Update

So, it's been just over two weeks!
Kiernan is doing very well. His jaundice is gone, and he had an infection in his eye. We got drops for that, and he's doing fine now. He's back at his birth weight, which is expected, and has grown a half inch. So he's now 9 lbs 8 oz and 23 inches. crazy! Looking at his face and just watching him move, you can tell that he's been growing, and that he's just slowly getting a better understanding of his environment. Part of the major benefit of being an early childhood major, I know some things I get to look for.

Uh oh, crying baby

just wanted to be held :)

He really is a cutie and a very calm mild baby. He only truly CRIES when he's being changed, or is being given a bath. He *HATES* baths right now, hopefully we'll find a way to make it a not so scary experience for him :)

I'm feeling great. I've lost all 50 lbs from the pregnancy weight gain that I had. That just shows how much water I was retaining, and how swollen i was. I fit back in the pants I had before I got pregnant, I thought that wouldn't happen for a couple of months, so it was a nice surprise. :)

He's starting to be able to calmly sleep in the cradle, which is nice, just need to find a night light that's bright enough for me to see things, and dark enough for Bryan to be able to sleep.

a couple of pics to enjoy :)

Wow

So Kiernan is now a week and two days old. Well technically in 2 1/2 hours, it'll be 3 days...not that I'm counting :)

Things are going well. He seems to be getting better with his jaundice. We went on Monday to have his blood tested, and it had gone up from the last time we were in the hospital. So they had us go in the next day to retest. and it had gone back down. both times, the number wasn't high enough to have us use the lights at home, so I just need to make sure he gets fed, and that he doesn't get sick in other ways (fever, not eating, etc). So far, so good. He's eating 10-12 times a day with at least 10 minutes for each session (usually it's at least 20...he's a big growing boy). Also, starting yesterday, he has started to be awake for a period of time, just looking around, listening, and taking in the sights. This is a good thing as it means he's got enough energy to be doing that instead of just sleeping through everything.

We spend Thanksgiving at my parents house. We went down on Wednesdays, and just got back tonight. It was nice to go there, and have everyone see him. It was also nice to have other people take care of him. I honestly just don't realize how tired I am. I think I'm fine, until I find myself just dozing off at random times throughout the day. I just don't feel that tired, until I get to nursing, or just simply holding him, then I tend to conk out. Unfortunately, this doesn't work as well at night :) I'm still too paranoid to be able to take my hearing aids out at night when I sleep, this explains a lot of why I'm so tired, besides the fact that I get up about every two hours to feed Kiernan. :) I'm not used to hearing sounds in my sleep at all, so to hear the baby's slightest whine or movement, i wake up and make sure he's doing ok, I now also wake up to the husband's lovely snores. :) We'll see how long keeping the hearing aids in at night lasts.

It was nice not to have to worry about doing laundry, dishes, cooking, food, and things in general when we were at my parents house. In fact, mom loved it. She felt bad that she couldn't just come and check on us everyday like her mom did. She was more than happy to have us there for three days and help us out. She really did, she held him when I needed to eat and Bryan was asleep or doing homework. She also took him today when it was very obvious that I needed to sleep (fell asleep while burping him). Even though I only slept for an hour, it seems to have made a world of a difference.

My incision isn't hurting nearly as much anymore. I'm still well aware of where it is, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much to get up from sitting down or to sit down, or to shift positions in my sleep.

Looks like Kiernan is expecting an early feeding, so off I go. :)

Home now!

This morning, the doctor came in and had a smile on his face, so I knew it was good news :) His jaundice has been going down now that he's actually nursing consistently, so there is no need, so far, to have the lights at home to help him get over the jaundice. We talked about the things I should or shouldn't due since I've had the surgery, questions I had, etc. Then the nurses took Kiernan to do one more thing for lab testing, not sure what, and didn't care since it wasn't important enough to tell me, or to cause a concern. I ate breakfast, the nurse came back with Kiernan, and we started talking about what to do before getting discharged. I was glad this was discussed, because I could basically leave whenever I wanted, which motivated me to hurry and start packing quite quickly :)

All that was left to be done for me to be discharged was to take the staples out of the incision and replace them with the "tape stitches", sign some papers, ask questions, and get a shot. All that was left for Kiernan was to get the IV out of his head, and get him dressed to go as well. the poor kid did not like the IV coming out, he has hair, and now has two bald spots because of where the tape was on the IV. The nurse who took it off said they definitely overtaped it, and later I talked to my mom and a nurse had told her they had a VERY difficult time getting an IV for him, so to be super careful. But it's out, and he's healthy, with the exception of slight jaundice.

We got home, and we all slept for a bit. It's been nice to be home, and I'm excited to have almost all of this week off (I have one class I need to attend on Tuesday for three hours, that's it though). It's also surreal to me that we now have a son in the household, and I'm loving it with every second I see him. :)

Thank you all for your help, kind words, encouragement, well wishes and prayers. They obviously have helped us a lot, and we cannot thank you enough for the support you guys have given us, even if it's just through e-mail.

Success!

He's now in the room with us! :) Just need to keep him extra hydrated because he's on the lights for jaundice, but, yay! he's here! We tried to take a picture, but the camera has some error code on it, and we're both too tired to figure it out, so we'll wait until bryan's had some sleep. I got some sleep fortunately in between the feeding times earlier tonight, so I can be awake for now to watch him...he'll just have to be patient with my response time as it takes forever to get out of bed.

one more night

Sadly, despite the hour of nursing (i suspect he was using me more for a pacifier than a food machine), his blood sugar was 52. That means we don't get him tonight *sigh*. So that's two days now, going onto day 3 that we haven't been able to keep him close to us. Yeah, I know, I get him for the rest of the time all the time when I go home, it's just...come on I just gave birth to this kid. My family doctor this morning kind of gave the attitude that she felt the dr in the hospital for kiernan was being over protective, never said anything about it, but you could tell it wasn't something she would do. After talking (read as bawling) to the nurse (blame pregnancy stuff, pain pills, what not, I just broke down when I asked her why), it seems she feels the same way as my family doctor, that this dr is just being overprotective because the blood sugar is just int he lower range of normal, not TOO low. But we shall see, he usually comes in around 8 in the morning, so I guess that's when I'll hear from him again. Kiernan is now in a bed with lights for his jaundice. Poor kid.

Birth story

This is a long post :)

Some of you know the details, some of you don't, so if it's redundant, I apologize. This is also being posted on my facebook.


The original plan was to do a vaginal birth, let it progress normally. However, the last few weeks, my blood pressure was slowly creeping up, and I was swelling a lot. Then towards the end of last week, I was getting headaches, tingling in my hands and feet, and some trace amount of protein in my urine, which meant that it was going to lead to pre-eclampsia pretty soon. I was also not dilating very fast at all, so my doctor put off induction as long as she felt comfortable doing so. When i went in on monday, she saw my blood pressure and some results from the monitoring they were doing with me at the hospital for the past two weeks, and decided it was time to induce me that week. So we got scheduled to go in the hospital the next night. We got there at 6:00 PM, they gave me cervix membrane thinning meds at 7:00. At that point, there was a change in nurses. This nurse checked on me a couple hours later, and said I was 90% effaced, and was a little more dilated, and called my doctor. She had said to go ahead with labor inducing drug. So we started it somewhere around 9ish. then there was another switch of nurses, this one was much more experienced. She checked me and said I was actually only 70% effaced, and was still just barely a one. So we had started the labor inducing drug a little too soon, but just kept it going anyway in hopes that things would improve. I could feel some contractions, but not many. i didn't get to sleep until about 4:30 because I was so anxious, and excited. My doctor stopped by at 8 AM, and checked me. I was still a 1, maybe a 1.2, and a little more effaced, but not quite 90% yet. She decided to break my water to make things go faster. All this time, we're gradually increasing the drug, the max level they normally go at is 20, and once I got to that point, I had asked for an epidural, because the contractions were getting strong, and I was feeling sick. Once I got the epidural, things were great and dandy for me. I was checked again several times, by 5:00, I was dilated to a 2.8, and 90% effaced. My doctor was going to a concert, and when she got back around 11:00, I was a 3+ and 90%. The problem at this point was that my blood pressure was now increasing, and I had a fever. The fever is what made them really worried, so the schedule the c-section, and about 40 minutes later i was in the operating room getting the surgery.

The surgery was hard. they had said it would be about an hour, turned out to be longer than that for two reasons. I was losing a ton of blood because my fatty tissue had an abnormal amount of blood vessels running through it, so they had to work with that for awhile before getting to do anything else. the other reason was because Kiernan turned out to be so big. They had trouble getting him out, finally they just had to yank him out, and you can probably see that in the pictures if you look carefully enough. Then it took quite sometime to get me put back together, cauterized, and stitched up because of the abnormal amount of blood vessels thing. I finally made it to the recovery room around 3:00 AM. There we took some vitals and such, tried to see if he would nurse, didn't work out, and I was still really loopy because of the morphine that was still in my system. Since he wouldn't nurse, we went ahead and said to take him to the nursery (that and we were both dead tired...). My dad, sister and her fiance came to see the baby around 5:00 before my dad and sister went to new york for the week (they had to leave the hospital by 5:30). and it was at that point that I was informed that Kiernan was in the special care nursery room. Apparently, they had noticed that when he cried he would go completely purple, and they were concerned about his oxygen and what was causing him to go completely purple. His lips didn't go purple, they stayed pink, apparently that's a very good thing. Turns out he did have low oxygen levels, either because of the infection that was causing my fever and got into him, or because he had too much fluid in his lungs.

Fortunately, he was well long enough for my dad, sister and her fiance to see him real quick. I then got to see him around 8 AM and was told they would be putting him on antibiotics for the possible infection, and monitoring him. When I saw him, he had three wires that hooked up to a monitor checking his heart rate, oxygen levels and breathing rate. He also has an IV in his head (they had a hard time finding a place for his hand, and you can see the bruises on both hands). And a big bandage around his foot where they take the blood for blood testing. It broke my heart, but I was glad to see that he was doing better. At this point, they informed me that he had been doing well, and that he definitely had fluid in his lungs. They also said they were going to do the antibiotics anyway just because of the risk of having an infection because I had the fever. he continued to do well throughout the day, and the nurse told us we might be able to keep him in our room that night (last night). So when I went back to and attempt feeding again (had issues, but happily, that is now resolved!), we asked the doctor, and he said no, not tonight, MAYBE tomorrow morning.

