Admitted to the Hospital

Tuesday night (technically Wednesday morning since it happend at 1am) I woke up thinking my water had broken because I realized I was lying in a pool of fluid. I assumed it was amniotic fluid, which of course was terrifying since I hit 22w0d that day. When I turned on the light in the bathroom I panicked even more because I discovered it was blood. My legs and feet were covered in blood. I had soaked through the sheets and the mattress, left a trail of blood on our white berber carpet, across the bathroom floor, etc. I stepped in the shower to try to wash it off, but I kept bleeding so it was a hopeless task to try to clean myself up. Paul called the neighbors, and Gabby (who will finish 8th grade next week) came over immediately. A little later we called Paul's parents who arrived at our house around 4am so Gabby could go home. Paul contemplated calling 911, but I thought he could just take me to the hospital. We couldn't make up our mind which hospital to go to. At first I was inclined to go to the one that has a NICU, but in light of our insurance hassles (and the fact that I know they don't accept babies younger than 24 weeks), we decided to go to the closer, smaller hospital. We called them on the way, and they told us to head straight to labor and delivery (where I had been in January 2010 with the retained placenta).

The first room they had me in for 4 hours was freezing. The thermostat was set at 95, but it was actually 58 degrees in the room. That is very unpleasant when you're only wearing a hospital gown. They hooked me up with an iv (ports in both hands), took some bloodwork, and did an ultrasound, which showed the cause of the bleeding was complete placenta previa (totally blocking the cervix). I was very thirsty, but they wouldn't give me any water or even a piece of ice because they were concerned they might have to do an emergency c-section to save my life, which would end the life of our son because he isn't viable outside the womb yet. They didn't allow me to eat or drink anything for the first 7 hours I was there because of this potentiality. This was extremely upsetting for me. At one point I was begging Paul to pick a name. I kept saying please don't let our son die without a name. Thnakfully the bleeding eased up enough that they let me eat at 8:30am. Normally my stomach wouldn't be growing at 3am, but I had been awake since 1am so my body thought it was much later than it actually was since I only slept 3 hours that night (10pm-1am). I had a catheter the first 14 hours because they didn't want me moving at all. I was on very strict bedrest (ex. don't even roll over on your side just be still). I had so many things attached to me - air compression things on both legs (connected to a machine), a blood pressure cuff, iv, etc. The bleeding stopped around 11:30pm on Wednesday night (about 22.5 hours after it stopped). They discharged me at 10:00am this morning and told me to come back on Monday for a follow-up. I was to stay on bedrest at home for 2 weeks.

Then I had my MFM appointment at 10:30 with a doctor from Harrisburg. My mom took me there by wheelchair. At this appointment I learned that #1 I needed to be hospitalized for at least another week due to the previa (as there's a high probability I'll start hemmoraging again in the next few days), #2 due to the contractions I've had lately my cervix has shortened to a dangerous point (needs to be stitched together), and #3 our son is starting to show signs of fetal anemia (probably needs a transfusion). That hospital doesn't have the equipment needed to fully evaluate the anemia. The doctor said I need to spend at least 1 more week in a hospital -either the one near us where the kids were born or the one in Harrisburg (where he's based). I chose the one in Harrisburg as we'd have to pay thousands of doallrs to go to the other one due to our insurance. The down side is that it's 1hr 45 minutes from our house. Paul stayed home with the kids, and my mom drove me to the hospital. We arrived around 3pm.

When I first arrived the monitor said I was having some contractions so they gave me some medication to try to stop those. They gave me compression stockings instead of the machine, and I'm hooked up to an iv again. I am in the labor and delivery ward, but if I don't have contractions or bleeding this evening, I'll be moved up a floor to a maternity ward. They said before I am discharged they will give me the steroid shot to speed up the baby's development. Oh and he did cooperate today - the baby is definitely a boy. So please pray for #1 the bleeding to stop and the placenta previa to resolve (move) because they can't deal with the shortened cervix or anemia until that resolves. I have to have 7 days without any bleeding before they'll discharge me. I also ask for prayers because it's going to be REALLY hard to be separated from my kids for at least one week. I already miss them like crazy.

I didn't have access to Facebook or Blogger at the other hospital, but I do have it at this one. Paul went to the library and checked out 6 books for me this morning. Hopefully that will help pass the time while I'm on bedrest at the hospital. I'm praying for a better night's sleep tonight as I haven't gotten much sleep the past 2 nights (last night due to having to go the bathroom very often due to the iv pumping fluid through me and having vitals checked throughout the night, etc.). This NICU accepts babies at 23w so I need to make it at least 6 more days for him to have a chance at surviving although the odds aren't good at that stage. It would be much better if he makes it at least 28 weeks, and of course 35 is an even better goal! Please pray he stays put as long as possible.

Big Boy Bed!

Paul was very busy the past two days doing things around the house such as mowing, weed whacking, trimming shrubs, and setting up a twin size bed in Ian's room. The glider is now in our bedroom (until we move the office furniture down to the dining room). The crib is being stored in our closet. Mowing the lawn didn't take Paul very long because our kind neighbor (Alexis) had mowed most of the lawn while we were away. The only part Paul had to do was inside the fence because their riding mower doesn't fit inside our gates. I tried to give her $20 for mowing our lawn twice (the first time was while I was in Hershey), but she refused to accept the money (as did her mother and sister). We're going to miss them when the move to Oklahoma next month! It must have rained a lot while we were on vacation because all the flowers I planted in my flower beds are looking great. My roses are also still in bloom! This picture is just of on part of the rose bush.

