just in case you were wondering

FYI...

Today the baby is the size of a green olive!!

And all I can stomach since yesterday is pizza. DiGiorno is really better than delivery!

low progesterone and incomplete thesis

I am not sure if I’ve told everyone that my progesterone is low…Dave asked Dr. Pruna to check it last week, and it was 9.6 (normal first trimester is 11-45, whatever that means…) so she started me on a progesterone suppository (yuck) every 12 hours… SO, whatever stress was averted by not have ultrasounds every two weeks has been supplanted by the constant reminder every 12 hours that I still have a problematic pregnancy. Ryan read me a bunch of studies that reported that women exactly like me have had significantly decreased incidence of miscarriage when supplementing progesterone – and if anyone doesn’t know why that is important, if it gets too low your body can abort the pregnancy. SO, it is entirely possible that this is what went wrong 2 of the last 3 times was a progesterone deficiency (of course, there’s no way to know for sure).

I’ve been on the progesterone for almost a week and yesterday it became apparent that I’m experiencing some of the side effects from it. I laid in bed and sorted out my divorce for about 45 minutes following an incident with my soon-to-be-ex-husband wherein I asked for a clementine and he (in response to me assaulting his manhood by highlighting the fact that he does not understanding nor care about the NCAA playoffs) refused to get it for me. So, I cried for another hour after that because I really want my tattoo removed. Then I decided that I was hungry for popcorn chicken and strawberry ice cream (after I couldn’t eat the delicious smelling pork tenderloin Denise cooked because of wicked nausea) and Dave, from a place of guilt and fear, took me to Wal-Mart to get food. I cried from the doorstep to doorstep because it was colder outside than I remembered it being (we’ve had 60 degree days!!), and I’m SO tired of the cold! Anyway, food made everything better….I opened the gallon of ice cream on the way home and scraped the top layer off with nothing but my teeth. Yummy!

We’ve been working in the garage/backyard all day trying to prepare for our 50 baby chicks and bees and I flopped all over the map around food – I was nauseated and couldn’t stomach the though of eating and then hunger set in and I festered a really good resentment with Paul (the best man) over not showing up with pizza in a timely manner. So far this afternoon I’ve been eating golden oreos and I am thinking mac-n-cheese for dinner but the winds of change may blow through before I can finish making it. This back and forth is so exhausting.

Today is day 53. Baby is the size of a raspberry! I haven’t gained any weight (actually still holding off the few pounds I’ve lost) but my belly is definitely thickening up. There’s this subtly hardened roundness that used to not be there….

Love you all!

TTFN!

LOVE YOU!

the Dare-Smith babies and the sinkhole...

No No No, not twins (although my Husband was convinced there would be). I am referring to the baby and the Winston. Mr. Winston, as I call him lately.

I got bored with my thesis yesterday (but I must say that my boredom set in AFTER I submitted a section to my committee) so I decided it was time for Winston to visit the 2^nd floor Smith Spa. Dave has insisted that we not get him groomed until the weather warms up, and I decided that yesterday, since most of the snow has melted, that it was warm enough – so we had a hair-cutting-extravaganza in the sink of my bathroom (and I must mention that it snowed last night – figures).

I’ve added a few pictures of him – three are of him sitting in his special perch – where he watches us when we leave/come home – from the 3^rd floor dormer window. Dave says that we can’t take him back to daycare just yet, because the other pups will make fun of him due to the low-budget hairdo. I say nonsense, although I must admit that while Winston was extremely well behaved during the cutting/styling process, there is one small tuft of hair on him bum that he won’t let me cut. So, he’s got a mullet. Yeah. I said mullet. And its blonde while the rest of the hair on his tail is nearly black. Priceless. Now everyone is gonna know we’re really from Arkansas. :)

The baby is great! The ultrasound on Friday revealed a baby that was growing right on schedule – according to her measurements 6 weeks 4 days (and Friday was 6 weeks 3 days! Baby had a sweet little heartbeat – 118 beats per minute which they say will speed up – and it was a little tough to hold onto because the baby is so small! We saw Dr. Pruna (the ob) afterwards and she was really excited. She and I made a deal that if I would do the first trimester screening at 12 weeks, then she wouldn’t ask me to have any further ultrasounds until then. And really, she insisted that we do the screening, since we’ve have a history with genetic problems now…which I am fine with. Oh, and she’s checking my progesterone levels.

It is raining again. Springtime is so wet here – with all the snow melting the ground is plain soggy. That, in part, explains the growing sinkhole in the yard beside the house – last night it more than tripled in size! Dave said this morning that if you stand near it you can hear the water running into it and falling a really long way….I feel like this is the beginning of a Stephen King story….. Paul (the best man) is coming over later (he does excavation) and he’s gonna work on filling it in. Apparently, Denise has had this problem before.

SO, today is 6 weeks 6 days and the baby is the size of a blueberry. Nausea has been coming and going – Friday night I went shopping at Wal-Mart with Denise and before we were done with checkout I had to bold for the bathroom. I’m still not sure which was worse – throwing up a cheese calzone or throwing up in the Wal-Mart bathroom. Yuckie.