This morning, when i went to do the 4 AM feeding, turns out his blood sugar level was really low, and that concerned the doctor. He won't let him go until he's had two blood sugar results above 60 in a row. And Kiernan also was showing a small increase of signs of an infection, small, but made them glad they were doing the antibiotics. They will continue to do them until Sunday morning I believe. The doctor had also informed me this morning that Kiernan SHOULD be able to go home with us, depending on how things go today. We won't know until 6:00 (two hours), which is also the time we find out whether or not kiernan can be in our room with us or not. Then, at an earlier feeding, we found out that Kiernan has jaundice. But he'll still be able to be in our room with us if he has jaundice, so all that they are worried about now is keeping his blood sugar up. The last one tested at 82, so hopefully it's still up this time. They';ll take him out whenever he's schedule for his antibiotics, but will bring him back if everything is ok.

So all in all, the poor kid has had a hard time coming into this world, but really is doing well. Everybody keeps talking about what a big boy he is (he really is big!), and how cute he is (I also agree with them here too). He's now feeding every 2-3 hours. He was only feeding every 5ish hours yesterday, and would sleep a lot, hence why the blood sugar level was low, and was a concern. He is also more awake and active when feeding, so we're pretty sure he's ok blood sugar level wise now.

I'm recovering pretty well, they say. The special care nursery is at the other end of the maternity ward area, so Bryan or a nurse will take me over to the nursery in a wheelchair when it's time for me to go feed him. I wasn't really able to walk all that much yesterday, but I could move and shift in bed quite a bit. Today I've been able to walk short distances, and stand long enough to shower and enjoy the shower, so things are improving, it'll be kind of a long recovery process, but everyone says everything is going well, and I'm going to believe them. :)

I will be discharged on Sunday, and hopefully Kiernan will be as well, and then we'll finally get to be in our homes again! It feels like we've been here for a very long time, and we have. I haven't seen my apartment since Tuesday night, and everyone had expected me to be home last night. I'm excited to have Kiernan around us all the time soon, and to be able to go home soon. I feel much better than I have the past three weeks of my pregnancy, despite the fact that I have huge smile of stitches on my abdomen :) They say the morphine has worn off by now, I'm taking oral pain meds, and everything is pretty much tolerable. It only hurts if I'm walking for a longer period of time, and if the binder (i think of it as a belt that squishes all my innards together) isn't on very tight.

Other than that, things really are going well. :)

Our baby

Due to 24 hours of inducing and only dilating to a three, and developing a bad fever, we ended up doing a c section. Kiernan is 9 lbs 8 oz, and 22.5 inches. He's healthy and doing fine :) we'll be home on Sunday!

http://picasaweb.google.com/paulistano/KiernanSBirthday#

small update

Went to the stress test this morning. He was moving the whole time, very active, and his heartbeat is great. The fluid is at 19.something, so that's good as well. Really, the concern is me. My blood pressure was still high 147/80. Better than yesterday, but still high. Yesterday's blood pressure was taken later in the afternoon, the one I got today was taken almost first thing this morning after I woke up, so I won't be surprised if it got higher throughout the day. My feet are still swollen, well I should say my entire body is swollen, but my feet are the worst, and so much now lately, that they hurt constantly.

The doctor called while I was getting my stress test to check up on me, and we're definitely still on for tonight. Just need to call in three hours to find out exactly when I go in.

I did sleep last night, which was nice. Bryan and I went out to dinner as our last of being a couple only family, so we went to Red Robin (so good!), then came home, and I basically just crashed after that. I'm glad we're all packed, and that we've been working on getting things that will be needed at home bit by bit this past week. I feel almost no pressure outside of school. I won't be missing any class time for one class, so that's nice. My Thursday class, she rescheduled to have a one on one meeting with me for three hours on Tuesday next week to make up for the class. As for my Saturday class, I have yet to hear anything about it. So tentatively, I'm either going, or I'm missing it without making it up (i really doubt that she would make it so I couldn't make it up due to past experiences of what we've done to accommodate a possible birth last week, and an exam the other student had to take). The only real pressure is, will I be able to get some homework in on time? We shall see :)

Work, there is no pressure there. They know I'll be back around December 1st, probably working less than I have been, just to check in and get the very basics done to keep them going (and to give me a little money for Christmas!). But definitely no pressure there, so that's nice. :)

I do hope he comes by Wednesday night. My dad and sister are leaving to go on a trip on Thursday to NY for her graduation present, so it'd be nice if they could see the baby before they leave. If not, then oh well, they'll just have to wait :) I'm also kind of glad it's happening now, that means I'll have some time to recover a bit before Thanksgiving next week with everyone around in the same house.

I'm excited, but my nerves are so crazy, that I look like I'm just meh about it. Honestly, I really am excited, just nervous. I've never had anything invasive before, no major surgery. The most invasive stuff ever: annual exam, 4 stitches on the inner part of my lip, and getting my wisdom teeth out (was awake for the entire process), so yeah...child birth....a much more daunting task. :)

...I should get back to work :)

Update....getting there

So no membrane stripping today. :) I'm dilated to a 1, however, my blood pressure was 160/90, I've had headaches coming and going, haven't been feeling well for a couple of days, and apparently my reflexes on right side aren't doing all that great either. I'm scheduled to be induced tomorrow night sometime after 4. That is all :)

Oh and I'm scared to death...induction isn't supposed to be easy at all.

Baby update....again

Today's stress test, normal, he was active, blood pressure is fine, and fluid is now up to 21. I hate waiting, period. But, this too, shall pass :)

Today we went to Tucanos, finally, for an anniversary dinner :) It was nummy and good. I was able to eat my money's worth. I just kept thinking, how I hoped he didn't start coming because i did not want to have to throw all that food back up, obviously, he didn't :) I'm at home laying on the couch with wonderful swollen feet and ankles :)

We also went to Babies R us to get some things we still needed. So hard not to just overspend and buy tons of stuff, especially since we won't NEED it.

We got home, and I watched a TV show, then I finally...FINALLY got up to pack my overnight bag. Yeah, I haven't had one packed all this time, but now I do. Maybe that will push the baby into coming sometime soon? I wish :)

How did labor feel for you mothers? My mom didn't know she was in labor with me, and never had bad enough labor pain to really be in pain. She talked about how the rule of thumb for when you're in complete active labor, is that the contractions hurt so bad you shouldn't be able to walk and talk. She said that was never the case for her, and it went really well for all six children (cept one, he was breeched, but considering it was still only 12 hours...not bad). How did you guys know? How did you know when to leave for the hospital? I've read lots of things and such, but still want to hear more :)

I forgot something

My dream last night reminded me that I never said anything about this.

When we went in for the stress test on Friday, we, as usual, saw the ultrasound. Not only did we definitely see a boy that time, but we actually saw him BREATHING. Sure, it's not oxygen, but his stomach, lungs, diaphragm were all moving up and down as if he was breathing. He's practicing breathing right now, but still, it was just SO amazing to see that.

I've also started to unconsciously push him around when I'm at work or sitting in class. My classes are four hours long, so I'm there for awhile. We only have one break, and it's 10 minutes long. I get up and walk around a lot at that point. But I've realized that my teachers smile at me while lecturing, and for a bit I just thought it was something along the lines of "oh look, she's so pregnant, she doesn't fit in the desk chair! so cute" blah blah blah (yes, you do get sick of these kind of thoughts cause you feel like, as Bryan likes to lovingly call me, a tubbo [he seriously just sees it as a pet name, nothing more, I warned him how insulting it sounds to a pregnant woman :)]). Then a teacher said something the other day, and it all clicked. She's teaching, and then during a pause in teaching, she looks at me and says "has he got a toe stuck in your ribs?" Apparently I've been pushing on his feet when he starts pushing up against my stomach. It doesn't hurt, just really uncomfortable sometimes, so I push his foot back to make him move it. This all led to the realization....he's got BONES. SOLID BONES. I knew this before, but....I can FEEL him....just...weird.

And yes, I do go through mood swings, just look at the last entry compared to this one :)

pointless dr visit

Went into the doctor's today.
Do the usual, check blood pressure (little high..again), pee in a cup, and get ready for the other routine parts,..... and the membrane stripping

Rest of Dr visit

Apparently I'm too high up for her to reach, period. My cervix is barely opening, but she can't tell how much because she could just barely reach with her fingertips, and was definitely not able to do the membrane stripping. This also means that I am not a good candidate for being induced, so it looks like this kid is just gonna come when he wants to come.

The only really downer part of the whole thing, was the pain. Normally there wouldn't be all that much pain, but today just wasn't a good day. I woke up, and my mouth was completely dry, and I knew I had drainage. It had apparently dried to the back of my throat, so when I took a drink of water, it moistened it and made it move, making me gag. So I threw up, and throwing up ALWAYS gives me a headache, so that was lovely. I also didn't sleep well last night, so I'm just not feeling well in general. This is where it may get to be too much TMI for some of you, but this is why the attempt at membrane stripping and feeling my cervix hurt. I've got hemorrhoids, and have had them for awhile, and will probably have them until I give birth. The pressure in that area did not help. I also have two rashes in that area as well that is not related to hemorrhoids, so that wasn't helpful in not causing pain either. It just wasn't a pleasant experience, and it didn't even work. Not mention it's a total invasion of your feeling privacy. That part I do not look forward to for birth, having someone else looking in that area, and not just one person, but a few of them.

I go back in on Monday so she can try again. Tomorrow is my next stress test to make sure everything is ok. My doctor has been getting the reports back from the hospital, and it seems that everything is fine so far, they're just being cautious because of my swelling and the increase in my blood pressure.