Last night was Ian's first time sleeping in a big boy bed. That went very smoothly. He didn't fall out or try to get out on his own. Nadia only fell out one time, and it was after she had been sleeping in the twin size bed for a few weeks. I've been hoping his transition would be just as easy. I also had him sleep in underwear, but I put a diaper over the underwear so I wouldn't have a lot of laundry to do if he didn't make it through the night. His underwear (and diaper) were wet, and there was a tiny bit of poop in his underwear as well. I'm going to stick with this plan. When I potty trained Nadia I did day and night at the same time. Ian's been day time potty trained for almost 6 months, but it was only recently that he started waking up with a dry diaper from time to time. The amount of fluids he drinks in a day went down drastically last month at the feeding clinic. I told him that when you sleep in a big boy bed, you wear big boy underwear. If anyone else has tips for nighttime potty training, I'm all ears! I peeked in on him when I went to bed at 10:30pm, and he was sleeping right up beside the wall. That's also where I found him when he woke up at little before 7am this morning.

His first nap in his bed didn't go as smoothly in that it took him 25 minutes to fall asleep, and he was crying off and on during that time span. I can't say with 100% certainty it's because he was in a bed rather than the crib because he still cried from time to time when he was put down in his crib for a nap (that happened once in Grand Cayman for example). I put him down for his nap only in his underwear since it's pretty rare for him to have an accident during nap time these days. His nap was only 15 minutes long today - much shorter than usual. Hopefully it won't take long for him to go back to 45-60 minute naps.

Kids on Cayman

The food on Grand Cayman is VERY expensive - FAR more than on any of the other islands we've visited. The cheapest one so far was St. Lucia. For this reason, Paul and I have no desire to ever return to Grand Cayman. However, it cost very little to feed Ian. I brought a can of beef stew, six packets of cream of wheat, and a couple of cans of EleCare for him. The day we arrived Paul and Pop Pop bought Ian a jar of applesauce and two packages of chocolate cream cookies at the grocery store.

All the attractions were free for Ian so we spent less than $5 on Ian while we were on the island. He drank from the sippy cup both Saturdays (the days we were traveling). All the other days he drank from his little plastic shot glasses. The day we left the island I fed him two meals in our unit before we left. Some meals he ate calmly and other times he screamed and threw up. Some days we had to change his outfit multiple times due to upchucking when I fed him. Grandma fed him one meal, Paul fed him part of a meal a couple of times, and I fed him all the rest of his meals. He had 3 meals a day except for one day when he asked me for beef stew and applesauce at 9am. I fed him a second breakfast that day (cream of wheat rather than beef stew). Sometimes he had a couple of cookies as a snack in between meals. The provided a high chair for our unit, which was what Ian sat in for his meals.

Nadia doesn't usually eat toast, but she had quite a bit of toast with grape jelly on vacation. Sometimes that was her breakfast, and other days that was her lunch. She would wait for Grandma to get up so that she could have breakfast with Grandma rather than with Mommy. She sat on the dining room chair (at home she uses a booster seat). She also ate cold cereal, applesauce, pancakes, chicken, corn bread, crackers, spaghetti, cookies, and a cheeseburger (from Wendy's) in our unit. We ordered her a pizza at XQ's twice and brought home most of her pizza for leftovers. The first trip to XQ's I ordered her a milk, but the second time I had her drink milk before we left and after we got home because I found out the first time that a glass of milk cost $3.75 (almost as much as the 12" pizza). We only had to pay for Nadia at one of the attractions - the Atlantis Submarine. The others (Stingray City, Pirate's Cave, and Turtle Farm) were free for those under the age of four.

Paul said Nadia wasn't that interested in looking out the window on the submarine. She was more interested in looking at the identification card that showed the names of the different types of fish. When we were on the catamaran, they first let us off the boat at a snorkeling spot near Stingray City. The waves were pretty strong due to the recent storms.  Pop Pop and Ian stayed in the boat, and the rest of us ventured into the water with life vests on. There were fish there, but rough waves made it difficult to enjoy. That's certainly the deepest water Nadia has ever been in!

Ian slept in my arms on the catamaran going out to see and coming back. Nadia slept on the way back. The water wasn't as pretty as usual as the storm had stirred things up. The water was pretty at the sandbar where the stingrays were located. Everyone but PopPop got out to be with the sting rays. The water was very beautiful and calm there. Standing there sting rays would be swimming all around you. They would brush up against your legs. Their underside is REALLY soft (like a mushroom). Sometimes you would be surrounded by sting rays. Both kids enjoyed it. Nadia kissed several sting rays. I kissed one of them. I wish I had more pictures. Before we go to the Caribbean again, I want to buy a better water camera. Stingray City was definitely the highlight of the vacation for me.

Both kids loved the swimming pool although Ian and I loved it more before the rain came and lowered the water temperature. They both loved to play with the pool toys at the resort (rafts, noodles, etc.). Nadia loved jumping in from the side of the pool. Ian did that for the first time ever although of course I caught him so he never went underwater. Nadia would go underwater and then pop back up because of her inner tube. Ian still wanted no part of the "boat" that Nadia loved in Antigua (when she was 10 months old). He didn't like it last summer, but I thought now that he was almost 2 1/2 years old he'd be brave enough to sit in it and float around the pool. We would have left it behind if I wasn't pregnant. We kept it in case the next little guy likes it. We had to keep a close eye on him when he was on a raft as he didn't grasp the concept that it wouldn't be good for him to dive into the water head first. The Marriott took in their large flotation items (that were anchored down with blocks of concrete) on Tuesday afternoon, and they never put them back out (as of Saturday morning when we left anyhow). I was really wanting Nadia to get to enjoy it like Ian did on Tuesday. We walked along the beach, but we never went back into the ocean (on Seven Mile Beach anyhow) after Tuesday morning. Nadia spent at least 30 minutes in the pool eight days in a row (some days a lot longer than that). She was always excited to go out and sad to go back in. She was even more excited if there were other kids in the pool (whether they were 3 years old or teenagers).

