Unexpected Complication

So last night I was feeling kind of bad, kind of crampy. I figured I would sleep it off, but this morning I was still not feeling very good. I almost ignored it. After all, I'm just a big baby. I thought they would tell me to suck it up and stop being a big baby, but it turns out it was a good thing that I called my doctor because they measured my cervix and it was a little shorter than it should be. That, accompanied with my cramping, they told me that I was going to be admitted immediately into the hospital, that I was going through some preterm labor. So I am here for 23 hours of observation.

So here I am. I had another ultrasound, and a consultation with a high-risk doctor, and my OB also came in to check on me. Long story short, they put me on strict bed rest for at least four weeks. So that's the story. Please remember me and baby Gaby in your prayers.

Rachel Update

Rachel is just so cute, and she is growing up so much. Here is a brief synopsis of some of her latest exploits.

Rachel can use sign language. Here is a list of the words she can sign.
Dog (her absolute favorite)
Dad (her second favorite)
Cracker (this means cracker, or any other food available)
Banana
Eat
More
Thank you
Please
Milk
Juice
Hat
Shoes

Rachel is starting to talk, just a little bit. Here is a list of words that she can say (sort of).
Dog (her absolute favorite - sounds like daw)
Dad (her second favorite - sounds like dah)
Milk (sounds like muh)
The three words above she says as she does the sign. That's how I know what she's saying.
Banana (sounds like balábalá)
Meh (not sure what this means, but she says it a lot. Actually as I think about it, I think she is saying "get that for me.")

Notable in its absence from either list is Mama. Don't get me wrong, she is capable of forming the word "mama," she just chooses not to use it about me. I'm cool with it though, because she is really good at giving me kisses. Really wet, open mouth, tongue sticking out kisses. They are memorable!

Today was poopie. I don't mean bad, I mean literally poopie. She started the day by pooping in the bathtub. This time Jeff was already at work, so he couldn't rescue me, and I had to clean it up myself. It wasn't that bad, though, in fact I nearly forgot about it. Until this evening. I had just changed a wet diaper, and her new diaper had not been on her for more than 10 minutes when she had the nastiest blow-out poopie diarrhea diaper that smelled awful. Again Jeff was gone, so I had to clean that one up too. (Not fair!) It was the closest I have come to tossing my cookies this pregnancy.

We spent the last half hour before bedtime watching Baby Signing Time Volume 2. While she watched it, she sat at the drum kit that goes with our Guitar Hero World Tour game, and played the drums. She held the sticks basically correctly, and played on the different drums. She didn't pound or bang, she diliberately played. I was impressed. Occasionally she would drop one of the sticks (I can relate to that - it happens to me too), and I would pick it up and give it back to her, and each time without any prompting from me she signed thank you. Isn't that sweet?

Yesterday (Sunday) I wanted to see if I could duplicate the success I had with the ponytails of last week. You be the judge. Frankly I think I didn't do quite as well, but not bad either. This time I had the foresight to take pictures before church, when my handiwork was still fresh.


I even got a shot of the back.


One of Rachel's favorite pasttimes these days is to wear Jeff's or my shoes. She tries to put them on, and usually gets frustrated because she can't quite do it, so I help her, then she happily walks away. Here she is navigating through her toys wearing my winter boots.


And at the end of the day, we are all glad that she goes to sleep so well. We had a few rough days last week at bedtime, but she seems to be back on track again for now. I'll enjoy it as long as I can.

Baby's name

So I guess we've come up with a full name for the new baby. I noticed something about all of the suggestions I received. You just suggested your own name. Now were you really serious? Or were you just promoting yourself?

Anyway, the name is:

Gabriela Nicole Gosnell

The nickname of Gaby will be accepted (and used by me).

Rachel is very independent sometimes

Yesterday evening Rachel and I went to Walmart. I wanted to buy her a cool mist humidifier. I bought a few other things as well, and was just about to buy some ice cream when Rachel indicated that she would love to get out of the cart and walk around. That was fine by me. Wear yourself out. You'll sleep better. Well, she walked and walked and walked. And she mostly ignored me. I followed her, but she almost never checked to see where I was. (I ended up buying butter pecan ice cream after Rachel's little jaunt.)

She really likes walking around, and generally speaking, she ignores me completely when she is walking around. I've got to really stay on my toes to keep her in my eyesight. She just seems to be so independent.

Sometimes.

And then there are other times. We went to the Book of Mormon class this morning, and for the first time I decided to put her in the nursery with the other kids. I figured with how independent she is, she wouldn't even notice that I wasn't there.

Uh, no.

She lasted maybe 30 minutes. At that point a lady brought her in to me, and she had obviously been crying pitifully. But as soon as she saw me, she was happy as a clam. In one way it makes me happy. She does like having me around after all. But on the other hand, it's time to start preparing her for nursery on Sundays. Not that I don't love having her with me, but I don't really get much out of either Sunday School or Relief Society these days.

Speaking of Sundays, this past Sunday I had a breakthrough. I put Rachel's hair in ponytails. It's not the first time, but it was the first time that I did a good job. They were even. It was a miracle. I call it the miracle of the fruit loops. She was in her high chair Sunday morning with fruit loops (to keep her occupied) while I did her hair. Usually she wiggles and squirms so much, and I end up making her cry because I'm pulling her hair, so I just give up. But this time, success!


The picture is not the best because it was taken after 3 hours of church, and 3 more hours of nap, but it was the best I could manage. But seriously, are those not the most impressive ponytails you have ever seen me pull off?