After the whole thing, I just felt completely....lost? overwhelmed? hopeless?
Definitely overwhelmed, school has been really stressful with the amount of workload I've had lately. I've caught up though, and am now ahead in two classes, so that's good. But still, there's still a lot left to do. Fortunately I only have 5 more field visits to do (I had 25 to do before). Two will be done in the same day once I hear back from a lady, two I can't do until December anyway, and 1 will be hopefully sometime this next week with my classmate. Then I can stop trying to schedule work and classes and dr and hospital appointments all around each other.

More complaining :)

I also just feel so hopelessly big. This morning, I put two big ol scratches on my tummy because I couldn't fit very well in between the bed and the wall to get to the other side of the bed to get access to the clean clothes. I would normally have just gotten Bryan to go get stuff for me, or literally rolled across the bed to get to those clothes, but he was asleep, in the bed, so obviously that wasn't an option :) After getting those two big scratches, it just kind of dawned on me how...big I am. I know I've dropped a lot as well, but apparently, me dropping doesn't mean much since I'm just in general too high anyway :) I can't bend over far enough to put lotion on my legs, or apply creams or whatever. Part of what makes me feel so big is the amount of swelling that happens daily now. So much so that I can't bend my feet very well, so I'm starting to walk funny, which I hate. This adds to the overwhelming feeling that I've had from school and work, and scheduling.

I hate how I haven't been able to help that much around the house as well. Bryan has done an awesome job in keeping the house up to par. We just need to go through the nursery and get things organized in there. I plan to do that on Saturday since I'm pretty much caught up in homework, I have time to just....be in my own home without outside things interfering.

I guess my "lost" feeling is just not knowing what's going to happen next. If I'm anything like my mom, I'll have this baby this weekend. Whenever her cervix was just opening, she was in labor in the next day or two. If I'm not like my mother, then it could very well be a couple or even a few more weeks. I hate not knowing, I hate feeling like I'm completely unprepared, even though there isn't anything I can do about it right now. After the visit, and going by walgreens to get a prescription, i started crying. I've been proud of myself to be able to keep my hormones under some generally good control throughout this pregnancy. This is the 6th or 7th time I've cried throughout the whole pregnancy, and that includes when I left Bryan in Brazil, so yeah, I'd say I've been good. I asked Bryan, he says I've been good, but he's kind of obligated to say that anyway.

I'm just tired. exhausted. It's been a long two weeks, and I hope this next week goes by really fast or I'll just have to have a mental breakdown. I can't wait to have a break (thanksgiving), and I can't wait for this semester to be over. This pregnancy hadn't felt long until just this past week. Sure, I'm in the home stretch, but dang, it's like going on an super steep uphill hike. You know you're almost there, you only have 50 more feet, but you're just so dang tired that it still feels like you won't make it even though you may have already gone 5,000 feet. That's just how I feel.


Well...I had a lot more to say than I thought. Props to you if you make it through :)

Membrane

I am so NOT looking forward to the membrane stripping tomorrow.
bleh.

In other news, first monitored visit, my fluid level was 12, the second time it was 15, and this last time, Tuesday, it was 20. So whatever I'm doing, I'm doing it right :) I just hope it doesn't keep increasing a lot, because if it keeps with this trend I'll be 30 something by the time he's born, and dang it, I'm already big enough! :)

Baby update again

Went in for amniotic and nonstress testing.
Fluid is at 15, we also confirmed for sure that it's definitely a boy (not on purpose...he just wasn't shy...at all).
Heartbeat and activity was good, he was active enough so I didn't stay for over an hour like last time in the chair/bed.
BP was 142/69. The top number is a little high, but not enough for concern, and their biggest concern is the bottom number anyway, and I'm totally fine there.
She informed me that I needed to drink water. This only irked me because I typically do drink a lot of water. However, this morning, we left at 9:30 for our 9:50 appointment. Get there at like 9:51, I'm already thirsty, but there's no drinking fountain in sight. I forgot to bring my water bottle with me, and we didn't even get in there until close to 11. By this point, I'm dying of thirst. Then we're doing the testing until about 12, and i go to the bathroom, and i have not had a drink yet (seriously, my throat was a desert at this point). Then she comes out to nag me about drinking water. Yes, I'm irrationally bugged by it, but nonetheless, I DO drink a lot of water, thank you very much.

And that's it. Healthy, normal, everything looks great. Was advised to drink more water (ahem) and take long periods of resting time (I have to figure out how to wiggle that in...).

Baby update

So, I went in today expecting only a 10 minute visit.

Yeah, everything combined turned into almost 4 hours :)

No, no, nothing big, but I'll still tell you about it.

I went in, and we do the normal check up stuff. Check weight, pee in a cup, check blood pressure, get undressed, measure uterus, check heart beat, check if head is down, check cervix.

(cut for length)



Well I actually weigh less than last week (I've been sick, plus last week I ate breakfast right before going in, this time I didn't have time). Far as I know, no protein in urine (they didn't say anything), blood pressure was high for me (I normally have very low blood pressure), but still within normal range for most people, uterus measuring appropriately, heart beat sounds great, was actually able to find the head this time, and yes, he is down, and the cervix is still completely closed.

I promised my mom I would ask about toxemia as on Sunday when I saw her she said my face was too big, and that I need to ask about it. Well, turns out, the doctor was thinking along the same lines. She wants me to be monitored closely since my blood pressure is up (for me), and I've been coming in looking a little more swollen each time. So she says we need to go to the hospital and do a non-stress test, ultrasound, and measure the amniotic fluid as well as do some blood work there. We wait for the call to schedule the appointment, and they said to just come right on over.

We go over, go straight to the place where I'm to do all this. Keep in mind, I haven't eaten yet, I was rushing, so I'm hungry by now. We wait in the waiting room, and get called in like 5 minutes, and go to the back. We get to see the ultrasound, just briefly, heart beat is good, we could see it beating, and say lots of bones too, even his ear! She measured the amniotic fluid, which was measuring at 12 (which is normal, and good). Then she hooks me up to the monitor to do the nonstress test. THIS is what took forever. He did NOT want to wake up, he was a sleepy baby. We even had to do a thing where she wakes him up with this vibrating thing that makes sound as well and puts it against my tummy...THREE times. Just to get him to move. It all seems normal though.

While being hooked up to measure the heartbeat, and watch it, I was also hooked up to see if I was having contractions. I didn't think I was. I told my doctor that I thought I had some braxton hicks ones because they felt like PMS cramps, and I've had them at least once a day the past few days, but only once or twice, nothing too big that concerned me. Well, as it turns out, I was having contractions the entire time I was being monitored. I still can't tell if I'm having them or not. Hopefully that's a good sign :) After watching when the monitor would go up showing that I was having a contraction, I started recognizing when it was a contraction. All this time I thought it was just the baby moving or rolling a little bit. Just very slight pressure, barely noticeable, and no pain. I still cannot tell the difference though. If I felt something it was either the contraction or him moving, and I was right on guessing which it was at some times, other times I was wrong.

But, having contractions right now doesn't really matter all that much since I'm not dilated at all. But the doctors all seem to agree that this baby is going to be coming soon. (probably sooner than I hoped). My regular doctor will start stripping the membrane next week to help move things along, so, we'll see how that goes.

I am now to go to my regular doctor once a week (as expected, it's been that way awhile), AND to the hospital twice a week to do the amniotic fluid measurements and the nonstress test. So, doctors, three times a week. Lovely :)

After this whole process of being monitored (she was kind enough to give me cookies and juice since I hadn't eaten yet, which was probably why the baby was so sleepy), we went down to the lab to do the blood work. They took two tubes of blood, and then, we were finally done. While we were doing waiting, we also registered at the hospital so that all the questions wouldn't be asked when we arrived when I was in labor, so that parts done.

After the blood stuff, we took a tour of the maternity ward, and now know where I will be during labor and recover, and where i'll be for post-partum and where the nursery is. They are remodeling the hospital, and it'll be done mid-december, but it's still seems to be a pretty nice place. We're in the updated rooms, and it seems like everything will be easily accessible and such. We were advised to bring our own DVDs to watch since they just barely moved everything from VHS to DVD, and have a very limited selection of DVDs. :)

I went to the Dr at 9:45 this morning, and we got done with the hospital itself at 1:45, then went to lunch (finally got my caprese sandwich!), and now I'm here at work waiting for a video to finish transferring. I'm EXHAUSTED. I can't wait to go home and take a power nap so I can do my homework and get things done and try to finish as much homework as I can before the baby comes. the next week (from today until next week Wed) is going to be killer in terms of homework, observations, teaching, signing games, community activities and dr appointments.

I hope and pray I make it through!



P.S. Bryan got me pizza last night...with stuffed crust :) He's so awesome!

Cravings

You would think that ignoring a craving for five weeks would make it go away.

It's probably just pregnancy, but it in fact, does not go away.

I've been avoiding pizza for awhile, just not healthy (but...man, it's so freaking good! all that cheese *drool*). My ideal meal would be cheese bread sticks, with cheese stuffed crust pizza with extra cheese for the topping and pepperoni. SO so bad, and I bet I could eat the whole dang thing myself. If I weren't trying to be careful with what I eat with the baby and all, I'd probably do it in a heart beat.

But five weeks? GO AWAY CRAVING!

Baby update

Went to the doctor today for week 36. (Can't believe I'm already 36 1/2 weeks).

Cervix is still very much closed, and she still couldn't tell if the head was down or not. That means next week I see her on Wednesday, then get an ultrasound on Thursday to make sure the baby is in position.

I've got this nasty cold going on, so she gave me a list of things I can take to help with it, so I'm looking forward to some remedies.

I also had to get my warts checked up on (they're on my feet). Had to do another freezing. So basically, I just hurt everywhere. :)

Other than that, things are good. Baby is active, I've dropped a lot, heartbeat is strong, no extreme things to cause any concern. It's nice :)

Snoring

All right, this is by far the most annoying thing in this pregnancy. I can deal with the tendonitis, I can deal with shingles, I can deal with the 5 minutes it takes me to just get up from a laying position to standing. However, this recent occurrence of snoring is something I am VERY annoyed with.

I've read up, and have found that it's normal for some pregnant ladies to snore. I don't care if it's normal, I still hate it :) It wakes me up even more than I wake up to go to the bathroom, my sinus passageways are killing me, and my throat just flat out hurts. Combine these together, and it makes for quite the headache. I do not like snoring.