Both kids loved the turtle farm. Nadia loved the water slide and getting in the touch tank with some turtles. Ian loved those two things as well, but he also loved watching the sharks and the crocodile. If the weather had been nicer that day, we definitely could have spent a lot more time there. Because it was raining when we left, I didn't bring my good camera. I brought my point and shoot and water camera. Unfortunately I left my spare battery back at the resort, and the battery in the point and shoot died after only snapping a couple of pictures (before we got to the turtles). My aim was off with the water camera (which is meant to be worn as a mask) so I only got one picture. Bummer! In addition to deciding to buy a better water camera before our next trip (I'm thinking I'll ask for that for Christmas from Paul), I have learned to bring the spare battery with me and not leave it in our bedroom!!! I also really wish I had pictures of Nadia kissing the sting ray and such. The kids also enjoyed the Pirate's Cave. We were there less than 30 minutes. We saw quite a few animals on our trip between the turtle farm and cave. We also saw some animals at the resort - a large crab even wandered into the swimming pool one day! One good thing about the bad weather is that none of us got much (if any) sunburn. We did see the sun on our last day. The sun was out the day we arrived and the day we left, but the sun wasn't out the 6 days in between. It wasn't a hurricane but rather just a really large front. Most cruise ships that were supposed to stop in Grand Cayman last week decided not to make that stop, and the ones that did cancelled all the excursions.

As for sleeping, Nadia took only one nap in a bed. She also took a bit of a nap on the catamaran and on both flights. The kids stayed awake much later than usual on our drive home. It was after 9:30pm before they fell asleep on our drive home. Ian took a nap every day - either in his crib or my arms. We put the kids to bed by 8pm six of the nights. Nadia woke up between 6:30-7:00am every morning. Ian slept past 7am twice, and the other five nights he got up between 5:30-6:30am. Thankfully since we've been home he's gone back to waking around 7:00am.

While we were in the unit the kids enjoyed watching tv (Disney Junior in the morning and a VeggieTales dvd in the evening), playing hide and seek, being tickled by Pop Pop (he called Nadia "Giggleopolis"), playing with Nadia's Leapster, drawing on the magnadoodle, coloring in a coloring book, playing with princesses, or reading stories. If I had known how much time we would be spending in the unit, I would have brought more toys, books, and dvd's, but one perk of not having much was that I never felt like the living room was a mess (like I often feel at home). Picking up toys was a cinch. I noticed that difference when we got home. Pop Pop also told Nadia stories about Princess Nadia who loved to eat vegetables. Ian also enjoyed playing with a pool noodle in our unit while he was marching or running laps. He gets a lot of exercise! Pop Pop was the least affected by the rain because doesn't care to swim much. He brought LOTS of books, and he wanted to play with the kids. The weather didn't interfere with his plans! :-)

Caves and blow holes

Yesterday we had to check out of our resort by 10am, and we didn't need to be at the airport until 11:30am (frankly we would have been fine if we had gotten there at 12:00 or 12:15 as we sat waiting for more than an hour before it was time to board the plane for our 1:35pm flight). Paul had the idea to take a taxi and go see some other parts of the island. If we had done our 5 hour safari tour, we would have seen most of the parts of the island we hadn't already seen.

Hiring a taxi per hour isn't cheap, but decided to pay for 2 hours. I knew the kids wouldn't be interested in historical sites or the botanical garden (which is where we were supposed to go on our tour), but Paul suggested we could all see the blow holes (picture above). I did a little research on Friday night and decided to also ask for a stop at the Pirate's Caves, which in addition to caves has a wide variety of animals (bats, goats, pigs, chickens, parrots, etc.). It's not something we would have done on our own, but it sounded like something the kids would enjoy. The taxi driver picked us up at 9:30am and took us first to the Pirate's Caves and then to the blowholes and then back to the airport. Our driver gave us lots of information about the history, geography, and culture of the island as we drove. I was hoping we'd have time for him to at least drive us by the historical sites, but we would have needed to hire him for 3 hours to do that, which would have meant Nadia would have had to skip her swim in the pool that she enjoyed with Daddy on Saturday morning.

Ian slept in my arms for almost the first two hours of our flight back home, which was nice. Nadia, Pop Pop, and Paul also slept a bit. We landed on time in Newark, but we had a delay in getting our stroller back. The delay was so significant that by the time we made it through customs, our luggage had been set to the side as the other passengers had already picked up their luggage. It was about 90 minutes from the time the plane landed until we boarded our shuttle for the parking lot. It took a long time to go through customs. When I saw how long the line was, I thought about asking an agent if there was somewhere I could sit while my family went through the line. I should have gone with that instinct. I am not accustomed to being physically unable to stand in line. I was wrong not to ask for some accomodation because the contractions started about 3/4 of the way through the wait. They have continued today. I didn't go to church this morning, and I'm not going this evening although I was looking forward to the concert tonight at my church (my friend Cheri was going to join me). I've tried to take it as easy as possible and drink tons of water. I had gone 12 days without any contractions. I am going to try to err on the side of caution more in the future.

Turtle Farm!

We were hoping to be able to take our Safari Tour today, but it was cancelled again. The weather this week has been awful. Our "plan b" was to go to the Turtle Farm this morning (rather than in the afternoon as we would have done if we had gone on the Safari Tour) because most of the programs (ex. they'll let you feed the birds) take place in the morning. As we were heading out, it was thundering and lightning so we stayed in our unit a few more hours before we left. We also took a taxi ($37) instead of the bus ($15) as it was still raining when we did finally decide to head out.

