like I did. This is such a hard curse to break out of. My mom grew up in a mess, so we ended up living in a cluttered mess and now my sister and I tend to have a lot of clutter and have a hard time keeping things cleaned up. So this summer things are going to change. We are going to clear out the junk and not buy anything else till it's all gone, and then only what we really need. I'm hoping that we can get a new couch this fall when we get our bonus but I'm not holding my breath, I also want a new camera so that's going to take a large chunk of the money and we need some stuff for the baby (and if there's 2 well, that's another bed, extra diapers etc etc) Well that's all I have time to write about and I'm sorry if it's really boring stuff. I hope to have some better post soon but I can't promise anything as there are 3 kids running around here and a baby inside still making me sick and a crazy house that seems to get messed up without anyone in it. I'll do what I can when I can I promise you that much. Thank you to anyone that actually reads my blog, not sure just how many people read it or would want to but I'm going to keep posting just in case there is someone that reads it and someday I actually say something profound and a life is changed. God Bless you all Jenn

Just a quick pic

I made a dress for Mia on Saturday night out of a pillowcase that I got from Ben's dad while home this past February. My friend Lauren inspired me to get going on it when she made this dress for her daughter.

So without many more words here it is.... This was super easy other than working with the elastic. I used Lauren's suggestion of incasing the elastic for the waist band before sewing it into the dress. It really helped and I'm sure it made it a lot more comfortable for her to wear. I plan on making a headband out of the rest of the fabric. So that's it.

Trying to take pictures

The following was typed last Friday May 22nd. I was trying to get a couple of pictures taken but didn't get it done till today. I know that it is wordy, I haven't been able to really grasped the ability to be concise. Thank you for bearing with me as I learn to write more fluently.

This past week has been really a rough one. On Sunday night (17th)I started bleeding. I was no doubt terrified. I called the doc Monday morning and I went in to see them but the person scheduling the appointment messed up and scheduled it with the nurse as a first appointment instead of with the doc or the NP. (and if you know anything about military hospitals they basically suck when it comes to fitting an emergency walk-in in at the clinic) So they sent me down to the urgent care clinic where I waited for almost an hour in a makeshift dental/optometry room. When the doctor finally walked in he looked at me with a smile on his face and said "how are you doing today?" so of course my response was, " What?! How could you ask me that? have you not looked at my chart?" He said, "Well maybe I should leave and come back and we can be nice." I about lost it on him! I mean really, how could someone walk into the room of woman who is terrified that her baby is gone and ask with a smile how they are doing? And then get mad when she get upset and starts crying?! When they finally moved me to a real room the nurse came in and told me that OB clinic wanted the doc there at the UC clinic to do a pelvic, I of course told her that I did not want to see that man again and wanted to wait for the OB. So she told the doctor and he came in anyway. He started talking and then looked to his left and saw Ben and the kids sitting there and said, with complete shock on his face and in his voice, "Oh, you're here" -Yeah my husband came with me to the doctor. He told me that it was fine that I waited for OB but that they needed to start the lab work. He walked over to me to check my heart and lungs and when he finished, he asked why my heart was tacky. I don't know why would my heart be running on the fast side? What in the world could have made it do that- Maybe because YOU were in the room with me- Of course I did not say that to him as I didn't want to tick him off anymore. The tech came in and drew blood then I had to pee in a cup and all that jazz, then they sent me back down to OB- 2hours after I was scheduled to see someone and after my pulse rate started climbing. Ben left to go pick up Nathian from school and then the nurse called me back. My pulse had slowed down a bit but was still above 100. She took me to my room I got ready for the doc, he came in and ran the pelvic, and told me that there was no more active bleeding and that he didn't feel anything unusual. He did an internal US and he turned the screen toward me and there she was, my perfect little peanut with a beautiful flicker in the center of her chest. I couldn't help but cry. Heart rate of 160, absolutely perfect. Well with all the stress of that morning I didn't eat much, then after it was over, I couldn't eat I was too excited. By dinner I could only choke down a bite of food. I woke up so nauseous Tuesday morning, throwing up 4 times before noon. Every time I put a bite or a drink in my mouth it came back out along with anything else that was in my stomach. I called the nurse and asked her just how long she thought I should wait before coming in (when this happened while I was pregnant with Lincoln I waited 2 or 3 days before letting Ben take me in) and she told me that if I couldn't keep down a plan baked potato to get in and get an IV and some meds. And that is what I did. After calling Ben home to take Nathian to his speech eval at 1, and throwing up again at 2, I ate the potato around 4 and thought that I was feeling fine, but I thought wrong. About 20 minutes after it went down it came back, by 445 I was at the Urgent care again, and wouldn't you know it, they were so busy. They got me back and weighed me in- I had already lost 3 lbs since Monday. It took about 40 minutes to get the IV but I wasn't really feeling sick during that time. I didn't mind the wait because there were 3 little ones in there that needed to have IV's also and they needed them more and sooner then me. They filled me up with the fluid then gave me the meds in the IV line then once again I had to peeinacup, then about 30 minutes later they sent me home. I went straight to McD's for some fries and a cheese burger. I have been feeling pretty good ever since, unless I get hungry. I hope that wasn't too much information for you and if you're still with me I promise the rest of the post will be about some of the projects I've been working on.