I've been up for two hours now, and my throat is still aching from all the snoring I did last night. I know I'm snoring loudly because the vibrations are so strong from snoring, that it wakes me up (remember, I sleep with my hearing aids out, so I don't hear a thing). This better go away after the baby is born, that's I've got to say.

Baby update

Well, we went to the dr. today. It was the first time bryan's been with me since Brazil, so it was nice to have him there instead of taking the camera to record the sound of the heartbeat. :) Today for the first time in a long time, she found the heart beat as soon as she put the doppler down. Usually it takes her awhile to find it. His heartbeat is healthy and strong. :) I'm 35 1/2 weeks now, so the dr has started checking the cervix. Totally closed, which is what I wanted to hear as I do not want this baby coming until thanksgiving week so I can work everything out with my classes. I can wish, dream, pray and hope all I want, so I'm going to do that :) She couldn't tell if the baby's head was down or not, so she'll check again next week on Wednesday. If she still can't tell then, we'll *have* to get an ultrasound. don't get me wrong, I don't want anything to be wrong, but I would LOVE to see another ultrasound, free. So we'll see how that goes.

I had a very small and intimate baby shower with a bunch of deaf/signing friends this past weekend. It was a fun one, there were only 6 of us total there, which was more than I expected to be honest. I need to take pictures of the gifts for my friend to update the scrapbook with. But it was a fun theme. Everyone was to bring a favorite children's book. I ended up getting 12 books, (two friends sent me their books, one is in Japan, and the other one had a very fussy kid at the time the shower was going on). It was an open house type of baby shower, which I loved. Just a time for me to sit down, catch up with people, ask questions to experienced moms, etc. It was very fun.

The next baby shower will be on November 1st. This one will be interesting. It was originally my mother and I who were going to plan it, but due to some family drama, my aunt and my grandma are now completely in charge of it (long story, not worth rehashing). Also due to a last minute engagement within the family, it'll be a baby shower/bridal shower. My cousin is getting married on the 21st of November, and the 1st was the only time she could have a bridal shower, and the 1st is the latest my grandma and aunt were willing to have my baby shower. We had to talk them out of doing it this Saturday since I'm gone all weekend for a conference, and won't be able to go to it until 6:00, which is apparently too late for everyone. So ta-dah! Baby/bridal shower it will be. This one is not only my family, but for all my friends who don't sign as well, this way, no one is playing interpreter. Also because my deaf friends don't really know my non-signing friends, and vice versa. It'll be fun, and I'm excited because that means ALL family members will be there since my cousin's having the bridal shower as well.

I can't believe how much closer we're getting. His, the baby's, due date is exactly a month from today. Insane!

Ginormous

our uterus — which was entirely tucked away inside your pelvis when you conceived — now reaches up under your rib cage.

Yeah....HUGE!

In other news, things are still going well. He's been moving like crazy the past couple of days, which is great, but dang, I want sleep! :)

To you moms out there, did your ribs get sore? Mine feel like they're bruised on the inside of them. It doesn't hurt to push against them from the outside with my hand or to lean on something. But it hurts to shift around, yawn, or sigh.

I have my next prenatal on Thursday, that's when I start going weekly. I can't believe there's only 5 weeks left until the due date.....insane.

Baby update

Just had my prenatal check up for the upcoming week 34. It'll be 34 weeks on Sunday, so crazy!

The heartbeat was strong and normal. I'm measuring to be the right size, everything feels right. I go in again in two weeks, in which she'll start checking the cervix and making sure the baby's head is down. Crazy that it's getting to be so close!

I just got over my second bout of shingles. She gave me antibiotics to make it go away faster, and I finished those up yesterday. Today I start my suppressant therapy to keep the shingles from coming again. I just want to make sure I do not have shingles while giving birth, as that could cause some complications.

I'm getting bigger, and I can REALLY feel it now. It's almost impossible to get up off of the floor, let alone in one easy move. Getting off the floor usually consists of the following:
Sitting position
Turning to sit on hip, supporting self with hands and arms
Sliding knees up, preparing for kneeling position
ROLLING over to my knees
Push my torso up
Find a nearby stable object to hold onto
lift one knee up to allow foot to take place, push
get other foot on floor.
This whole process is very slow.

Getting out of bed isn't as hard, but it definitely takes time. It also now definitely takes some serious effort to roll in bed from one side to the other.

I haven't had any major swelling since the airplane ride home, but it's now becoming an everyday thing where my feet are swollen by the end of the day. Normally they're back to normal by morning. I'm not concerned about it, and neither is my doctor.

I now understand what women mean when they say it feels like their child is MARCHING on your bladder. I'll be sitting there, and won't have any feeling of urgency to go to the bathroom. Then all of a sudden, I feel a kick/movement, and I have to go REALLY bad. That sense of needing to go will go away if it's only one kick, however, if it's continuous, like a freaking march, I gotta go. TMI maybe, but dang, he can really push sometimes!

It seems my overtiredness was just for a couple of weeks, and that was in between my two bouts of shingles. This week, I've actually been waking up to go to the bathroom two or three times a night. I'm not NEEDING naps, though they are still nice :) I'm definitely doing better on the energy front.

just 6 1/2 more weeks until the due date, which I sincerely hope happens. I have classes this semester, and I don't really want to miss any. If the baby comes on his due date, then it'll be the week where I don't have classes the entire week. So yeah, I REALLY hope he's full term (40 weeks). *Crosses fingers*

3 years

Happy anniversary Bryan :) Just one more week till you're here at home.

Miss you and love you!

I CAN be productive

Yes I'm preggo, but I can be productive...sometimes :)

What I did today (just because I need to share it somewhere):
Did an observation for a class.
Completed check list for said observation (harder than you think....it's more of a test)
Summary of observation
Background of family from observation
Went to work and worked two hours
Went to the Dr's, confirmed I have shingles, gave me meds (two different ones), 1 for the strong one now to hurry this current bout, and the other will be suppresant therapy, also got a flu shot while there
Went back to work for two hours
Stopped at home to get other meds to refill
Went to walgreens
Went to store
Went back to walgreens, picked up little caesars for dinner so I could focus on homework
Went home, did a humongous assignment that required 8 separate documents (this took a lot of time)
Looked at classmate's assignment for this as well, and add appropriate comments (she did on mine as well)
Did a load of laundry
Did another paper (4 pages)
Did another load of laundry
Read a research article
Started journal response on research article, realized brain was dead, will continue tomorrow
Cleaned fish bowls

and Now I've noticed my feet are cankles again, indicating I've been doing too much today and have not been drinking enough water. That means...time for bed :) (YAYNESS)

I love you....not?

So, I've read a lot of my friend's blogs lately, ones i've lost touch with a long time ago. And they're all on blog spot. There's been this meme going around, and it's about their husband. One of the questions is "who said I love you first?" each and every single one of them knew, AND they knew exactly what happened that day when it happened.

I feel like a freaking loser. I can't remember the day, or who even said it first. I'm pretty sure Bryan did because I did NOT want to say it first, I didn't want to rush things, and I was a lot more sure of my feelings than he was, so I didn't want to scare him away.

Am i the only one who can't remember?

The Good, Bad and Ugly

Good: Thyroid is normal, apparently just super exhausted all the time :)

Bad: Shingles are back, this time on the right side of my collar bone. Going into the doctor's tomorrow to get it looked at. *scratch scratch*

Baby update

I had my drs visit on Thursday (yesterday). It was good, had several questions that she was able to answer for me.

Everything is still measuring out as normal, turns out last time I went in I was measuring as big due to the baby's position. :) His butt must have been sticking out or something, unless he has inherited mine, then he's just got a big butt period. :)

It was interesting trying to get the heartbeat this time. It was really faint (for me anyway), but we could only hear it for a brief second a couple of times because of how much he was moving! He kept moving so all you kept hearing were these static like noises as if you take you finger and brush it across the top of microphone. It was pretty cool, and she wasn't too worried about not getting a good solid heart beat sound in if he was moving that much :)

I seem to possibly be running into thyroid problems again. I'm just constantly tired all the time. I know it's normal to be excessively tired in the third trimester, but this is ridiculous. I sleep through the night without ever waking up to go the bathroom or from any movements from the baby. I sleep like a rock. The only time I ever do wake up is because my arm or leg or hand is numb from laying on it for way too long. Even then, I'm only awake for a brief second (or 5 as it takes awhile to roll over at this point....shifting all that belly weight over!). So not do I only sleep through the night peacefully, I also get about 10-12 hours of sleep EVERY night, that's just the part where I sleep through it. I also tend to take 30 minute to 2 hour naps during the day when I get home from work. I STILL feel tired after this, so I personally think it's a bit excessive, and my doctor does as well. They did call last night, but I was unfortunately in class so I haven't heard the results on it yet. They're not in on Fridays either, or the weekend, so I'll have to wait for them to call me back on Monday.

I also asked her about this tendonitis, and she said pretty much what I had guessed. My tendonitis had started acting up when I got the shingles because of swelling around the area, and the swollen lymph node. Unfortunately, the swelling has only gone down a little bit, so there's still swelling in all the areas of where I get tendonitis. Again, not much I can do about it, cept wear wrist braces. That's right, braces, I've got it bad in both wrists, but it's really bad in my fingers on my left hand. Thankfully that's my non-dominant hand.

Back in January, I started getting this wart, which I thought at the time was a callus, and thus left it alone. Byt the time we left to Brazil, it had grown a bit, but I thought I could be imagining it, or that it was just major callus building up. So I filed it down after I got back from Brazil, but it almost immediately started bleeding. That's when I finally accepted that it was a wart. I figured I could wait out for the rest of the pregnancy and get it taken care of after the pregnancy since it wasn't in a dangerous risky area, thank heavens. However, it's been getting bigger and bigger, and starting to catch to the floor, socks, shoes, anything that myfoot moves against (even my sheets!). There were also warts starting to show up below the "big" one I had across the ball of my foot. So I had the first treatment of liquid nitrogen, and dang baby, that hurts. Turns out, the "big" wart is a cluster of 12 warts, 4 warts in the middle in a line, and 8 warts surrounding it. Then there's five more along the ball of my foot. it also seems to be that the cluster I have, is warts on top of warts. So I'll probably need at least two more treatments of liquid nitrogen to get them all frozen off. So I'll be going in once a month for that for the time being. Lovely. it just really really hurts is all.

other than that, everything is going well. No excessive swelling anywhere (besides tendonitis swelling), no nausea, no back pains, no other bodily pains other than the foot with warts, and wrists/fingers.