Shortly after we arrived it stopped raining, and it didn't rain the rest of the afternoon or evening. We started out in the saltwater lagoon where we did some nice snorkeling. We couldn't snorkel in the turtle section though as it was already closed. We saw lots of fish. We would have spent more time there, but Nadia was fixated on going on the water slide (in the fresh water lagoon). Ian loved seeing the sharks. Both kids absolutely loved the water slide. They did it MANY times, and they would have been happy to keep doing it a lot longer, if we had let them. Nadia went by herself, and Ian went down with Daddy. Next we saw many turtles of varying sizes. The kids loved getting in the tank and touching the turtles. They didn't want to leave that exhibit either. Our last stop was to visit a crocodile whom we watched being fed.  We took the bus back to save money, had leftovers in our unit, and then I took Nadia for a swim in our pool before putting the kids to bed. Most of the pictures I took today were taken with my underwater camera. I'm  hoping I got some good ones. I won't know until I get home and have access to a USB cable! I'm grateful we had free highspeed internet in our unit. I didn't bring an ethernet cable (there isn't any wireless internet), but a lady in the office loaned me one on Sunday evening. It wasn't optional as I had office hours for my class online on Tuesday and Thursday evening, and it came in handy at other times since we spent far more time in our unit than we planned to spend. At this time tomorrow night, we should be home.

Thankful Thursday

1. Although the weather has not been great the past five days, it would have been far worse if it had continued to be like it was on Monday. Yesterday and today it rained far less than it did the previous three days.

2. The weather was decent enough for us to go on the Stingray City tour today. They said they hadn't been out since last Friday (due to the weather), and they didn't think they'd be going out the next couple of days. I've been wanting to go to Stingray City for a few years, and this was the main reason I picked Grand Cayman for our trip. I am so very grateful we were able to experience it today. It was AMAZING! The snorkeling part of the trip wasn't great because the water was so turbulent, but standing in the sandbar with the sting rays swimming around us was a very memorable experience. I even held a large one! Their bellies are really, really soft. We all touched them and kissed them (except for Pop Pop who stayed on the boat). I took some pictures with my water camera, but I didn't bring a USB cord on the trip so I won't be able to see or post any of those until we get home. Hopefully I got some good ones! Pop Pop took some from the boat with my point and shoot camera.

3. We've all been healthy, and my contractions haven't come back yet.

4. I was able to have some fruit punch (Tuesday evening) and jerk chicken (Wednesday evening). On vacations in the Caribbean there are four things I like to have at least once, and those are two of them (the others are roti and either a virgin pina colada or a virgin strawberry dacquiri). I almost had roti for dinner last night, but it cost more than I wanted to pay. I'm going to keep my eye out in case there's a chance for me to have some roti tomorrow.

5. Ian hasn't had any accidents on the trip. It's been a few weeks since he had one! He only pooped in his diaper during the night twice since we've been down here. This morning he woke up dry. I'm going to work on night time potty training when we return home and switch him from a crib to a twin size bed.

6. Yesterday he didn't wake up until 7:15am (DST)!! Unfortunately today he woke up at 5:15 (DST).

7. Yesterday and today Paul and I played a total of 6 games of pinochle with his parents. It was fun even though we only won 2 of the games. I had forgotten to pack any. Usually I bring things like Yahtzee and Boggle. I'm glad Paul's mom brought a deck of pinochle cards!

8. I love my hubby and kids so much and am so incredibly grateful the Lord has blessed us with three children! Not counting the cruise, I have been pregnant each of our three last trips to the Caribbean (Virgin Islands in January 2008, Antigua in May 2009, and Grand Cayman in May 2012).

Last Month

On this day next month, Nadia will turn four years old. This is the last month I can say I have a two-year-old and a three-year-old.

Because of her obsession with princesses, she has one outfit (that Grandma got her) that she'd wear every day if I'd let her. The top is pink with princesses on it, and the skirt that goes with it is sparkly and pink. She wears it at least twice a week. She's been known to retrieve it from the hamper (before it's been washed) and put it on before coming down for breakfast. She has three pairs of summer pjs that have princesses on them (one with pants, one with shorts, and a nightgown). The nightgown is by far her favorite.

She's been wearing size 4/4T pretty much exclusively. She had still been wearing size 3T pants, but I think by the fall she'll be ready for 4/4T pants. On Mother's Day she actually was wearing a size 5 dress, and it fit her perfectly.

Her favorite foods include ham/cheese hot pockets, egg salad, yogurt, bananas, applesauce, raisins, pretzels, chips, grapes, spaghetti, ziti, pizza, macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, cheeseburgers, french fries, crackers, fruit snacks, pancakes, most breakfast cereals, raisin or peach oatmeal, and any dessert (especially if it contains chocolate).

Her favorite drink is milk. She'd drink that exclusively if we let her. She also will drink fruit punch (the American kind not the Caribbean kind), water, apple juice, and cranapple juice.

She can do 24 piece puzzles very quickly all by herself, even if it's a new puzzle. The biggest puzzle she's done is 100 pieces, and she can only do one of those by herself if she's done it with someone else before.  She needs to develop more patience before she'll be able to tackle a new 100 piece puzzle by herself.

She's been asking me LOTS of questions about Joseph every day the last few weeks. Pretty soon I think I'll have all his brothers' names memorized (I have to keep looking up that passage in the Bible as I usually can't recite all of them from memory). We don't talk about Jonah as much these days. A few weeks ago the Youth Pastor preached on Sunday morning (the Senior Pastor was away), and his sermon was on Jonah, and he said it was in honor of Nadia. He said he's had many conversations with her about Jonah. I wasn't expecting to hear her name mentioned during the sermon! She's still looking forward to seeing Jonah at Sight and Sound in Lancaster next month.

I've started teaching her a few sight words. She's asking me All The Time how to spell different words.

She takes an average of one nap a week, and about 75% of those are taken in the car (and are less than 30 minutes long). Every once in awhile she still takes a 2+ hour nap in her bed. I actually would prefer that she didn't take any naps in her bed. Yes, you read that correctly. The reason is that when she takes a nap in her bed, she takes FOREVER to fall asleep at night and then gets up too early the next morning. The brief naps in the car don't have any effect on her nighttime sleeping pattern. I've shortened her "quiet time" (when she plays in her room while Ian is napping) to one hour. On this vacation I didn't even have her take a quiet time although she did ask for (and take) a nap yesterday afternoon in our bed while Ian took his nap in his crib in their room.