Okay so I know I said that I would post over a week ago but I haven't been able to get pics done for the post so I've been putting it off. But now I'm going to post even if I don't get the pics up right now.

I decided that with the new baby we are going to try our hands at cloth diapers. When Nathian was born we did use cloth at the very begining but he was throwing up so much (he had pyloric stenosis) that I used the diapers to catch all that mess and bought disposables for the bum. Now that I've had 3 kids and used disposables with each of them I decided that I didn't want to keep up that trend. I want to do something better not only for my kids body, but also for the earth that we call home. So with that said I've been working on knitting wool soakers for her. I have two finished so far. (now I'm almost finished with one that MckMama would be so proud of.)They really worked up fast, the hardest part for me is knitting the first row using the circular needles. I decided to try to first put them on double points then take them off with the circle the first needle change. The newborn size is just so small until the ribbing starts taking shape to have on the circulars without stretching it too much.

I'm also starting to make some diapers themselves. I haven't decided which ones I really want to use as there are so many out there but I figure that I can make a few contoured ones and a few pocket ones, and buy one pack of flat folds, then I can decide within the first week which ones I really like. I think that I will like the contoured one best but I want to try others to make sure that is what I really want to use. I'm going to also sew some covers with some wool sweaters that I bought at GoodWill. I'm going to hit the Salvation Army when they have their half price day and try and find a few more wool items and flannel sheets/blankets. I would love to find some wool flannel at a thrift shop but so far no luck. I'll wait till I get a 50%off coupon from JoAnn's and some extra money (October) and go buy a bolt.

What else have I been up to?...... Well I finished a purse for my best friend. I am working on a wallet to go with it but me and zippers don't get along that well so I've been procrastinating for the last week. So while I was procrastinating I started on a new purse for me. The one that I made a while back has been used and abused and I just need one that is a bit taller with more pockets and in a much more wearable color. I'm going to try and put together a tutorial when I start to work it (it's been cut but it's all just stacked together at this point).

I started a new dress for myself. I bought a dress at Target last summer that fits really well, but it hits just above the knee and even though it will fit throughout the HOT season here I think as the belly gets bigger the front will start to rise too much. So I started making a long one. It has a peasant look to it with an elastic shirred empire waistband. As I get it to a photogenic point I'll post a few pics.

Thank you for reading and I hope I didn't bore you too much. I will post pics very very soon. This time I really mean it.

Has it been too Long?

It has been a long time since I have posted anything. Not that things haven't been happening and I haven't been doing things but I just haven't been feeling up to posting. I've been reading so many other blogs and spending so much time on Facebook that I just haven't wanted to post and quite frankly didn't think there was much that anyone would want to read.

I so often feel like I'm a nobody doing nothing worthwhile. And even though I still kind of feel that way I figure that maybe someone will read my blog and be inspired, who knows?. But even if no one ever reads it I will have a jornaling of a that I have done and thought and wanted to do.

So for what has been going since my last post last November. . . .

Well, I made a king size quilt for our

neighbors who moved in December.

I fought with the mortgage company for almost a month because they dropped the ball on our short sale and the buyer had to finally walk and so we didn't sell the house.

Had a very small Christmas for the kids since Ben was still gone. I found a surrogate company on New Years day that I started communicating with, and in turn got connected with a woman who was wanting a surrogate to carry a child for her. Ben finally came home in the middle of January. We went home in February and also met the Intended mom in Indiana. We also spent the morning with our old neighbors who moved in December and delivered the quilt. We had family pictures taken while in Illinois and then while in Tennessee we lost our prints somewhere. In March we started on the fast track towards surrogacy. I regestared for a Doula class at the end of March here in Fresno and scheduled my first appointment with the Fertility doctor. Went to the Doctor on the 27th and had my IUD removed. Went to my doula training that night and all weekend. Met some amazing girls at the training. Our instructors were Christian women who have been in the birth world for 30+ years. Also all the girls at the training were Christians, and not just the "sure I'm a christian" kind of christians but real honest to goodness sold out God fearing believers. That basically leads us to around today.