The baby is still moving a ton, I can sit down and stare at my tummy for a long period of time sometimes and see the constant moving that's going on in my belly. It's quite fun to watch, and totally surreal. I'm excited for Bryan to get and experience this kind of movement for himself. Only 18 more days :) (which is awesome considering it's been 76 days!).

Gimp

I have wrist braces on both wrists now, thanks tendonitis
I just had a bunch of warts frozen off at the drs today, seems it will take at least three treatments, ow. This is making me limp, as if waddling from being preggo isn't enough :)
They took blood today to check thyroid, it actually bruised this time, and it hurts.

ow, just....ow.

Baby update

I'm 29 1/2 weeks along.
I'm 33 centimeters (apparently that's big, and we'll look more into why I'm so big next time)
I do not have gestational diabetes
The heartbeat was strong and healthy
He's active and kicking
I got my Rhogram shot (OW!)
Everything else is healthy :)

Hiccups

Today is the first time I've been able to feel the baby have hiccups! It's fun :)

Things overall have been going well. The shingles stopped spreading the same day I got them once I started taking antibiotics. They just continuously itch and burn, I'm still taking antibiotics for them. Turns out my stiff finger and arm and hand were NOT from tendonitis, but rather from the shingles causing a swollen lymph node near my collar bone. That is going down since I've been taking antibiotics, and it's not nearly as bad anymore. So things are getting better, just slowly :)

I've also come to find there is no way I can sit in a chair in a normal position. I have to sit so that I'm off to the side, or my heart rate goes crazy and I start getting dizzy. This can be frustrating as I have three classes a week, and each one is 4 hours long, with usually only one break for class (10 minutes).

I have also come to find that I do not handle warm classrooms well at all.

Two Saturdays ago I went to my Saturday class, and the classroom was 74 already (at 9 AM). Within the first 15 minutes I got close to passing out, so I excused myself to go to the bathroom and sat on the floor for a bit since it was cooler. When I thought it was all better, I went back to class, but within 15 minutes I got even closer to passing out than before (yes I can tell when I'm about to pass out, everything goes a certain color). So I excused myself and hurried out the door and found a couch to lay on for five minutes. My classmate has been in all of my classes for the past 3 semesters, and had informed the teacher that this was really not like me, and that I wasn't always like this (thank heavens). After lying down for 5 minutes, and finding three fans in the classroom to turn on that were all directed at me, I was able to go through the rest of class. Needless to say, this Saturday, we immediately turned the fans on and I was fine, as long as I didn't sit the "right" way in the chair and had it turned sideways.

Other than that, Kiernan's still kicking like crazy all the time. I can see my actual stomach moving when he kicks now and then, and he has definitely got the hiccups at the moment. It's really cute :)

Shingles

I haven't been able to sleep tonight....at all. It's now 4:45 am. I've tried to go to sleep. I've tried just laying there, reading, watching tv, warm bath, milk, etc. Nothing's worked without taking some kind of over the counter drug, which I'm not even willing to think about.

However, that's really not what's bugging me the most right now. Background info here, and I may have mentioned it before, so forgive my repetition:
I had chicken pox three times as a kid. Once you have chicken pox, the virus stays in you, most people, it's dormant for the rest of your life, but it's still there. Mine, however, does not like to be dormant. I have since had 4 cases of shingles (same virus as chicken pox, similar symptoms, just a smaller concentrated area). The pattern had SEEMED to be that it was going every other year since I was 18 or 19. It would make sense, I had it last year, I was 24, I had it two years before that, I was 22, a year before that I was 21, and two years before that I was 19. I also seem to develop it somewhere around July-Aug (with one case in Dec).

I was hoping it would skip this year. I also thought I was pretty much in the clear since Aug. had finished. Apprarently, I'm wrong. I seem to be developing the beginning stage of shingles. Itchy, burning, and just flat out pain in one small concentrated area, near where I almost always get it. :( Fortunately, I had talked to my doctor about the possibility of getting them, and she gave me antibiotics way back at my second prenatal appointment. I'm going to give it a half day (so this afternoon) to make sure it's not some weird reaction to something, then I'll see if I start taking the meds or not. (don't worry, I'll call the doc too :) ). However, I'm pretty darn sure I have them again, which really, isn't the greatest thing in the world to have when pregnant. :/

waking up weird

So I remember waking up to my alarm, but apparently I fell back asleep, so I missed church, oh well.

However, when I woke up an hourish later, the entire back of my head was numb/tingling. I didn't like that feeling, so I started getting up. I had somehow cut the circulation off that goes to the back of my head, because as soon as I sat up, I could feel the tingling and the blood flow going back to normal there. Then I went to get some cereal, and found that my fingers were incredibly stiff. My middle finger on my left hand, every time i bend it in anyway, it locks there, and I have to pop it back out.

I really don't like waking up like this.

Miss Piggy

I do believe that I am starting to get restless legs syndrome related to pregnancy, and it's driving me insane. There is no one comfortable way to sit, and I swear I'm shifting positions every 10-15 minutes. This is ONLY bothersome because I have classes (I started school on Monday). I have two night classes, and they go from 4:30-8:00 PM. It seems that my professors will try to go straight though with no breaks. Also...I hate desks. I am just barely starting to fit into them now, and I'm not sure how I'm going to sit down in class later on in the semester after I get bigger when there's no way t he belly is gonna be behind the desk without cutting circulation off. I totally never even though of these things being bothersome during pregnancy.

That, and I feel like a pig in my night classes. I start getting hungry around 5:00 for dinner, and I always bring the following: 2 PB&J sandwiches, a small bag of baby carrots, a little thing of pears, yogurt, and applesauce. Sometimes I also bring crackers, or bring more than one bag of baby carrots or some celery. Luckily, there's only three students in one class, and two in the other two classes (yes, including myself). I've told the teachers as well that I'll be munching throughout class, and they said it was fine, and that they are thinking of bringing their own things to class since it's around dinner time for them as well. So...yay!

If the baby is born around the due date, that means there's still two sessions for each class left before the end of the semester. One teacher has said that she's fine with me bringing the baby to class if I can since it'll be a newborn and won't be all that fussy, so hopefully I won't have to miss any of her classes, or at the very most, only one class.

This semester shall be interesting one to say at the very least. :)

I'm so big

There was a Hilton family reunion (my mom's side) and all the cousins are married except for three, and my brother and my sister (two will probably never marry, 1 is really sick and can't stand living with other people basically, the other one is gay, and well, utah doesn't allow gay marriage, 1 is expected to get married in the next year, but she says that every year, for the past two years she's still with the same guy). If you know my family, this is huge. Anyway, there are three of us pregnant, me, I'm due in November, Tiffany is due on October, and Alise is due in two weeks (beginning of September). I am bigger than Alise, and about the same size as Tiffany. People thought I was due sooner, because apparently, I'm just so big compared to everyone else.

I'm gonna be a freaking giant by the time this kid pops out.

Happy Birthday Bryan

His birhtday is Monday the 18th, which is what it is where he is right now (midnight ish), and so thus I'm posting this now :)

Happy birthday babe

Final Brazil Post

Well, here's the end of it wrapping it all up :)

Saturday July 19th

We flew from Rio to Sao Paulo, we didn't get to our hotel until about 6 at night. We also decided to splurge a little bit and stay at a hotel that was just a little better. We get our room, and find that they ptu us in a room with two separate beds. We decide not to make abig deal out of it as we were tired, and just ask for a different room the next night. So for one night, we slept in separate beds, which case I think we were so exhausted we didn't notice all that much heh. We ordered some AMAZING pizza that night. We can NOT get this pizza in America, so that's definitely one pro about Brazil that American doesn't have (besides Iguacu falls, the christ statue, sugar loaf mountain, the beach, and bryan's 'home'). We mostly just watched tv and relaxed, i thinkw e both needed it.


Sunday, July 20th


The next day was Sunday, and we get all gussied up and take the bus over to where he went to church on his mission for a short time. Turns out, they don't do any afternoon sessions anymore, so we were there too late, but he did get to see some pictures of some boys that were up in the church, and that meant they were still at least somehwat active, and he was VERY very excited about that, I was excited for him too. We sat and just talked for a bit, he talked to some people there in the church, and one guy actually recognized Bryan. Then we went over to take alooka t the Sao Paulo temple, but the grounds were closed, so we could just see it from the outside of the fence. We got to at least see it though, even if there were cleaning the steeple and Angel moroni. :) Afterwards we went over to the mall since we were both starving, and didn't want have to do t another hour of a bus ride back before eating anything. We also wanted to pick up some treats fo rme to take home to my family, and they had a supermarket int he mall.While there, we got some gelato, and it's the best gelato I've ever had anywhere (mind you I've only had it here in Utah and in San Francisco). We went back to the hotel and just relax and enjoy the last night we have together for the next three months. We also got some Esfihas, but I was still starving, so we ordered the same pizza we had the night before, and I was able to eat a good portion of it. I should mention that Sunday morning, we were able to move to another room where we were able to sleep in the same bed. So that was nice :) Again, we just relaxed and went to bed.