She still is obsessed with the color pink. One of the books we've read 5 million times while we've been here on vacation is Pinkalicious.

21 Weeks!

I am so relieved that I haven't been having any contractions lately. PTL! His kicks are a lot stronger. I think Nadia could feel them from the outside, but every time I say something to her, he stops kicking. He's the most active when I'm in bed. One morning when Ian was in bed with us (on top of me), I was getting kicked by both of my sons at the same time. It was kind of surreal. I think Ian felt him kicking, but Ian had no idea what was happening as he doesn't grasp the concept that I'm carrying his baby brother.

The main "side effects" of pregnancy right now are: going to the bathroom far more often, having heartburn, and having trouble sleeping at night. The heartburn still has been more manageable than the last two times, although my list of foods and drinks to avoid keeps growing. Paul's mom brought some powder to make (sugar free) grape drink when mixed with a pitcher of water. It tasted good, but the heartburn it created was not worth it. The fruit punch also gave me heartburn last night, but I love that stuff so much I'm sure I'll have it at least once moer this trip since it's such a rare treat. Hopefully if I take an acide reducer I won't suffer too much if I have another cup of it on our snorkeling trip.

The reception at our resort was nice last night. They had banana bread, fruit punch, rum punch, cookies (including Paul's favorite - white chocolate macademia nut), chips, salsa, and three different types of baked spicy meat patties (another Caribbean specialty).

Paul and I were supposed to go on a 5 hour "Safari Tour" today of some historical sites, a blowhole, botanical park, have lunch, etc. This morning our tour guide cancelled the tour due to the weather. I am really disappointed. The two things I most wanted to do here were the Safari Tour and visit Stingray City. She suggested rescheduling for tomorrow, but that's when we've rescheduled our Stingray City tour (which was originally scheduled for Monday). Ironically, I could have rescheduled the Stingray City tour for today, but I didn't due to the Safari Tour plans. My guess is that if we couldn't do a tour by Land Rover today that we also couldn't have done the catamaran tour today. I wish I brought more stuff for us to do in our unit. I didn't expect to spend so much time inside. Ironically I brought books and/or lots of magazines on our last few vacations, and I didn't have time to read them. This time I only brought one magazine. I could have read a lot of books on this trip.

Not as much rain

I can't say the weather was exactly "ideal" today as we haven't really seen the sun or the sky (just clouds), but it rained a LOT less than it did yesterday - thank goodness! This morning Grandma, Ian, and I spent some time at the beach while Paul, Pop Pop, and Nadia took a bus into Georgetown (the capital) and took a 90 minute boat ride (45 minutes of that was in a submarine). The Marriott, which is a few resorts down the beach from ours, has some nice things floating in the ocean that are anchored down. Ian had a blast in one of them. It had an orange ring around the outside, and across the middle it had a material similar to what you'd find on a trampoline. An inch or two of water was above the material. He could sit on it, stand on it, jump on it, etc. It's big enough for a couple of adults to lie across it at the same time. It sort of made a baby pool for him in the ocean. I would kick my feet under the material, and this made him laugh hysterically when I kicked him with my foot or knee. He also enjoyed standing up and kicking his feet around so that some water would splash on Grandma. The water wasn't as clear due to all the storms that have passed through lately so we didn't see as many fish today. Grandma and I had pancakes for lunch (that we cooked). The three who went to Georgetown had lunch at KFC.

Ian woke up at 5:30 (6:30) so that was better than yesterday but still 30-60 minutes earlier than usual. He did take a nice nap in his crib today though. This afternoon Paul and I took Nadia out to the ocean. Unfortunately the Marriott had taken their things out of the ocean, but she had fun anyhow. Paul also took the kids in the swimming pool. The water was much colder in the pool today than it was on Sunday in light of all the rain that went into it yesterday. The pool also had a lot more water in it.

Paul and Pop Pop were able to go to the grocery store this morning, and it wasn't even raining when they went! We're making spaghetti for dinner tonight. There is also a reception tonight (rum punch and appetizers). Yesterday there was a free breakfast (scrambled eggs with cheese, pound cake, and bacon). I'm hoping they have some punch without rum because I absolutely love Caribbean fruit punch. That's one of my favorite things to have in the Caribbean. I wish they sold it in the US! I'll make sure to have some before we leave on Saturday.

I'm praying the weather is at least as nice as it was today the rest of our trip, and of course if we could have at least one REALLY pretty day (as in a day we could see the sun and blue sky) that would be greatly appreciated. Paul and I are going on a 5 hour tour tomorrow in a Land Rover. Thursday we're all hoping to go on the Stingray City tour (by catamaran), and Friday we're planning to go to the turtle farm.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