Then entire time I’ve been sitting here writing this email, Mr. Winston has been barking at me. I took a video – so all of you that don’t understand why I take him to daycare will get it – It’s really hard to get any work done when the puppy barks at my feet all day long. He’s so needy. And cute. And soooooo needy. And when I uploaded the video and he could hear the barking, he went nuts. I picked him up and tried to show him that it was the computer, but he just worked himself into a frenzy. Oh well, maybe he’s not the smartest of pups…. And I had to delete the video – too big :)

Love you all!

TTFN!

Mrs. Smith

PS – if any of you ever tell that I let you see the picture of Dave in the bee suit he’d never forgive me. But it was too funny to keep to myself!

just a few things to add...

Just a few things to add:

1. We caved in and bought a memory foam top for the bed. It seems like for the past month, neither of us have been sleeping well at all. (I actually bought it during Wal-Mart-pukarama Friday night). We put it on the bed (its 4 inches thick!!!) and it smelled so bad that we couldn’t stand to sleep on it! I guess it just needs to air out because it’s essentially been crammed without air into this package so that it would fit into a reasonably sized box. Anyway, my sense of smell has definitely kicked up because even last night we tried it out, and although Dave couldn’t smell anything, the scent was wicked strong to me. It smells the very same as an inverter that you’ve plugged a flatiron into that slightly exceeds the inverter’s voltage capacity – minus the smoke. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re obviously not a girl with long hair that likes to go camping…..
2. I need a new inverter for my car. Great birthday or Christmas gift idea….
3. I made 2.5lbs of Sloppy-Joe-Ranch-Burgers last night. It was all that I thought sounded good. And this morning I had a BLT for breakfast. Currently, I am practicing amazing restraint with a block of angel food cake. Plain water is gross this last week, but lemonade is where it’s at! And I can hardly stomach coffee anymore (which I guess is a good thing).
4. I may actually FINALLY be a candidate for a job. I’m trying to not get too excited, but I’ve been applying for a bunch of Federal Jobs, and have not heard a word back at all until Friday – I got manual correspondence from a woman requesting my transcripts. She sent the email herself (which most Federal Job Apps are all automated and online and very robotic) and asked that I fax/email/mail my transcripts directly to her. It would be a pretty cool job – and if I get a call back or an interview I’ll fill everyone in on what it actually is. I’m a perfect fit for it, but try convincing them of that……

Love you!

a few FACTS

FACT: Mom has been gone WAY too long. Let us never allow her to leave for 10 days again. 7 is my limit.

FACT: It is nearly 8am and I have already thrown up once today.

FACT: Last night my husband and I ordered 50 chicks!

So, I had my first ultrasound last Friday. I was supposed to see my MD after that but we canceled the appointment because the ultrasound revealed very little – which is completely normal for 5ish weeks. Dr. Pruna (not my primary, but the one who did the DNE last September) wants to see me on Friday following another ultrasound, but I’m pretty resolved that I don’t want it. I completely panicked before the last one, and the bottom line is that until we are out of the first trimester, there’s nothing that can be done, SO we’re going to find out that a) everything is ok, or b) everything is not ok. Either way, I don’t think I can hold my breath between ultrasounds. Dave and I have decided that we want to just act like everything is ok. The calmer I am, the better off everyone is going to be (including the baby). So, I just have to convince my Dr to let me make those decisions. I totally understand that they want to keep a close eye on me, but I think my energy would be better served if I put it in God’s hands, rather than my Doctor’s.

My baby app (on the iTouch) says that today is day 43. 6 weeks, 1 day. Baby is the size of a blueberry. :)

This morning, in addition to fighting major nausea that I am afraid I will have to succumb to again before the end of this email, I am ordering bees. So, by the end of the month we will have bees and chicks. I went to NOFA Winter Conference with Dave this past weekend (which is the Northeast Organic Farmer’s Association) and went to a most interesting talk by a mushroom expert who I am actually taking a class with in May to learn how to inoculate wood and straw and the like so that I can grow mushrooms on our farm! Anyway, he said that you should never never never eat raw mushrooms. And he has a PhD! He said some biochemical things that I can’t remember anymore, but finished with “and as a rule you should just never put anything into your body whose purpose in life is to decompose”. He said that you should always heat them if only a little. I’ll have more specifics after the course in May. Oh, he also talked about the most awesome medicinal properties of mushrooms and their cancer-fighting qualities. There are all kinds of mushroom tea that can be really good for your digestive system/immune system, but unfortunately, not for me while I’m preggars! I’ve actually been drinking Kombucha for a while and I love it (prior to acquiring my parasite). So, if you know someone who is fighting cancer, you should pass that information along.

So, its thesis writing time. I’ve stalled enough.

I say Good Day!

Love,
Shass

PS. Winston LOVES his puppy day-care! He’s only been a few times but I think he likes roughing up the other pups! At least, when he gets home, he is one tuckered out little pooch! But, he hasn’t been today! So for this entire email, he’s been sitting at my feet barking at me. So cute/annoying/gonna have to kill him.

PSS. I seem to be losing weight. Not much, just a few pounds.

PSSSssss I have attached a picture of Mr. Winston and me on this fine Wednesday morning. XOXO!