Monday, July 21st and Tuesday, July 22nd

We got up early, and took a taxi cab to the airport, and started the stupid thing of having to say good bye. He dropped me off at the ticket counter to make sure everything was still in order, and that I would get home safely. Again, this is always a worry with me :) I'm a deaf girl, traveling alone, and pregnant, so bryan was with up until he could no longer be with me. I went through, and started my long flight home. In short, my flight was this: I left 5:30 Utah time Monday morning in which I had a 6 hour flight from Peru, 13 hour layover in peru (where I read four books from cover to cover), 8 hour flight from Peru to Los Angeles, 2 hour layover, 1 hour flight to Las vegas, 1 hour lay over in Las Vegas, 1 hour flight to San Francisco, 45 minute layover in San Francisco, 2 or 3 hour flight back to Salt Lake City. My family had been in Salt Lake that day, and asked if i would like to go to dinner with them, I said yes. So when I landed, I went to get my luggage, turns out there was a miscommunication and the lady who was supposed to make sure my luggage got from LAX to SLC, rather than just stopping in LV, didn't put the sticker note out or something, so my luggage was still in LV. I then go to dinner with my family, and went home. I got home Tuesday night, at 11:30 PM. Needless to say, I was stinking exhausted, and was not looking forward to class the next day. i still went (had to), and slowly recovered from the long flight home.


Overall, it was an amazing trip. I also love that this time has flown by pretty fast so far, and I hope it keeps to fly by, it makes it easier to deal with a spouse being gone :) It'll be 4 weeks since I've last seen Bryan on Monday, and 8 weeks until he gets home on Tuesday. He has not been in the states since Monday, July 16th, so that's 5 weeks for him since he's seen home. He says time has flown by for him quite fast as well, so we keep praying that it will continue to be fast. :) And that, my friends, is the end of the Brazil trip.

baths and pedicures

I love baths, and they normally help me relax and go to sleep immediately. I was hoping that would happen tonight. Unfortunately it did not. I did however, enjoy the SHORT amount of time I was in the bath, and it just seemed to help lift the weight of my belly for a bit. the bath also did feel really good, though it was too hot at first, so I had to get out and run some COLD water for a bit. Those who know me well, know that I NEVER do this. I can tolerate a good amount of heat in a shower or bathtub. I know you're not supposed to take super hot baths when pregnant, but I didn't do it for that reason, I did it because of a previous experience with hot water that I had. The pedicure. Which will come after I'm done talking about the bath. :) So the pros of taking a bath right now 1. lifts the weight a bit, 2. feels great. The cons 1. can't have it too hot, 2. can't lay down for very long :( :( :(, 3. I'm too big to shift to the side now, I can't curl up on my side like I used to...dang it. 4. It is a PAIN to get back up, especially when there's no grip on the bathtub floor. I use a lot of arm strength to get up so that I have a smaller chance of slipping (wait no, I slip every time), and falling. I hate that I prefer to take showers at the moment. I miss my baths (yes, I know I'll get them back, eventually).

now, the pedicure story:


Bryan decided to treat me, and took me for a mani/pedi one day. I was only 15 weeks along, but I still loved the idea of being pampered (I do have a great husband :) ). Anyway, we went to a new place, as they had a good deal going on. I had originally wanted to do a manicure only, but the deal "justified" getting a pedicure as well. What I did NOT know was that they do the mani at the same time as they do the pedi, while you are sitting in a massage chair. I sit down, they already had the massage chair going (I *HATE* massage chairs, they hurt, and all that stimulation on my back just makes me sick), and put my feet in the water, it was REALLY hot, but I thought I'd be able to handle it and that it would cool off soon. So I suck it up, and they start doing a manicure as well. There was also a bunch of incense burning, and the smell was just not my favorite, and it was just really strong, to me anyway. Bryan said he couldn't smell it at all. After about 5ish minutes, I started getting lightheaded, and lean forward a little bit. I look over at Bryan, and try to tell him I'm going to pass out. He tells me to lay down (there is no way to lay down in this chair), so I just lean forward some more to put my head between my knees...ish. Then I just couldn't do it, and I say I need to stop or something, and they see my face and I'm sure I look pretty pale by now. I told them I need to go lay down (naturally, they don't speak English that well). So they take me and this girl who is probably 5'1, skinny as can be, tries to help me over to where I thought I was going to lay down. Instead she was taking me to the tiny bathroom they have, and I couldn't say anything as I really was on the verge of passing out...and boom, I fall to the floor. I'm only out for a second, and hear lots of shouting, and Bryan comes over, la de dah, everyone makes a big deal, they take a stool outside, and have me sit outside. I'm trying to tell Bryan that I *NEED* to lay down, and if they don't have a place in there, I'm gonna lay down on the sidewalk. Out comes this lady who was also a customer, apparently she's a nurse, and gets what I'm trying to say, and lo and behold, they do have a place to lay down. They have a waxing room, I didn't care what had happened in there before, I just needed to lay down before I passed out again. I lay down, they get cool rags, and are checking on me every 2 minutes, etc. The nurse lady talks to me for a bit, and I explain why I think I passed out (I'm pregnant, the water was too hot, the massage chair and mani was too much stimulation and the incense was just too strong, so combine it all...yeah). She agrees, and just tells me to take it easy, and not put my feet back in that hot water (I wasn't planning on it). I feel better, get up, and they really push to try and finish everything, I agree because I feel bad for freaking them out. They go to put my feet back in the water, I start pulling and saying no no no, no water, too hot. So they just clip and paint, and finish my nails really fast as well. But they were still annoyed that they couldn't do the full job, oh well.

All because the water was too freaking hot (and perhaps too much stimulation). Thus, why I won't take really hot baths right now. :)

Baby

so, I, of course, have been reading various baby articles, websites, blogs, etc. I see that in just a couple of weeks I should definitely keep in mind how often the baby is moving. I also noticed that generally it says if the baby kicks 10-12 times in two hours, it's fine, nothing to really be concerned about.

As of right now, I DEFINITELY do NOT have anything to worry about when it comes to movements. This little boy, he's probably gonna be a track and field person if he keeps it up. I was sitting down at work, and was mentally counting how many times I could feel him move (could have been punches, rolling or kicking). Within 15 minutes, I felt him move at LEAST 30 times. This went on for a good two hours.

No wonder I haven't been sleeping that well.

I've also noticed he seems to have a routine. Everyday, around 9 AM, he's kicking and moving. Every night around 11 PM, he's kicking and moving, everything else in between, I'm too busy or not really paying attention to notice if there's a set time. I know for sure about 9 because that's about what time I wake up in the mornings. I also know for sure around 11, because I wake up to him moving, unless I'm not asleep already, then it just makes it harder to go to sleep.

I love the baby in me, but dang, can I just sleep?

Brazil

For reference if you want to look at them again or just have joined my journal:
http://picasaweb.google.com/paulistano, bryan also has some pictures of where he had been staying for the past two weeks and has taken some pictures of where he works.

All pictures can be found there, and they are all categorized by city, which is basically how the vacation went :)

Friday July 18th

We wake up, and decide to go to the beach. We went to the Copacabana/Ipanema beach in Rio. There are no pictures here because there was no way we were taking more than we absolutely had to since we both wanted to get into the water and play, and didn't want to risk our camera being stolen (since it apparently happens quite often with tourists). However, you can take my word for it that it was a BEAUTIFUL day, and was the perfect temp. I felt very out of place though as I had to wear one of Bryan's tank tops, a bra, and some gym shorts to be able to swim as I had no swimming suit to wear (not going to buy a swimming suit that I may only wear once in my life time!). Even if I had my typical modest one piece swim suit, or two piece swimsuit that covers everything that a one piece would, I would have still been completely out of place. I have never seen so many teeny tiny bikinis and soooooooooooooo many speedo like swimsuits. It was odd to see men wearing swim shorts/board shorts, and hardly ever did I see a woman wearing some kind of shorts or skirt (no matter how big she was) for the bottom part. It was an interesting feeling since I come from Utah where by comparison, swim suits are quite modest here.

Anyway, we spent about four hours there. We laid out for a bit (don't worry I had SPF 30 :) ), and then when we started getting hot, we went into the water. I got caught in an undertow, and refused to go deeper, as I was standing int he water yelling no to bryan's invitation to go further out, another wave caught me by surprise, and I got caught in that undertow as well. I would like to say it's EASY for me to get surprised and caught because I can't hear the waves coming, so if I'm facing the beach, I have no idea what's coming. But another part is, I've always been REALLY afraid of water and swimming. Hence why I suck at swimming. :) I was 15 before I would even jump off of the low diving board for class, and I had to do it, or else I would fail. That was the only reason why I didn't get an F in the class (I got a C+) for the swimming portion in middle school. Anyway, so Bryan keeps inviting me backin, I keep getting unreasonably grumpy at him, and shout no, and then eventually I brave past where the waves are usually breaking, and join him and just simply wave jump. It was soooooooooo nice, and the water was just an amazing temperature. The sand was great, just everything was awesome. We laid back out for a little while longer, then we went and got some lunch.

Afterwards we decided to go back to the hotel, shower, change and hurry over to the christ statue. You can see the picture of that portion of the trip at the website. I hated how out of place I felt there. Big white pregnant girl, with a very American accent (western one at that!), wearing very different clothes. It was funny because someone had asked me a question, and I just said sorry, i don't speak portugese, but he does and would point to Bryan. He would chat away with them (I didn't mind), and then I would catch them looking at me and the person saying "Americana?" They NEVER asked if Bryan was American, just me. I was a bit offended by that, because Bryan is just as American as I am! But it was still interesting to be the odd one out, and feel like the vacationer that everyone is looking at going "oh she's obviously not from here" I've never really been on that side before.

The train ride up to the christ state was a long one, and was so, oh my freaking heck, steep. I was glad we had paid the money to ride the train, or else we would have never made it up with me. With all the walking we had done combined by this point, I really had to consciously make my legs move if there was any sort of incline or stair to go up. It was getting more difficult to walk around. We get up to the Christ statue, and it's one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen in my life. I just wish we could've made all the other tourists disappear, and it would have just been that much more amazing. You can see how big it is, and everything from the pictures. There was also a chapel there from when the pope came and did a mass there. It was a pretty unique experience being in there. Then we get done, and take the train back. We get some dinner, and head to the movie where we watched Dark Knight. The sound was in English, and everything was subtitled in Portuguese, but that didn't help me much with my deafness :) It was still fun to watch and see the subtle differences in movie watching, and places of where to laugh and make other various noises were. Now this part I'm going to steal from a baby post I made:

"I think all the noise and the vibrations from how loud it was was just making the baby move a lot. As we were watching a pretty intense scene, a fighting one, i could feel the baby kicking pretty hard, so I took Bryan's hand and put it on my tummy (he didn't even seem to notice!), and he did feel it kick, just didn't realize what it was. So I waited for three more kicks, and finally, this was about the time the intense scene was over, I asked Bryan "did you feel that?!" He turns to me and says yes, then the light clicked on and he goes "OH MY GOSH!" :) That was definitely one of the biggest highlights of the trip. We were afraid he wouldn't get to feel the baby kick before I had to leave to come back, and I was leaving that following Monday, so we were starting to lose hope, or at least I was."