On Saturday we could see evidence (on the pavement) that it had rained earlier that day, but when we arrived (around 1pm) it was sunny, and it didn't rain that afternoon or evening. Yesterday it poured all morning, but the rain let up enough (light sprinkle) for us to enjoy a few hours at the beach and pool in the afternoon. The beach here is really nice in that there are so many fish you can see swimming around you - all different colors, and some of the fish are rather large! It rained a little as we walked to XQ's for pizza last night, but it wasn't raining when we walked back. We went for their "pizza happy hour" in which their 12 inch pizzas (European style) are much cheaper than usual. From 3-4pm they're all $4 (the menu lists them as $11-$18 each), from 4-5pm they're $5, and from 5-6pm they're $6. We arrived at 3:45 their time (4:45 our body time). We brought home leftovers, which we ate today.
This morning we were supposed to go on our catamaran trip (snorkeling with a trip to Stingray City). A few minutes before they were scheduled to come pick us up, they called to cancel. We've rescheduled for Thursday. I really, really hope it works out to go on Thursday because this was the reason we chose to come to Grand Cayman. Aside from Aruba (which is a very dry island), we're accustomed to experiencing a brief rain shower most days, but we've never been to the Caribbean and had it rain almost the whole week. It has poured most of the day today. Our patio is flooded. It let up a bit (was still raining but wasn't torrential) around 11am so Paul took Nadia to the pool for awhile. Ian got up really early this morning (4:30am according to the clock/ 5:30am DST). I decided to let him nap in my arms today because he only napped for 30 minutes yesterday in the crib, and I am hoping that the "good sleep leads to good sleep theory" will apply. I thought maybe a good nap would lead to him sleeping more tonight, as he only slept 9 hours last night. He slept 2 hours in my arms, and he would have slept longer except my backside was literally numb (from being in the same position that long), and I was also hungry for lunch and had to go to the bathroom. Ian was napping during their whole swim time so he and I didn't leave our unit today.

I definitely have a case of cabin fever. I did bring some toys, books, and DVDs for the kids, but I didn't bring TONS because I was expecting we'd be outside most of the time (playground, swimming pool, or beach). I wasn't expecting to spend several days cooped up in our unit. Paul and his dad will have to venture out tomorrow to the grocery store because at lunch and dinner today we finished our leftovers from Chicken! Chicken! and XQ's. If it was just one rainy day, it wouldn't be so bad, but the forecast for the week looks identical to today. I'm praying the forecast is wrong and that the front moves on. I didn't take any pictures on Saturday except one at the restauran. I wish I had because it was the only time we've seen the sun/blue sky thus far. There are beautiful flowers all over the resort.

We're in Grand Cayman!

Saturday Paul and I got up at 3:45am, and we carried the kids from their beds to their car seats around 4:20am. We were hoping they’d fall back asleep once we got on the interstate, which is just a few minutes from our house. It took Ian an hour to fall back asleep, and it took Nadia 75 minutes to fall back asleep. Unfortunately, that’s also the time I was going to stop and go to the bathroom. Since they had fallen asleep, I tried to wait as long as I could, but we stopped a little after 6:00 at McDonalds, and that woke the kids up. They both lost more than 2 hours of sleep. We arrived at an offsite parking lot at about 7:45am. Paul’s parents were waiting for us there. The long term parking at the Newark airport is $18 a day. We didn’t way to pay that much just to park our cars for a week!  The offsite parking service was really nice. As soon as we pulled up they started loading our luggage into the shuttle, and they immediately took us to the United terminal. When we bought our tickets we got them through Continental, but since then United took over Continental.

We had no problems going through security except they tested Ian’s can of EleCare, and they confiscated the two Yoplait yogurts I had brought for Nadia and I to eat on the airplane. I asked if I could eat it right there on the spot, but she said I’d have to go back through security again. No thanks. We sat on the plane longer than usual before we took off. Part of the problem was the weight was imbalanced. They asked 12 people from the back of the plane to move to the front of the plane. The flight was rather bumpy. The kids did pretty well. Ian got a little fussy a few times, but overall they did really well during the 4 hour flight. Ian slept for 90 minutes in my arms, and he would have slept longer, but I had to go to the bathroom. During the ultrasound last Thursday the tech showed me that our little guy was kicking directly on my bladder. I have reached the stage of pregnancy where I have to go the bathroom rather frequently. Nadia took a short nap as well. She stayed in her seat the whole time. This was Ian’s first flight that I had to buy him a ticket as he was under 2 the last time we flew (to Florida in August 2011). Ian only was in his seat for the very beginning of the flight. The rest of the flight he was either sitting in Nadia’s seat with her (watching the DVD) or on someone’s lap (mostly mine).

A few things I noticed that had changed since the last time we flew on an international flight (May 2009) were: 1) we had to pay for our bags (you still get one bag free on most international flights but not to the Caribbean any more). We had two suitcases so that was an unexpected $100 (RT) that I wasn’t expecting to pay. 2) There wasn’t any free food on the airplane. The only things that were complimentary were the drinks. I knew about this change so we had brought some crackers for our lunch as we were landing at 2pm EST. According to the clocks here in Grand Cayman, it was 1pm because they don’t follow DST. I was leaning towards keeping the kids on DST schedule, and that was confirmed on Sunday morning. I hadn’t told Paul my plan, and he had PopPop didn’t bring the kids back from the playground until 8pm (DST), and they needed baths as the surface of the playground is sand. They went to bed about an hour later than usual, but they woke up earlier than usual (which was really early according to Grand Cayman time). The rest of the trip I plan to have them go to bed according to our body clocks not the time down here. 3) They now charge to watch anything on the flight. I had brought our headphones because in the past it was free, but I wasn't going to pay $7.99 to watch tv on the flight. 4) They now have electrical outlets under the seats on the airplane. This came in very handy for plugging in the DVD player as the batter doesn't last that long.

We had a short drive by taxi from the airport to our resort, which is on Seven Mile Beach. Check-in went very smoothly, and we were delighted when we walked into our unit. This unit is bigger than the first house Paul and I lived in! We have a large living room, a dining room, a kitchen, two full bathrooms, and three bedrooms. Paul’s parents are in one bedroom, Paul & I are in another, and the kids are in the third. There are two twin beds in two of the bedrooms, and a king size bed in the third bedroom.  Ian is sleeping in a crib. I had to say something to him last night because he wanted to keep talking to Nadia after I put them to bed. I heard Nadia tell him “Go to sleep, Ian” which cracked me up. I think she was more tired than he was. The location of our unit is amazing. We are on the ground level (no stairs to climb, YAY), and we are REALLY close to one of the swimming pools. We have a large screened in patio off the living room, and we can walk through the patio right out to the swimming pool. We also have a view of the beach from our living room and patio because this pool is located right before the beach!

