Ear Infections+Flu+Pregnancy=Death by Torture

I can see why people really can die from this.  I thought I was going to die the past couple of days.  I jinxed myself a couple of weeks ago when I told someone that I don't ever remember having the flu...just a bad cold once in a while.  I know now not to ever say anything remotely close to that again.  So as you know, I went to the clinic on Friday.  I wanted them to look at my ears since they had started to hurt a little and when my ears bother me, I can't stand it.  So the doc said they looked "normal" for someone who had the flu...a little fluid, but not bad.  He told me to go get some earache drops and they'd feel better.  I got the drops, used them once, and they worked for about 5 or 10 minutes.  Then BAM.  Pain again and worse this time.  I used some more.  Same thing.  So I filled my poor ears up almost with the drops, let them sit there for a minute.  And more pain.  I decided that they just weren't gonna work and by then, I was starting to have short dizzy spells.  That can't be a good thing right?  I thought, "Hmm, I'll just take some MORE Tylenol and they'll probably feel better in the morning.  Not a chance.  I was up the entire night watching TV waiting and hoping that the pain would go away.  It just got worse and worse.  I wanted to CRY (and I DON'T CRY!!) because I really thought my head was going to explode.  Then came the weird leakage from both ears.  Nice.  I started to think, "There have been some serious things happen to people with these types of symptoms."  Ears hurting along with a contraction or two, and mix in a few body aches and a serious hacking cough will really make you wonder why you are still alive.  Ha!  I watched the clock all night then watched the sun come up and waited for the clinic to open at 9am.  I went as soon as it was open.  The doc took a look at my right ear and said, "Oh, that's not good..."  Then took a look at the other one, "OHH, that's NOT good either!"  He said that I had some serious negative pressure on both of them.  Duh.  Now here's the problem.  Since I'm like 38 weeks pregnant, what kinds of meds can they give me?  Almost nothing of course.  The doc said I really needed steriods but they were on the "only in emergencies" list, there aren't many pain killers I can have that aren't in the same catergory either.  So he gave me a shot in my butt and called in an antibiotic and some $50 nose spray to help with the pain.  I am feeling better as long as I pump my system full of meds.  It sucks because this poor boy without a name that could be here any day now has been medicated from the beginning.  He's probably going to have to go into a detox program after he's born.  

For those of you who have ear problems all the time, DUDE, how do you do it?  I've never had anything wrong with my ears, even as a kid, and it's got to be the worst thing ever.  

Flu+9 Months of Pregnancy=Hell

I've been feeling bad since Tuesday and finally went to the clinic today to see if I had the flu.  They did the nose swab thing and found that I have the type A Influenza, which apparently is the worst one.  Yesterday was by far my worst day though.  I felt horrible.  My skin and hair follicles even hurt.  And of course my huge belly and nice cough that comes with the flu don't mix well.  I have been sore from coughing too.  I had a baby doc appointment Thursday and she told me that I should go get my nose swabbed to check to see if that was really what it was.  But she also told me that if that's what it was, there really wasn't much other than OTC drugs I could take.  So, I decided against going and paying my $30 just to have them tell me whether or not I had it.  But today my ears were killing me.  I've never had an ear infection, but when my ears are acting up, I can't STAND it.  I went to a clinic near Anna's pediatrician.  They took one look at me without even asking what I needed and turned me away.  They said they can't treat pregnant chicks.  Pretty ridiculous I thought.  So off I went to another clinic.  The were much nicer and I got to go straight in.  They did the nose swab and let me know I had the flu, but no ear infection.  Thanks goodness.  I for sure don't need anything else go wrong.  

And as I said earlier about yesterday being my worst day...  I had to go up to labor and delivery to have them stop my contractions.  I called my doctor to just give her a "heads up" that I was having contractions that were about 8 minutes apart.  They didn't really hurt that bad, but they were a little different than my Braxton Hicks that I've had for months now.  They told me to ahead and go up to the hospital.  I was very annoyed by this but I guess if I didn't want them to tell me that then I shouldn't have called.  But what would have happen then?  Who knows.  They hooked me up to the monitor and "checked me" (my favorite thing....ugh.).  I was only about 1 centimeter dilated but my contractions were off the chart.  They increased to about 5 minutes apart while I was there.  But they still didn't hurt that bad.  So they gave me two shots of some good stuff and we were on our way back home.  The shots were good enough that I couldn't drive home so my sister and mom took care of my car.

