Day 6.....

Well it's day 6 of being in captivity. Things are pretty much the same as they were the day I came in. No bleeding, blood pressure is great. They are doing twice daily NSTs on the baby and she's doing great. It's tough to be here when I feel completely fine. People keep telling me that they don't know how I'm handling this so well. I honestly don't either, but I guess the saying about not knowing how strong you are until being strong is your only option, or something like that, is true. It does no good to cry all day and be sad. That won't make the time pass faster. I also credit my personality type to my success in not going crazy. I'm generally not an emotional or overly sensitive person. For once these are strengths instead of awkward quirks. I miss my kids so much much this isn't for forever.
Speaking of my kids, Aaron is having them clean their room and I think we've discovered Ethan has some hoarding tendencies. He keeps getting stuff out of the trash and stashing it places. This makes me laugh because I'd probably be doing the same thing if I were at home right now. Noah is chanting "throw it away" and it's sent Ethan off the deep end. Oh ya gotta love those kids.
I want a Starbucks....so close, yet so far.

It's been a while....

Well...as you can tell from the date of my last post it's obviously been a while since I've written in this blog. I have suddenly found some time on my hands so I hope I can keep up with it a little better. Let's start at the beginning....how this new time in my life came to be, if you will. It started about a week after I found put we were expecting another baby. It was an unexpected blessing, I was on birth control and breast feeding and getting pregnant was the farthest thing from my kind. I had finally come to terms with adding a fifth child to our family when I started bleeding. I was lucky enoug to have never had to experience a miscarriage, but I assumed this is what was happening. I continued t bleed for days and made an appt with my OB for an ultrasound to see if there was anything there. Well much to my surprise, ther was a littl baby with a little heartbeat at 6 weeks inside of me! Praise the Lord! Well, it didn't explain why I was still bleeding, or why I continued to bleed week after week. Many visits to the OB and one ER trip gave me no answers. I bled heavily, passed fist sized clots and continually thought I was miscarrying. However, ultrasound after ultrasound shows a healthy little baby doing well inside me. Finally my OB sent me to the high risk doctor in Portland because my prenatal screening numbers came back high for Spina bifida. The ultrasound in Portland at 16 weeks finally gave me the answer I was looking for. I had a 10cm blood clot behind the placenta, causing the placenta to rip away from the uterus. The Perinatologist didn't seem concerns, so neither was I. Starting a couple days after that ultrasound I had a series of very large bleeding episodes which scared me, to say the least. Within minute my pants were soaked and blood was covering the floor, or car, or wherever I was. I was getting weaker and barely able to care for my kids. Thre weeks later I had a follow up ultrasound in Portland. In the lobby I began to have one of my now familiar bleeds. I get to thultrasoud room and proceed to cover the floor, table, everything with blood. The ultrasound finds that the clot had gotten a bit bigger and the placenta was further detaching..it didn't look good. The doctor gave us the option to terminate in case we didn't wish to comtinue with the most likely doomed pregnancy. We told him we absolutely would not be terminating, we would be fighting for our baby. I was admitted to the hospital May 4th and given 6 units of blood. I continued to bleed and once my hemoglobin levels were stable two weeks later I was released to bed rest at home. My pregnancy wasn't yet viable so there was nothing more they could do for me. I spent the next three weeks at home loving on my babies and attempting to rest. It was hard, but I wanted my baby to have a chance and every time I walked around the bleeding was aggravated. This past Thursday we came back for a follow up ultrasound to check the baby's growth. She is doing great and growing just as she should. The clot has shrunk to 8cm but there is still a good portion of placenta that isn't functioning, because I am now 24 weeks, the pregnancy is now considered viable, therefore if I have a complete placental abruption, my baby girl would die if we were at home. In the hospital she can be taken quickly and put in the level III nicu. So...that brings me to wear we are currently at. I'm in the hospital until I deliver, basically waiting for something bad to happen. Either I'll have another bad bleed or I will go into preterm labor. Every day she stays in improves her chances of survival. They don't expect me to stay pregnant past 32 weeks which on one hand is reassuring. That means there is an expiration to my boredom and homesickness. This is the hardest thing I have ever been through. I miss my kids, I miss my husband. I'm lonely and isolated and I can't even eat what I want. But....in a few short weeks we will have a little girl that was such a surprise but now I see was a God given blessing. If you see my husband, give him a big hug.....he needs it. :) Ps forgive any typos, my iPad likes to autocorrect things without my permission...

