I Got My Birthday Wishes!!

Yesterday was my birthday and it turned out to be a really good day. Way back when I first found out I was pregnant, I had really wanted to be pregnant on my birthday, because I knew that it was a much safer point to be at. I made it, so that was my first birthday wish!

More recently, I had hoped that I might be off of bedrest so that I could go out to dinner for my birthday and I even got that wish! Matt, Ethan and I went out to dinner and it was so nice to feel like a normal pregnant woman going out to dinner. It was interesting trying to fit my diet into my dinner, but it worked well. I did a good job and my sugars stayed nice and low, which was great :) Of course, I probably had a couple of other factors that helped me. I ended up having to get my meds increased again. I'm now up to 3 pills at dinner time, so I think it is working. I also got some exercise right after dinner. We ended up going over to Babies R' Us to get a couple of items that we needed for our growing family.

It was so much fun to go shopping for the baby :) A couple of the items were for Ethan too. We realized that Ethan is ready to move to a booster seat in the car, so we picked up one of those for Matt's car, since his car seat in my car is a 3 stage and can be turned into a booster until the baby will be big enough to need the car seat. We also needed a better humidifier for Ethan's asthma. The one we had is not that great, so we got him a better one, which we think will work out nice for him and help him better at night this winter.

The best thing we bought was Ethan's gift for the baby. Ethan likes to give babies "chewy blankies", which are little blankies that usually have some kind of animal head in the center and they usually have a silky finish to them. So, he is going to give his brother a chewy blankie. It was so cute, because Matt picked up two of them and handed them to Ethan and we let him choose which one he wanted to give his brother. One had a dog head and one had a bear head. He chose the one with the bear head and after he picked it out, I realized it said "My best friend". How cute is that?? It seemed to be the perfect gift.

I talked to Ethan's teacher yesterday and found out that Ethan has talked a lot about his new baby brother and she said he sounds so excited about it. It made me happy to hear that! Matt will hopefully get a little bit more info on how Ethan is doing when he goes to a meeting tomorrow. The lovely Ohio Department of Education (I work for them, so I can be annoyed) has decided that preschoolers need a more specific label on their IEP's. So, Matt is going in tomorrow to get Ethan's label switched. They send home a list of something like 10 different labels and he fits into a couple of those, so we don't know which one the team will choose for him. I deal with all of these last minute ODE changes all the time at work, so it didn't surprise me that they would suddenly make a change and expect it to be taken care of ASAP. Oh the joys of people that have either never been in the education field or people that have been out of it so long that they have no clue, making all of the decisions for educators and students. Sorry, I won't go into that :)

Life without bedrest has not been much different than life with bedrest. I am still taking it easy, because I still want to get to next Thursday. I am up more during the day, I'm actually sitting up to eat again, I am also sitting more when doing other things and I'm standing more. I can't drive right now, so I can't really go anywhere and I'm still dependant on other people to take me places. After 21 weeks of no driving, you can't just get up and drive, plus I don't want to risk being alone in a car and going into labor. It took me about 2 weeks to get back to driving after I had Ethan and that was after 3 weeks of bedrest. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to driving in decent timing after the baby is born, but we'll see. The positive part of this is that I have been doing some walking, so it should move a little faster this time. With Ethan, I was on 3 weeks of hospital bedrest, with no walking except a few feet to the bathroom, so that was a lot harder to recover from. So, at least this time, I will have some time to build up my strength so that I can drive :) That will be a weird feeling!!

This next week is going to be a big week for us and I will be getting my exercise! On Saturday, I'm going to get a much needed haircut! I have missed my every 6 -8 week cuts! I called my stylist and said that my hair is a disaster and I need help :) Luckily my mom, sister and niece have their appointment on Saturday, so I'm going with them. Sunday, we are going out with Matt's family to celebrate his grandmother's birthday, it is the first one since her passing last November. Monday is my Ultrasound, NST and dr. appt. Wed, I have to get Ethan to his pulmonary appointment to find out what to do about his asthma this year. Then, Thursday is the big day, where I get my cerclage out! Then we'll expect this little one anytime after that and I can be a completely normal pregnant woman! We'll keep you updated with any new info we get in the next few days!