It was a fun experience :) Afterwards we went back to the hotel and slept and somewhat packed as we were leaving the next day to fly to Sao Paulo.

baby update

It has been awhile, and I know it, but things just got busy, and I've now gotten everything in order again for me to be able to stay sane while at home :)

Before we went on our Brazil trip, I had a check up for Thursday before we left (July 10th). We got there, and get checked in. The nurse comes to get me, and brings me back. We're excited for Bryan to be here one more time for this and all. She turns around and informs us that my doctor had just been rushed out to delivery and wouldn't be back tonight, and she doesn't ahve hours on Fridays, and I could come back on Monday. Well unfortunately, that meant Bryan wouldn't be able to be there for anything. We understood, and just rescheduled for the Monday after I got back (July 28th). Bryan was a bit bummed, and I felt bad, but things do happen. We did ask and double check with her to make sure that it really was ok for me to go to Brazil. It was, and thus we went to Brazil. Details of those posts are in my normal journal :) Though I will say this.

Baby movement


On Friday, July 18th, Bryan got to feel the baby move and kick for the first time! We were watching the movie Dark Knight, and I think all the noise and the vibrations from how loud it was was just making the baby move a lot. As we were watching a pretty intense scene, a fighting one, i could feel the baby kicking pretty hard, so I took Bryan's hand and put it on my tummy (he didn't even seem to notice!), and he did feel it kick, just didn't realize what it was. So I waited for three more kicks, and finally, this was about the time the intense scene was over, I asked Bryan "did you feel that?!" He turns to me and says yes, then the light clicked on and he goes "OH MY GOSH!" :) That was definitely one of the biggest highlights of the trip. We were afraid he wouldn't get to feel the baby kick before I had to leave to come back, and I was leaving that following Monday, so we were starting to lose hope, or at least I was.

Now for when I first felt the baby move, I can't tell you for sure because I just wasn't sure if I was feeling the baby move, or if it was gas bubbles, or if my stomach was twitching or growling, or if it was round ligament pain. It wasn't until I was at SFO waiting to meet Bryan at LAX that I realized I was DEFINITELY feeling the baby move around. It was an amazing moment, it was a quiet moment for me because I had my hearing aids off, so that was nice :) That would be on Monday, July 14th, and at that point I was 21 weeks along. So when Bryan felt it, I was still only 21 weeks along. We really were blessed for Bryan to definitely feel him :)

Since I've been back, my sister, Hilarie, has been dying to feel the baby move herself. I was there for the 24th of July, and we tried, but he just wasn't quite kicking hard enough for her to feel him. This past weekend I stayed with my family. She tried to feel him again on Friday, still not quite there, same thing happened for Saturday. Finally, yesterday, Sunday August 3rd, she got to feel him. He was really moving a lot, and kicking quite a bit, so I finally told her to just push down as far as she could on my stomach, and she might feel him. After the fourth kick, she finally felt him, then my other sister heard what was going on. She was able to feel him on the first try. They were really excited :) Now they just can't wait for when we can actually see movement on my belly from the baby kicking. :)

I swear the baby was also punching me yesterday. Most of the time I feel the kicking near the bottom of my uterus, way past my belly button. Yesterday, I was feeling some kicking, then all of a sudden I felt movement way above my belly button. It felt different as well, so I think it was him punching me :) it also seems to be a distinctly different feel when the baby is rolling or just shifting in general. I don't know if I'm imagining things, but that's just simply what I'm interpreting the movements as. :)



I am now 24 weeks along, and had experience a scary moment



I went in for my check up on Monday, July 28th. I get there, and bring my camera along as it has a movie function on it. I check in, and sit down in the waiting room. The lady next to me starts talking to me like we're old friends. Asks me about the baby, the father, what I'm doing, then all of a sudden starts talking to me about she just went snorkeling in some unheard of island that's like a jungle somewhere with her son and daughter, and went on about how beautiful the fish were. It was interesting, and with the difficulty I have understanding complete strangers or new voices, I was very relieved to see the nurse coming to get me after five minutes of checking in.

I weigh in, she takes my blood pressure (97/70 btw), asks how I'm feeling etc. It wasn't my usual nurse, the usual one must have had the day off. It was interesting to have someone new after getting used to the same nurse I've been seeing for two years now every time I went in to see my doctor. Then the doctor comes in, asks all the questions, and has me lay down. I ask if I can record the doppler portion so that I can send the heart beat to my husband, she says of course. So she drips all that gel on, and starts searching....and searching....and searching. Usually it takes 30 seconds max to find the heart beat. But she was not finding the heart beat. I did feel the baby move twice during this, but was still getting nervous, especially as there seemed to be a growing look of concern on her face. We heard a sound, and it was actually a movement, but not a heart beat. So after five minutes of searching, she stops, probably because partially I was getting all hot and sweaty and pale (the position I was in is apparently a VERY bad position for me to be in), and I felt like I was going to pass out. She also stopped so that she could go find another doppler. She goes and gets one, it's a completely different kind, and I'm almost holding my breath when she starts looking. Almost immediately we hear the heart beat just under my belly button. we both breathed a huge sigh of relief, and the heart beat sounds normal. If you want to hear it, I can post it up, it's a 15 second little movie of a close up of a very white belly and a hand, you don't see anything else, but you can hear the heart beat. :)

We wrap it up, and she gives me the glucose drink to take later on in the week. I did that last Thursday and had my blood drawn. The easiest time I ever had blood drawn before, it was awesome! However, I've never bled so much afterwards before! It was just one tube, and he was done in a snap, put the cotton ball and tape on, and i was out of there. I stopped at subway to grab a sandwich before heading back to work. I order, and start to pay, and I see the cashier staring at my arm with a slightly grossed out look on her face. As I look down, the cotton ball was completely soaked through with blood, so much so there was smears of blood around the area from bending my arm and such. So I hurry and pay, get my food, and grab some napkins so that no one else will see and be grossed out. I get in the car, get the napkin ready to cover it as soon as I take the cotton ball off. I rip it off, and.....it's not even bleeding anymore. It just must have had just a little more pool of blood to get out before it was done. It was interesting, but I'm obviously fine :)

Anyhow, there's the most recent update :)

More Brazil

We get up early enough to go to the airport and fly to Rio. This time, Bryan calls from the airport to make sure we have a hotel to stay at. The hotel he had in mind, did have vacancy. We go on what seems like a two hour bus ride to get to the hotel in Rio, to where we're staying. I was just amazed at all the small, run down places there were. Bryan says they're called Shanty towns, and it's basically where all the poor people live, and it's a lot of places. Every single building was made out of what's called wonder brick, and most of them have just some kind of wood or sheet of metal covering the top of the building. It was an eye opening experience to see what low class/poverty really looks like (you definitely do not see a lot of it in Salt Lake City, UT).

The bus gets to our stop, and drops us off. We debate on what to do, well mostly Bryan debates on what to do :) We decide to go to sugar loaf mountain, that's where the beginning scenery and sky cable car pictures are from in the Rio section of Bryan's photo album. Before we're able to go up though, we had a hard time finding an ATM that would take our card. The bank company that usually accepts any visa card, just was not working for us, so we spent a good amount of time doing that. While we're on this little ATM hunt, Bryan got us some churros from a street vendor. I do believe this was my favorite treat/food from the entire trip of Brazil. I didn't know they filled up the center of the churros with filling. Bryan may say he has told me before, but I must have forgotten. I got mine with just plain dulce de leite flavor, and I could have had at least five more! So good! Finally, we find that sugar loaf will take visa anyway, so we go ahead and get in line.

Apparently sugar loaf is a really famous historical geological formation there. Go here for more information on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarloaf_Mountain%2C_Brazil

They have a Brazilian site for it, but no English version for it yet. Basically, it's freaking A high up, and very steep on the sides. First you are taken to a smaller mountain, and you can explore a tiny bit, then you go up to the next mountain by way of sky cable car again. My mom would have a heart attack there, I don't think she could have made up to the first mountain. I was even getting a little light headed when in the cable car, just because you could see how much higher you were getting the whole time. It was cool, but freaky.

We were there for awhile, just relaxed and watched the crowds, and the sun for awhile. It was relaxing. Then we start heading back to town. We get off where we thought we had gotten on, and see there's a mall nearby. We go to the mall, and look around a bit. We got dinner at a self service place there. I think it's the best option as you can have the most variety of foods there to try. IF you don't know what it is, it's basically a buffet, but you pay by the weight of the plate. I definitely got more for my money that way then getting a seven dollar burger from McDonald's (which is very chicy there).

Then we go to find an internet cafe to check in with my family, and check to see if we have any urgent e-mails. We saw another street vendor that sold tapioca. Now, for you Americans, this is not Tapioca pudding, but actual tapioca. Here's a little excerpt from wiki:

In Brazilian cuisine, tapioca is used for different types of meals. The tapioca is stirred, drained through a sieve, fried into a tortilla shape, and often sprinkled with coconut. Then it may be buttered and eaten as a toast (its most common use as a breakfast dish), or it may be filled or topped with either "doces" (sweet) or "salgados" (salty) ingredients, which define the kind of meal the tapioca is used for: breakfast, afternoon tea or dessert. Choices range from butter, cheese, chocolate, bananas with condensed milk, chocolate with bananas, to various forms of meats and served warm. A restaurant which specializes in tapioca-based dishes (mostly fillings) is called in Brazil a "tapiocaria"


Then we start to walk home, but as we soon discover,we were in the wrong place. We also had no idea how to get to where our hotel was. Bryan figured he had an idea, so we start walking. AFter a very very long time, we realize we don't know where we are,so we hail a taxi, and bryan gives him directions to somewhere. The taxi drops us off, and we start walking. Again, we're not sure where we are as he had dropped us off at an intersection that we didn't recognize. So we walk a little bit more, not nearly as long this time though. We hail another taxi cab, and are taken straight to our hotel. At this point, we get in the hotel and crash.