Anna and I had already made plans for her to go to Grammy's house this weekend.   Nana took her last night while I was feeling bad and at the hospital.  She drove her to meet Grammy this afternoon so I could rest.  I just hope no one else in the house gets this flu since there's almost no time left to recover before we have newborn here.  That would NOT be fun.

Mall Accident.

Anna requested that we go shopping this afternoon...really.  She ran up to me and said, "mommy, I wanna go choppin'!"  It took some serious convincing (HA!), but I got us dressed and off we went.  We went to Lowe's and got some more paint for the house then went to the mall for a late Chic-Fil-A lunch.  As we sat with Nana, who was killing some time in between picking up the cousins from school, Anna ate her chicken, french fries, and fruit.  All of a sudden, she stands up in her chair, winces and says, "I needa go tee-tee!" As she says this her hand goes straight to her crotch to try to hold it in.  Does that ever really work?  Nope.  Not even a little bit.  A gush of pee comes streaming out soaking her pant legs and making a huge puddle on the chair and floor.  We are sitting in the food court area with people all around.  The look on Anna's face was great.  You would've thought she just accidentally killed someone really important.  Or maybe she thought she was about to be killed.  Either way, I ran to get approximately 950 napkins to soak up everything.  I then got enough for about a 2 inch layer for her to sit on to soak up her drenched pants.  It was cleaned up in record time and I don't know that many people even noticed.  Although I would have been mortified if I saw it happen to someone else.  I tried not to make a big deal out of it.  She hasn't had an accident, even at night and for naps, like this in months and even then, it wasn't in public.  I didn't have any clothes for her to change into so we stuck her back in the stroller and went to get her some more panties and pants off the clearance rack.  She thought her new "princess panties" were great.  I made sure that she knew that she WAS NOT going to get more panties and clothes the next time she had an accident.

Tagged

Megan's mom tagged me.  5 random things about me... so here it goes:

1. I never can seem to finish anything I start.  It usually because I tend to get sidetracked by another project or just get bored with whatever I'm doing.

2.  I have nightmares when I sleep on my back.

3.  I drink chocolate milk way too fast every time I fix it.  It always makes my stomach hurt, but it's just so good that I can't help it.

4.  I am one of those people who thinks they know the lyrics of songs when I'm REALLY far off.  Examples: I thought Prince's "Raspberry Barret" was "a rad spherical ring"   and The Who sang "Bluuuuuuueee Awning-blue, blue...blue, blue" instead of  "Whoooooo  are you...."  I know, stupid.

5.  I think I can count only 2 or 3 books I've ever read the whole way through.  I don't ever read, although I would like to like to. 

T.M.I.

Anna just came running into the bedroom where I was checking my email for the 8th time.  I don't ever get any so I don't know why I keep checking.  Anyway, Anna came running in and said, "Mommy! Daddy's tummy hurts!  He need a band-aid! He passed gas!  He feel better."  Just thought everyone should hear that one.

Baby with no name.

That baby with no name will come for sure by or on March 3rd.  We scheduled the date, which happens to be my mom's (Nana) birthday, a couple of weeks ago.  I had a doc appt. yesterday and she told me that it would probably be right after lunch sometime (1-ish) if there aren't any emergencies at the hospital that would push me back.  So there ya have it.  

It begins...

Since I've finally sort of started to organize that unnamed boy's room, Anna has been very interested in all the new things going in there.  She likes to drag out all of the baby books (which are hers anyway), pull out baby toys and play with them, etc.  It's fine with me as long as it doesn't make a huge mess that I have to clean up 3 times a day.  I washed the moses basket stuff last night and stuck it back in the basket part to dry.  Anna thought that was just the coolest thing ever.  I'm sure she doesn't remember that it was hers, but she sure thought she needed to be in it while I took pictures of the crib bedding.  So I snapped some of her too.  Hopefully she won't try to share the basket while there is a baby sleeping in it.