As soon as we unpacked, the kids wanted to go swimming. Paul and I took the kids in the pool on Saturday afternoon, and they had a blast! The pool has quite a few different toys (rafts, noodles, etc.). In our unit there are tennis rackets, sand toys, etc., which is really nice. Our unit has a washer and dryer, dishwasher, garbage disposal, etc. There isn’t any maid service, but they will come and exchange our towels on Tuesday.

On Saturday evening Paul, Ian, and I went to a restaurant (Chicken! Chicken!) to pick up our dinner. We got enough for two meals, since we have a large refrigerator. The package we got included two whole wood roasted chickens, 6 pieces of delicious Caribbean cornbread, and 4 containers of side dishes. We picked sweet tarragon carrots, buttermilk mashed potatoes, rice 'n beans, and garlic 'n herb potatoes. The food was delicious! There are many restaurants within walking distance of our resort, but I hope we avoid the American ones as much as possible (we walked past Subway, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, and Quizznos on our way to Chicken! Chicken!). When we’re in another country, I like to eat at places we can’t eat at when we’re at home. The one disadvantage of Grand Cayman (compared to other islands we've been to) is that the food is rather pricey. I did research to find the cheaper places to eat, but even so it's not cheap, especially as it takes $1.25 USD to get $1 of their money. While I was giving the kids a bath, Paul and his dad walked to the grocery store (about 1/2 mile away). They bought thinks like milk, bananas, cereal, and orange juice so that we can eat breakfast in our unit as well as a few things like applesauce and chocolate creme cookies for Ian since we don't buy food for him at restaurants yet.

This morning the kids wanted to immediately go swimming, but it was raining. I’m praying it stops raining soon as the kids have cabin fever! The adults were all in favor of taking a nap at 9am, but the kids are full of energy.

Daddy is Home!

Paul gave his presentation this morning at the SIMS conference in Philadelphia. His presentation was titled, "Studying the Effects of C60Bombardment on a Model OLED Interfaces Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations."  Don't feel badly if you don't know what that means because I don't fully understand his research either (although I do understand his title). When I proofread his papers I am only checking his grammar because the content goes right over my head! He arrived home around 2:30pm, and the kids were thrilled to see him! Karen (OT) had arrived shortly before he did. She didn't try to compete with Daddy for Ian's attention. She had him wear a weighted vest while Daddy played with him, and she spent about 30 minutes talking with me. I told her I was really tired of doing 5-6 meals a day (having done that for about 14 months now). She said it was fine to go to 3 meals and just feed him little snacks in between if he says he wants something. I'll just have to keep track of his weight to make sure he's getting enough calories in those meals. I asked her for suggestions as to how to keep making progress (I don't want to stay at a plateau). She suggested not fork mashing the beef stew anymore, teaching him to drink from other cups, and giving him more variety in the finger foods (ex. peas). I've also decided that after we get back from vacation I'm not going to let him have cookies at breakfast. I'll give him dry cereal (ex. Froot Loops) after his bites of cream of wheat. I don't want Oreos to become the norm for breakfast! I felt as if our conversation was helpful. She'll be back in about 10 days as she's going to switch to Mondays at lunch time.

I kept hoping my rose bush would bloom this week. There are more than 100 buds. One bud did bloom today. I have a feeling the rest are going to bloom while we're on vacation next week. Oh well. I'd love to see my rose bush in bloom, but if I had to pick between seeing pretty roses and spending a week on Grand Cayman, I'd definitely pick the vacation!!! Last year it only bloomed once, and I've never had anywhere near that many buds on the bush at one time before. I'm also hoping that it rains up here sometime while we're away because I planted my flowers over the past week, and they're still at the stage where they need pretty frequent watering if it doesn't rain. Paul picked up some mulch on the way home today, and he's going to put that down. Hopefully that will help. He's outside mowing right now. I mowed once last month, but there's no way I'd mow right now given the contractions I had on Monday.

I had Paul call PSU's pharmacy this afternoon, and it was a BIG relief when they said the vial will cost less than $60. Whew! How can some pharmacies charge $3K for this same thing?!?! It will actually be cheaper to go this route because the OB office will charge something for the service of giving the injection. Our copay for medications is 20% (presuming the insurance will pay for it) so it will only cost $12 a vial (much better than $600!). I called the other hospital about the bill I received yesterday. The one charge ($136.28) is definitely in error because it's for a part of the embryo transfer, and we paid for that in package price last October. Actually it probably means they owe us a refund because our current health insurance paid $76.72 toward the embryo transfer (which is a drop in the bucket compared to what it cost, but Blue Shield doesn't pay anything for the egg retrieval or embryo transfer).

The bad news is that they said it was not a mistake that they charged $850 for the one pregnancy ultrasound I had at the RE. The insurance paid $331.20 towards itThe insurance said our part was $157.80 ($75 of that being my deductible), but the hopsital says we owe $518.80. I called the hospital today because it seemed to be a mistake. I had the very same type of ultrasound done at the OB's office two weeks after the one at the RE's office, and that hospital charged less than $300 for the very same procedure. I also know that Blue Shield doesn't pay anywhere near $850 for an ultrasound. The woman at the hospital said I was correct. They would have received less than $300 from Blue Shield, and because they have a contract with them, I wouldn't have owed a dime. Even though our current insurance paid MORE than what Blue Shield would have paid, they are insisting we still owe them another $518 - for an appointment which lasted 5 whopping minutes. It's just not right! I don't understand why they can charge such different amounts to people based on what insurance they have. Paul wants to fight the bill. I've already made two calls to the hospital (to two different people), and I have a feeling we are going to have to pay the $518. If I had known, I would have skipped the ultrasound and just had it at the OB's office. At least I only had one ultrasound at the RE! I had 3 ultrasounds at the RE with Nadia and with Ian. I am glad we have been avoiding this hospital. It was worth driving to Philadelphia with Ian to avoid medical bills like this. I just feel badly because I try so hard to be careful with our money. I won't pay more than $1.50 for a box of cereal, and now I am probably going to pay $518 for an ultrasound (and if I had it at the OB's office instead it wouldn't have cost us one penny), and I might be paying $486 for a blood typing test, even though I told the OB at my first appointment that I have O negative blood, and they had tested my blood type when I was pregnant with Ian so that information was actually already in my file. Why did they order this test to be run again? Ugh. I am trying to learn from this to be REALLY careful about what tests I allow them to do on me. I plan on saying "no" as much as possible.