Ultrasound Results

I had my ultrasound appointment today. It was a Level 2 ultrasound, which involves looking in much more detail to look for markers of chromosome disorders. There were none found, so that's good. The possibility for disorders still exists, but it is now much less.

The baby was pretty active during the ultrasound, and by the time the doctor came in, the baby was flipped so that she couldn't see the heart as well as she would have liked. (She indicated that the images were "suboptimal." I like that word.) So I'm going back in a month to try for a better look at the heart. The tech looked at the heart quite a lot. 141 bpm. The baby's weight is 13 oz., which is normal at this point.


So the real reason you are reading this is to find out the sex of the baby. Well, I know what it is anyway. Just kidding, I'll tell. It's a girl.


Jeff and I have agreed on a name for a girl. It is Gabriela. We still don't have a middle name chosen. All suggestions are welcome.

Cute Rachelness (or Rachel Cuteness)

On Monday I was demonstrating Rachel's superior intellect to one of my piano students. It was actually a bit of a gamble, because we really had never tried this before, but she carried it off with the professional cuteness of a 16 month old.

I said to Rachel "Where's the baby?"

Rachel's eyes dropped to my belly, then she lifted up her own shirt and patted her tummy.

I really think she is getting the idea.

This morning I was feeding Rachel. She slept in, so Jeff had already gone to work. I made oatmeal. (It seems I have actually turned into my own mother after all. Of course this was apples and cinnamon oatmeal, not cold lumpy oatmeal, so I guess there's a difference after all.) I don't totally trust Rachel to feed herself without making a horrible mess with something like oatmeal, so I was in charge of the spoon. I had to get her milk for her, and I didn't want to leave the poor waif without sustenance, so I put some cheerios on her tray to feed herself in my absence. So while I was feeding her the oatmeal, she would pick up a cheerio and put it on the top of the oatmeal on the spoon. I guess it added texture that she wanted. She did it with almost every spoonful. It was pretty cute. Or maybe you had to be there.

By the way, my ultrasound is tomorrow, and if the baby is cooperative, I will find out if it is a boy or a girl, and end this speculation. I voted boy, but I'm thinking now maybe girl.

My sweet little girl

I have to share this experience I had this morning with Rachel. I was laying on the sofa, with Rachel sitting on my arm, reading her a story. (These are Rachel's favorite books. [Thanks Lisa.] Could it be the dogs on every page? Could it be the very short content of each page?)

Anyway, as we finished the books, Rachel pulled up my shirt to play with my belly and my belly button. I'm not sure which she likes better. I told her "There's a baby in there. Be soft with the baby."

Rachel started stroking my belly, and then she said "ahhhh" and laid her head down on my belly. It was so sweet, and so cute.

Winter Storm 2009 (Part II)

So it snowed overnight Monday, then pretty much all day Tuesday and Tuesday night there was freezing rain. At around 6:30 a.m. I heard the battery back-ups all start beeping, so I got Jeff up and we both turned off our computers (expecting to be without electricity). Then I went to the bathroom where I switched on the light, and it came on. So we were without electricity for no more than 5 minutes or so. Good! We went back to bed. Jeff had already heard from his work that he didn't need to come into the office, so we just had a relaxing morning.

The freezing rain caused many (many) branches to break under the weight of the ice, so all night long and into the day we heard and saw many falling branches.

Rachel and Scout enjoyed looking out the window at all the snow and ice.


At around 8:00 or so the freezing rain changed back to snow, and we got another 3 or 4 inches of snow. At around 11:30 it all stopped. Now it's just cold. Not horrible, but definitely cold.

I went outside to take some pictures of the frozen landscape. Enjoy.


After Rachel woke up from her nap we decided to brave the cold and make a trip to the grocery store. First I had to clear off my car.

This is Jeff's car before snow removal.


Here's the top of my car to give an idea of how much snow we got.


Unfortunately a lot of people are without electricity. Fortunately we have been spared. Hopefully we will continue to have power.

Snowday!

Today was a snow day. It snowed pretty good, but what made it significant was that after the snow came frozen rain. And more frozen rain. All day long. Even Jeff was given the day off (kind of - he worked from home for about 5 hours).

Rachel found various ways of entertaining herself. Here's my favorite. (I should probably avoid photographic evidence of what a bad mom I am, but it was funny, so what can I say?)


You might be wondering what she's doing. She's blowing bubbles in Scout's water dish. I can't guarantee that there was no consumption of the water, but I promise her primary goal here was to blow bubbles. She's getting ready to spend the summer at the pool.

In spite of the freezing rain, we bundled up to play outside in the snow (and ice) for a while. Rachel seemed to get a kick out of walking through the snow, even though she had a pretty hard time navigating it on her own. She would fall through the ice, then her foot would get stuck under the ice layer and she would fall down. Over and over again. But she was having fun.


I thought that for such a wintry day, some nice beef stew with mashed potatoes would hit the spot. Rachel really enjoyed it. Yes, that's mashed potatoes in her hair.

Rachel is 16 Months Old (yesterday)

Yesterday was Rachel's 16 month birthday. It was pretty much uneventful. She spent the day hanging out in Scout's kennel reading the Reader's Digest, or with Scout.


Today was slightly more eventful. Rachel had a momentous event. She walked down the stairs facing forward. She was holding my hand with one of her hands, and the railing supports with the other, but it was the first time she had ever descended forward. I was surprised because it was a set of stairs she never goes down by herself. It is the stairs going outside into the back yard. In the past I have always carried her down, but today she was very grown up about it.