 

It's hard to believe that's what she looked like almost 2 and a half years ago in the same moses basket!  Doesn't even look like the same kid.

Anna and Grant

    
A friend of mine and I had a short hang out/photography play session the other day.  We played with our cameras while our kids played outside.  Here are a couple of cute ones.  Neither of us could get Anna to look at the camera for more than a split second, but Grant was mister model.  I still haven't figured out how not to upload my pictures into iPhoto.  I'm such a Mac idiot.  Teri took the picture of Anna and I below.  One of very few of just us two.

The boy has bedding.

  

  
Here's the bedding my mom, sister, sister-in-law, and friends got me.  Isn't it awesome?!

Mulch Stash.

I was doing some laundry a little bit ago.  It was mainly Anna's stuff with a few things that needed to be washed for the "nameless kid" that could arrive any day.  As I pulled the first few things out of the washer to put them in the dryer, I noticed several small pieces of wood fall to the floor.  I picked the pieces up trying to figure out what it could be.  Did some sort of wood object fall into the washer while I put the clothes in?  I kept pulling more and more clothes out with more and more wood chips.  I realized what it was...mulch.  At Anna's Parent's Day Out (which is also our church) the playground has mulch all around the equipment.  She loves her pockets and usually stashes candy in them when I give it to her.  I guess mulch was something she thought she needed a sample of to take home.  It is now all over the laundry room floor, and I'm sure I'll be picking it out of all of her clothes and the "nameless kid's" clothes as well.  Sorry dude, it's your sister's fault.

She hates me.

I don't know if it's just that Anna is a typical bipolar 2 year old, if she knows that her world will somehow be flipped upside down soon with a newborn on the way, or if it's just that she hates me...  We DO NOT get along lately.  We had a big fight tonight about dinner.  I let her get down when she wanted from the table, but told her that she wouldn't get anything else to eat until she ate a little more dinner.  This sometimes works.  All she ate were her peas.  Of course, she said, "ok" and got down from her chair.  Later on, I got a bowl of cereal and she came over to me wanting some.  I told her that if she'd eat some more dinner then I'd get her some cereal.  She moped around for a while, playing with toys, reading, etc.  She then started saying she was hungry.  So what did I do?  I told her to eat some more dinner.  The screaming began.  I was calm and tried to reason with her without going back on my word.  I'm way too hard headed to give in.  So she went to bed early.  I even gave her a very rare second chance and asked if she wanted to get out of bed to finish eating.  She agreed, but only ate 2 more peas and began crying again telling me she didn't want to eat, but that she was still hungry.  Sorry chick...  Off to bed again.  She cried for a long time in her room and has finally stopped.  

We are off to "school" tomorrow morning and I'm trying to prepare myself for another meltdown when I leave her.  Last week I even tried to tell her multiple times that we'd go get ice cream after I picked her up if she didn't cry when I left.  No chance of that...  and no ice cream.  I'll try it again, but I'm sure it won't work.  Her poor teachers...

Big spill at Target.

Tonight Daddy, Anna, and my fat, prego self went to Target.  We go just about once a week as a family outing to escape the monotony.  We usually don't have anything specific to get...although we of course walk out with a few sacks.  It's mainly to let Anna run around, look at toys or whatever else she wants to look at, and get good and sleepy.  So as I was smelling car air-freshener things, Daddy and Anna were a few isles over kicking a soccer ball.  I went back over to let Daddy smell my choices.  Anna was retrieving the ball and walked back to her spot to get ready to kick it back to Daddy.  As she did, she kicked a little too high and whiffed the top of the ball.  Since she always kicks the ball hard, her momentum sent her straight onto the back of her head.  Just picture the Charlie Brown episode where he gets the football pulled away just as he kicks it.  Anna immediately jumped up with that frantic "holy crap that really hurt bad" face and cry...not knowing whether she could still breath and endure the pain at the same time.  It was bad...and her head made a really loud sound when it hit.  It swelled up and almost popped open.  It looked a little bloody but I'm not sure it ever really oozed anything.  She was done for the rest of the night and needed some serious "Daddy/Mommy hold me" time and Motrin.  She's fine... I hope.