One thing we did learn from all the bloodwork lately is that both Paul and I have O negative blood. I had assumed they had tested Paul's blood type in 2005 (with the ectopic) to determine that I needed the Rhogam shot, but it turns out if the woman has negative blood, they automatically give the Rhogam shot (in case the husband has positive blood). I will definitely be declining the Rhogam shot this pregnancy! I've had the shot 5 times thus far - all for naught because there's no way our children could have positive blood. Well now I need to forget about all this medical bill stuff because I want to relax and enjoy our time on vacation! Last year when we went to the Caribbean (on the cruise in January 2011) we didn't ever make it to a beach. We'll definitely be at the beach this time!!! I can't wait!! I'm hoping to go to bed early tonight as we're leaving the house at 4:15 tomorrow morning because we're flying out of Newark (3 hours away) so that we can have a nonstop flight to Grand Cayman.

He's doing fine so far!

Yesterday I got up at 6:40am. I still haven't gotten over the novelty of being able to get up at that time of day and shower before the kids get up. We were out the door at 8:30am for Nadia's gymnastics class. When we arrived I discovered they were having their semi-annual yard sale. I bought a dress for Nadia, a pair of shoes for Ian, a princess plate, a princess pillow, a Blue costume (the dog), a road carpet, and six books. I was really excited about two of the books as they were on my list of books I had been wanting to buy. The only downside of yard sales is that sometimes I see items for sale there that I have recently purchased elsewhere. For example another book that was for sale there for 25 cents I had recently purchased online (a used copy) for $3.00. Nadia loves the pillow and plate - a very well spent 75 cents!

At gymnastics I discovered I had forgotten to put the double stroller back in the car. We've never gone to Knoebels without a stroller before, but I figured we'd survive since we weren't staying too long. Paul's parents met us there, which meant Nadia wasn't restricted to only riding kiddie rides. Early Intervention provided lunch (hotdogs, baked beans, jello with fruit, and cookies) and then we rode rides for 2 1/2 hours. We rode more rides in that time span than we did in the 5 hours we were there on Saturday since we spent VERY little time waiting in lines yesterday.

The weather was gorgeous. They didn't have all the rides running, or I would have gone on the flume with Nadia as it was warm enough to enjoy that ride. Nadia did better on the bumper cars. They both said the Whip was their favorite. They did really well considering we didn't have the stroller. PopPop carried Ian in the parking lot at the end, but other than that they walked all around the park. Ian was asleep before we pulled out of the parking lot, and Nadia slept in until 8am this morning (she usually wakes up at 7am). The kids handstamps were free, and I used less than $5 worth of tickets. Parking is always free there. I love that place! I didn't have any contractions the past three days, which was also very encouraging. I'm hoping to take Gabby and Alexis to Knoebels in early June before they head out to Oklahoma. I thought that would be a nice farewell gift (I'd buy them 4 hour handstamps). We are really going to miss them!

This morning I had another ultrasound with MFM. This time it was at my local hospital (they drive up from Harrisburg every other week). It was such a relief that (including driving time) the total trip was 90 minutes - compared to 5hr 45 minutes two weeks ago and 2hr 45 minutes last week. It would have been 75 minutes today if I hadn't needed the P17 shot (added 10 minutes) and stopped at McD's for an Egg McMuffin (5 minutes). He was very "modest" today so the woman doing the ultrasound couldn't verify the gender.

The doctor said everything looked good - no signs of fetal anemia. He said that the baby has a 50% chance of developing anemia, and he said a transfusion could be needed even in this trimester (I thought it wouldn't be needed until the third trimester) due to how high my level of antibodies are. He said that how the baby looks at the ultrasound will determine when we need to switch to weekly (rather than every other week) ultrasounds. They didn't measure the cervix today. They're going to measure that again in two weeks. I'm praying that we can stay on the every other week schedule through the end of June (6 more weeks) because I really don't want to drive to Harrisburg. If I need to be seen every other week, I'd like to switch to the MFM clinic at the hospital where we did the IVF. I told him about the contractions I had on Monday, and he said that aside from taking it easy and drinking lots of water, there's not much more I can do.

The nurse gave me the P17 shot and gave me an extra one for next week. She questioned if I really wanted to fill the Rx at PSU. She said the pharmacies around here charge $3K per vial. WHAT?!? I had looked online and had seen MUCH lower prices. I called Paul and told him not to pick up the prescription until he finds out the cost. If it costs anywhere near that much, I will just keep going to the doctor's office to have it every week because we have to pay 20% at PSU and that would be $600 per vial. I think a vial has 5 doses. It will be well worth the inconvenience to go there every week if it will save us about $1,800 (I'd need 3 vials if I make it to 36 weeks). Speaking of bills, I got a large bill from the hospital where we did ivf. It was for the "difference" between what our current insurance paid and what they billed for one Beta and one ultrasound. They billed us over $600. I'll be calling about that tomorrow as that seems way too high.

Paul comes home tomorrow afternoon, and we're leaving for Grand Cayman on Saturday morning. YAY!!!!