Crock Pot Goodness

I'm making this for dinner tonight. It's from one of my favorite blogs, 365 days of slow cooking. I think before I try to make it an entire year cooking in my crock pot, I should try to do it a whole week. That's a more realistic goal. She has lots of great recipes and ideas, and tonight I'm trying her orange chicken. I'll let you know how it goes...the sauce tastes yummy so I don't see how it could go wrong.

Noah is so adorable. When he gets on the bus I hear all these little girls go, "Noah, Noah, sit by meeeee!!!" The bus driver had to tell the other kids to let go of Noah, he had to get buckled up. Awwww....my baby. I'm so happy he's so well liked by his peers. I think it's every parent's fear that their child will be picked on. I try very hard to make sure my kids understand that bullying and being mean to other kids is NOT ok. Sometimes there are kids at school that you don't especially like, or get along with, but you cannot be mean to them. Those kids are someone's baby too.

Happy Birthday Luke!

My baby boy Luke Jacob Scovel turned 2 on October 13th....I cannot believe that he's been around for 2 years! I can't figure out if it seems like more or less time has gone by.


He was born 7lbs, 2oz and 20 inches long at 9:10 AM. His daddy was also born at 9:10 AM. He had the biggest feet and longest fingers I'd ever seen. Not much has changed, his feet are larger than Noah's, he weighs 36 lbs and is pretty tall for his age. He's a cute, active little kid. I have yet to go to Fred Meyers where someone doesn't comment on his hair or how cute he is. Happy Birthday Lukey :)

On being a parent...

I need a new camera....badly....I need more photographic documentation of my kids' lives

My phone camera has been working so far, but I want a camera I can count on. I'm hoping that Aaron and I can buy one as our joint Christmas present to each other (last year we bought a carpet cleaner). We prefer to buy one big thing that we both want rather than giving individual presents.

This month we have two birthdays to celebrate. Luke will be 2 tomorrow and Ethan will be 7 on the 24th. It's hard to believe that the kids are getting so old. Ethan was just a little baby when I met Aaron. When I got pregnant with Zack I fully intended to get my tubes tied. I talked about it like I'd already signed the paperwork. A couple months before I had him Aaron said that he didn't want to do anything permanent. I was like, "ummm..you want MORE kids??" He said he didn't know but didn't want to have to make that decision right now. I thought about it a lot and decided I agreed. Now, a month after having Zachary I thank God that I didn't go through with it. We've already decided that we aren't done having kids and although I have no intentions of getting pregnant right away, I am so happy I didn't make a rash decision while under the influence of hormones.

Speaking of having more kids, it seems to me that people are fascinated with large families. You see it on TV with the reality shows (how many more do you think I'll need to have to get my own show, eh???) and when people comment on how many kids you have. In our church there are several large families, but I think that's pretty typical among the churchgoing demographic. I haven't always pictured having a large family, in fact I always said I would never have kids. Anyone who knew me prior to meeting Aaron can attest to the fact that I was NOT a fan of children. Ethan and Aaron melted my heart and the rest is history. There's something magical about looking at these small people who look up to you and count on your guidance to shape their lives. It's a lot of responsibility, but it's worth it.

That yummy yellow stuff.....