So more about the surrogacy. Well after the appointment on the 27th I started getting this really weird feeling about it all. So I talked to Ben about it and he had not had a settled feeling about the whole thing for a while but didn't know how to tell me because he knew how much I want to be a surrogate. Well then I decided to talk to the ladies at the training on Saturday about it all and asked them to pray with me. They did and we all talked and our trainers gave me their wisdom on the subject. So when I got home on Suday night I emailed the surrogate agent and told her that we really needed some time to pray and talk about it. The next day I got an email from the mom and so I had to email the agent again because she was suppose to talk to her for me. Then the next day I got an email from the agent asking me what I wanted to do about the contracts and stuff. I didn't respond right away and so she emailed me again and the tone of the email sounded really pushy. I told her that she needed to put the contracts on hold and that we wanted to be left alone for a few days to pray and seek God's heart on this. A couple of days later I found out that the IM (intended mom) removed me from her friends list on Myspace and her status report seemed to imply that I had hurt her in someway and that she was ready to walk away. So with that and our strong feelings that this was not the right person for us to surrogate for I emailed them and told them that we couldn't continue on. (A big part of the uneasiness was that I would be using my eggs and she is 45 and single and did not have any intentions of getting married- and I did not feel like I could in all good conscience give away my child- also they were really not listening to me when I kept telling them that if I didn't get pregnant by the middle of April then I couldn't not get pregnant till September or later because of Ben's deployment schedule) So by April 5th we had completely put the surrogacy thing behind us and moved on. Well about 10 days later I starting thinking that something was up with my cycle because I had been using ovulation test to avoid getting pregnant but I didn't get a positive one till day 21 of my cycle which was very unusual. Not only that but I got a positive one 3 days in a row- again strange because you only have one hormone surge no more than 36 hours before you ovulate- however the hormone that releases the egg is almost identical to the hormone released when an egg is fertilized and an ovulation test will pick it up too. Well, so, on the 15th (day 22) I took a preg test but it basically came back neg- basically because there was no line until after the 10 minute window and even then the line was very very faint. So I waited, I even ordered more ovulation test on Thursday. I received my test on Saturday along with 5 pregnancy test. Sunday morning I bit the bullet (after taking an ovulation test everyday all with very positive results) and although still faint it was definantly positive. I had no clue how I was going to tell Ben, he did not want any more kids. On Tuesday I took Lincoln to his 4 yr physical and since we were at the hospital I went to the OB clinic and they put an order for me take a blood test. I walked over gave them a vial then took Lincoln back to the peds clinic. He had a great physical and then we walked back down to the OB clinic and got the results of the test. And yes I was indeed prego again. That night while laying in bed I just blurted out "I'm Pregnant". Ben was in stunned silence for about 5 minutes. We talked about it for a little while and then finally we said goodnight with out really making anything positive happen. We didn't really talk about it again for a few days then finally he asked me what we were going to name her. SO it is starting to sink in and he's coming to terms with it all.

Now I know that this hasn't been a very inspirational post and it probably didn't send anyone out to buy fabric and start creating something great but at least now I am up to date and I can just start posting all the stuff that I'm doing.

So till tomorrow (or maybe Sunday night since I will be very busy tomorrow with a birthday party and dinner with Ben's new boss I will be pretty ready for bed by the time we walk in the door) But I have been working on a lot of stuff that I can't wait to share.

Have a great night everyone and to all the moms that may read this have a very wonderful Mother's day. God Bless.