Brazil

I'm taking a lunch break from cleaning the house. Yes, it's that bad, we left it in chaos in a hurricane, and I wanted to do some moving of furniture. I've got the bathroom, bedroom and office done. I've also got most of the laundry done. I just need to do the kitchen, the frontroom and the dishes. I'm hoping to get all of this done today so that I can just focus on homework after church tomorrow.

Anyhow, the vacation continues:

Wednesday, July 16, 2008


let me go back a minute and tell you what we had for dinner last night. Apparently Arabic food is quite popular in Brazil, which is what we had. We had something called Esfihas. They were good, just not something that's familiar to me.


Now back to Wednesday. We got up and had a continental breakfast. Now, I'm American, so I'm used to muffins, bagels, jam, cereal at continental breakfasts. I knew it would be different here, and basically this is what all of them had:
Some sort of deli meat (usually ham), some kind of cheese (I think it's provolone, not sure), bread rolls, butter, fresh juice, hot milk, hot coffee, hot tea, yellow cake (no frosting, just...cake), another kind of cake that I have no way of describing, bunches of crackers, and two kinds of fruit, one of them almost always being watermelon. Interesting eh? It seems that the majority of people take the meat and cheese and roll and make a sandwich. This is what I had for breakfast every morning while I was in Brazil :) I did get to try their bananas, which I actually can eat (I hate bananas here), watermelon is great of course, papaya, and another fruit that i had no idea what it was. I didn't have the fresh juice, because most of them would have just been to acidic for me. I did have hot milk with their "nesquick" chocolate mix, which actually tastes somewhat like nutella to me.

We finish breakfast, get a taxi to go to Iguacu Falls, cross the Argentina border, and have to get money in Pesos to pay to get in, and the Taxi drops us off. We go to take the biggest most awesomest tour, and find out we can't do it because...oh yeah, I'm pregnant! It ended up being a good thign anyway, cause we saved a LOT of money. So we decided to just tour around ourselves for free. We get some 3 bucks a bottle water bottles, and some sunscreen which I swear was like 15 bucks. Though I'm glad we did that, we were out for a long time. We started walking around at 10. Refer to the link that I had posted earlier for pictures of Iguacu, and that pretty much tells the whole story. The Coati, the animal that ate our sandwich, it seriously did. We had just bought a whole sandwich to save money, and split, and I sat down, people are ooohing and aaaahing over the coati and how cute they are. I smile, start opening up the sandwhich package, and one jumps up on the table and it's HUGE fangs (ok, huge for it's size) show and it bites into the sandwich. I'm playing tug of war for it for a moment, then it gets away with half of our sandwich. It was a very scary incident, and I no longer see them as cute as all I can see now are their teeth!

There are no words to describe Iguacu Falls. You just simply must go there and see it for yourself. The pictures don't do it justice, wiki it and read about it, how big it is, etc. I was just flat out awesome.

All the hiking and walking we did took us from 10 Am to 5 PM, and we still didn't get to see every thing. It is definitely at LEAST a two day thing, but we didn't have two days, oh well. Then we went home, showered, and went to a churrasco (like Tuacnos, or Rodizios) that also provided a 3 hour show of entertainment. The pictures of all the dancing people, that was the show, so the story is told there as well. My favorite part was with the scantily clad las vegas type girls, and the guy up there. She was trying to get him to dance, and move his butt, and hips (this is where she's pulling his pants in the picture). Then they start doing a small conga line of just them two, and the brazilian guy with the corn braids was able to sneak in between them behind the dancing guy, and the girl let go. The Brazilian guy turns the other guy to kiss him, and he freaks out. It was a TON of fun. Though there were definitely a TON of DRUNK people there singing out loud and dancing along to the music. The picture with all the white napkins, that was Mexico being proud of their culture being shown in the performances.

Then we went home :)



That is all I'm doing for now as I want to get this house clean!

Brazil

I'm doing this little by little :) The first part of our vacation is very boring, but there are some stories to it, skim or don't read if you think it's boring :). I'm still quite tired from the trip, but I have to be up and have things to do, so if this doesn't make sense at parts, forgive me :)

Saturday July 12th CA

we flew to San Francisco, CA, and went to a wonderfully delicious BBQ place with Bryan's parents, then went home and crashed.

Sunday July 13th CA


we went to Pismo beach as can be seen in the photo gallery posted earlier with Bryan's family, and one of their dogs, Monty. Afterwards we went to dinner, and Bryan and I called a night early as we had to get up at 3:30 to leave at 4:00 to go to the airport (at least I think those are the times, I'm not entirely sure).


Monday July 14th, CA to Peru


Bryan's parents take us to the SFO airport (many thanks to you two for your driving and hospitality!) We have two different flights, so Bryan gets on his first, and flies down to LAX. He is able to board, fly, and unboard (is that a word?) before I even board my plane. I board, and he just does whatever in LAX, while I'm heading over. We meet up, and finish checking in. We both *HATE* the LAX airport. It's just so inconveniently built, and the international part was going through some remodeling, etc. It was just..not fun. Fortunately it was only a 4 hour layover, in which we were busy going from one ticket counter to another. This is the story time:

I had flown down on American Airlines, and they gave me boarding passes for ALL of my plane changes etc. United was who Bryan had flown, and they only gave him the boarding pass down to LAX. So we had to go check in at the counter with the LAN Peru international flight.; They take a look at our paper ticket, and cannot process it, because the person back at SFO had torn out the wrong paper ticket. We are currently in the international terminal, which is basically terminal 0, past terminal 1. So the lady tells us we need to go to the terminal with United to get them to give US a paper ticket to give to THEM (lan peru) so that we can get a boarding pass for Bryan. At this point we're tired and grumpy, and MAD because we had already had too many issues concerning our flight times and layovers that were changed at the last minute, thus ALMOST preventing us from going to Brazil.
Bryan asks if they can just call United, and they said no, it has to be on paper, and we have to go get it. So we have to go to terminal...SEVEN! we were able to catch a shuttle there, and we get in line, and the lady is confused, then she gets someone, then they don't remember how to do the specific process they're supposed to go through. Basically we were there for about 30 minutes. Finally, they figure it out, after we triple check with them that it's all done right because we don't want to have to walk back, we walk all the way back over to the international terminal. Give it to them, and it actually worked. *whew*
Then Bryan talks to them about my flight home since the layover in Peru is 13 hours, if I could get in VIP lounge for the day, or a different flight. There was a different flight, but it however went to Santiago and not Lima. Plus we didn't have time to change it then and there, so we decided to decide later, and work it out when we were in Brazil. In the end, I decided to just deal with the 13 hour layover, mostly because Bryan had to work on Monday when he dropped me off int he morning, so if my flight was later, I would just be at the airport anyway. Also because on my way there, we were going through Lima, and that way i would at least be familiar with where I was supposed to go and how it worked (this is a scary experience alone when you don't speak the language there, but add on that I'm a female traveling alone who is pregnant and deaf....it was just overwhelming). If i had gone to Santiago, I had a bigger chance of running into problems. So, boring story over, we stuck with the original revised plan (that was one of the things that was changed at the last minute).

We have an hour or so before we even board, so we get food, but because of the remodeling, everything is Hot, chaotic and just FULL. But Bryan put up with the crowd for me anyway, and went to MCD's to get something since I was a hungry/whiny/tired/preggo woman. He's a good husband :)

We board, and fly the long flight down to Peru. It was an 8 hour flight, and actually wasn't too bad since we each seat had their own individual screen, and you could watch whatever movies were available, or TV Shows, or play games, etc. Plus, there was an empty seat in our row, so we kept the middle one open to give us some room, it was nice.


Tuesday, July 15th Peru and Brazil

We land in Peru on Monday July 14th at 12:00 AM, and rush to our next flight taking in off in a half hour to go to Sao Paulo Brazil. No time to stop, just walked right through everything, but was still able to see the airport enough for me to be able to recognize where to go on my way back.

Get on the flight to Brazil, and we don't have individual screens, but they do play some tv shows. I crashed most of the way, and it was a 6 hour flight. I mostly crashed and fell asleep because we weren't sitting next to each other this time, oh well.

We land in the Sao Paulo airport, and we have a 5 1/2 hour lay over. We also had two hours before someone would come and pick up one of Bryan's bags that he wouldn't be using the week we were flying all over the country. We wait around for the guy to pick up his bag, we didn't see him, and we waited for an hour. We don't have a cell phone for him, or one for him to contact us with, so we just kept waiting. Turns out he had been waiting around upstairs while we were downstairs :) Fortunately he came to look downstairs, and took Bryan's luggage and laptop and anything else not needed. At this point we still have 3ish more hours before we leave to Iguacu Falls. So we go up, and find a quiet spot, and Bryan crashes and sleeps for an hour while I play sudoku on my phone (yes I had one, but only for time and alarm purposes, there was no network for it to work down there) for an hour. Then we go and board, and fly to Iguacu Falls, this was only about 1 1/2 hour flight.

We get to Iguacu Falls at about 3:30, and get a taxi to the hotel that bryan wanted to stay at. Keep in mind here, I had told Bryan to call ahead twice and to reserve. He always responded and said it was off season and the hotels would be available, and not worry. So you can guess what happened if I had to bring that up :) The hotel we wanted was full, fortunately there was a hotel just across the street that had vacancy, so we stayed there. We unpack, I think we showered (I'm pretty sure we did), then we go walking around town a bit to get some food. Then we get back, and basically just crash. My feet had looked like the elephant feet that I had posted earlier, so they needed a break. Especially since we had a ton of walking to do the next day. :)

That is all I'm going to write for now, things do get more exciting :) I'm mostly including details for myself, so if you get sick of them...just deal or skim :)