Since I've been not working my days have consisted of taking Ethan to school, taking Noah to to the bus stop, watching my DVRd shows, cooking, cleaning, facebooking and organizing. Today I decided I needed to occupy Luke for a while so I took him downstairs to the garage and we went through some boxes we have yet to unpack. I found some 6M, 12M and 4T clothes! I need to figure out a better storage system for the kids clothes that are currently not in use. Right now I just have random boxes and bins with a certain size in them. When a kid grows out of a size I just switch out the entire wardrobe. My friend Carla and I have been exchanging kids clothes for a couple years now and it's worked out wonderfully! I just lent her my 5T stash and I currently have her 3T collection. I think something I'll put more effort into is obtaining some more rubbermaid tubs that all look the same and puting each size in a different tub. Its a bit challenging right now because Noah and Luke are roughly wearing the same size.

You know that yellow yummy stuff that they serve on the side of the entree at Chevy's?? That corn meal goodness? Tonight I decided I just had to have some so I looked up the recipe and made some! Here is the recipe for this wonderful treat! For what it's worth, I totally screwed up cooking it for an entire hour. The recipe tells you to put the 8x8 pan over a boiling saucepan. Well....I did this, but steam was coming out around the pan and apparently did not work the way I thought it would. An alternative cooking method is to put the 8x8 pan in a 9x13 Pyrex pan with an inch or so of water in the bottom. I cooked it for about 40 more minutes and it came out perfect (I covered the 8x8 with aluminum foil).

Tonight we went to our first parent meeting for Head Start. Not a great turnout but it was informative. Aaron and I volunteered to co-chair the Parent Committee and I volunteered to be on some sort of special committee. I'm pretty sure I have officially overextended myself but I like to be busy.

I did some power cleaning about a half hour ago. I find that the BEST time to clean (deep clean, especially) is at night. There are no kids running around making messes or playing in my dirt pile while I sweep, no noises, no distractions and most importantly, no excuses as to why I can't be cleaning. Sure, I'm exhausted after waking up at the crack of dawn, but the feeling I get when I flip on the light in the morning and my kitchen still smells like bleach and the floors are lickably clean.....ahhhhh...it's unexplainable. I cleaned the hall bathroom, swept the floor, cleaned the clutter from behind/to the side of my computer (to be fair, I stacked it neatly in my bedroom to be sorted through later), bleached counters and dining room table, bleached sink, did dishes, cleaned range and microwave. Aaron told me yesterday that his only fear about me possibly becoming a stay at home mother someday is that I will most likely forget to wash the walls......he's so silly.

I'm Baaaaaaaaack!!!

After a "brief".....(ok, two year) hiatus, I am going to attempt to blog again. Sometimes I'm doing something and think that it'd make a really good blog topic. I fancy myself a fairly organized mother of 4 children and perhaps I can pass on some of my stumbled upon wisdom to somebody else. I should probably start with a quick recap of the last couple of years. Firstly, Ethan will be 7 this month, Noah will be 4 in November, Luke will be 2 the day after tomorrow and I just gave birth to our 4th boy Zachary on September 13th. I took 5 months off after having Luke to just hang out and be a mom..I LOVED it but we needed to get back on our feet financially so I went back to work full time. I've been in Seaside at Wyndham Vacation Ownership for almost two years now. It's a crazy place to work, but it's been fun. I'm currently on maternity leave until November 8th. I've been enjoying every last second of being a stay at home mommy and overall slave to my kids :) Aaron has been very active in his latest computer programming endeavors. He is programming Xbox games for the Indie marketplace. He is doing some of his own as well as some freelance work for other game developers. He has really enjoyed it. Right now it's more of a hobby than a career, but we hope that it's heading that way in the near future.

Whenever I mention I have 4 kids people are shocked. They can't imagine how one could deal with all that having 4 boys entails. I like to tell people that it's not like they all popped out at the same time, and as 2 year olds....They came slowly, and our family grew and adapted with each child we added. Being their mother comes completely natural and very rarely do I truly want to yank out my hair and sell them to the gypsies.

Hopefully I can keep up with this at least on a weekly basis. I have so much I want to say and share with people. Bookmark me and check back often :)