Lender nor Borrower Be

Okay, I need to vent a little bit. Well as some of you know we have a home in Florida that we have been trying to sell since Millie was 2 1/2 days old. Well with the market the way it is we had two choses - forclose or Short sale. of course we opted for the less damaging option of a short sale. We got a buyer in June and were to close on July 26th. Here is were the trouble started...Our approval for the short sale expired just before the closing was scheduled and even though the lender knew that there was a closing scheduled they closed the short sale file anyway. So we had to send in updated income and living details also military status and orders. Well for three months now our loss midigations guy with our real estate agency and I have been calling daily and weekly (I can only talk to these people so much before I decide to drive to LA and make them listen to me so I only call once a week) to figure out the status of the approval. Well even though NOTHING has changed in the paper work they decided that since we had signed over signing authority to someone in Florida - someone who can only sign the closing papers on our behalf so that papers don't have to be shipped to us (and since Ben is over seas) and we don't have to find a notary and pay another notary (and they make up to $300 for a closing-I am a notary) that they can't approve the short sale. Well the truth is they don't have a copy of the actual paper that states exactly what this guy is allowed to do because it is a private doc. They only have the info that tells them that this guy will be signing all closing documents on our behalf. The lending people have been so tight lipped over this, because every time we would call they would tell us that it was waiting for a signature from management or that it was in review. Well a week ago Friday I called in the morning to find out what was going on and I was told that the negociator was reviewing everything because she was newly assigned to it and she needed to make sure that everything was in line because her name was on it. The rep that I spoke to sent her an email asking her to call me - She didn't. SO I called that afternoon and spoke to someone else and she told me the same thing and said that she was going to send her another email I asked her to send another one too tell her that this needed to be expidited because we have buyers who are about to walk because they have been waiting for such a long time. She said that she sent her another one (but who knows) - once again I never heard back. Now today I called and I was sent to the late stage foreclosure department. I was told that the short sale was denied because of the signing agents papers. they think that he somehow has authority over the selling of our home. Now you can see how all of this can be very frustrating. It wasn't like we weren't trying to help them get this thing done, we've been calling they just REFUSSED to talk to us. All of this could have been dealt with back in August and our house in Florida would no longer be ours but someone elses. I would have about a billion pounds of stress lifted off my shoulders and I think that I would have been able to handle the stress of careing for my MSC (many small children -thanks MckMama) much better had I not had this cloud over us. So now we are once again waiting for them to tell us what we have to do to get this thing back so that we can close on this house and get out from under it. I will be calling them this afternoon to find out if the supervisor has found out anything. They do have to pull it out of forecloser because of or military status and Ben being deployed right now so at least we know that we don't to worry about that. The biggest problem with all of this that Ben's credit has taken a huge hit and the longer we have to wait the worse it will get. So if I may ask all of you who read my blog (and thank you for reading by the way) to pray pray pray. Pray for favor with this Supervisor that she would see the urgency of the situation. And for speed of finalization of the approval so we can close quickly. Thank you all for taking the time to join your faith with ours (and by the way my faith has been very weak lately because of a lot of junk happening) Jenn

**UPDATED** I think my mind is almost gone

So it seems like everyone is having babies around me and I'm am behind the curve with getting all the gifts done. I made one diaper bag but i will probably be using it myself because it's not very practical as a first diaper bag, and I didn't put anything to make it stiff so it really wont hold too much in the places you want it. (I think it will hold my yarn and needles well though.)

I just finished another one but forgot to take a pic of the finished product before taking to church today to give it to Emily. I do however have pics of the fabric which is absolutely beautiful water silk (I have no real clue what that means in fabric terms but I do know that it is washable) brocade, that I got from WalMart for $1 a yard. I Bought the whole bolt and two other bolts of two different prints one is a brocade the other is a stamped silk. I am making one more diaper bag for another mommy (who just had her baby on Tuesday).

This is the main body of the bag before it was all finished. I'll take pics of the next one for sure.

I have also been working on crocheting boxes from grocery bags. Our church is having a fund raiser for a mission trip to Africa next summer. It is a "Green" sale, everything is handmade using recycled material. The first sale is this weekend. We are looking at trying for another come December and maybe another in the spring.

I also have three pumpkins so far,

and cotton (although only one of the balls have have actually popped open to reveal its soft white fibers.

There are also a bunch of carrots that I will be picking after our first frost ( thanks Amy for the info on the carrots being better after a frost) I am really excited to harvest my sweet potatoes. If the amount of vining is any indication of whats going on under the dirt then there is a plethora of spuds in there I've already had to cut them back 3 times because they were over taking the pumpkins.

In other news. We are half way done with deployment. The past 3 months have gone by pretty fast, but the last 3 will take longer. Like the road trip across 4 states- the last hour always takes the longest. I am ready for him to be home so that I can get some real sleep. I am so tired, I don't remember the last time I was this tired. I don't even think that I was this tired after each birth.

So since I am so tired I am going to head off to bed. I will update this tomorrow with pics of everything.

**Update** I forgot to add that we have a new addition to our family. His name is Charelston Chew. We don't know exactly what he is but his mom was some sort of shepard.

Good Night

A Fantastic Blog

my friend Lauren turned me to this blog and it is great. If you have every wondered why bad things happen and how a good loving God could let it happen then you have to read this blog. When you go to the page click on the link at the left to start at the begining. And don't forget the kleenex. It took me just over one evening to read the whole thing. I hope it touches you like it has touched me and so many others. God Bless you all