Blood Sugar Testing

Yesterday I had the regular blood sugar test. This morning the nurse called to tell me that the levels were elevated so on Monday I have to go in for the 3 hour test. Gross.

I really did not mind drinking the orange soda stuff very much and may actually enjoy the time to sit and read on Monday. But, I am now worried just because I don't know a lot about the whole gestational diabetes thing. I'm kicking myself and analyzing everything to see if there is anything I should have been doing or not doing. I know gaining a lot of weight can be a risk factor. I have gained more than average but I am also eating healthy and exercising so I'm not sure why. Addison may just be a big baby but that also creates its own problems and worries.

I'm really hoping that this next test will come back normal. Pray that the results are fine and that the elevated levels could have just been what I ate yesterday! I tried looking up gestational diabetes but didn't find a lot of useful information. Most of what I read was long-winded, scary and did not give any practical suggestions. Has anyone else failed the first test? Any ideas, info etc would be helpful! Thanks!

Summer pics

These are a bunch of pictures from the summer so far. The first hiking pictures are in Rocky Mountain Park where Josh and I went last week. Then there are pictures of Rockies game on the 4th with the youth group.








The pictures of my brother, sister-in-law and I are from the Sunday before Kadesh.



These last two pictures are this morning at 27 weeks!

Baby Question

Hi everyone - I have a question for any of you that have either had kids or will have one soon.

I have been really stressing (most likely unnecessarily) about having all of our family come visit when Addy is born. I don't really want everyone here at once because I want everyone to have their own time with her and I don't want to be overwhelmed. But, I also don't really want to have company back to back for a month either since I know its important to settle into our own routine. With 3 sets of parents that this is the first grandbaby for all of them it is becoming a challenge, especially because everyone wants to come as soon as she is born. I'm glad they all want to come to celebrate with us, it's just making me a little anxious.

I have requested that no one actually stay with us since we don't have a lot of space and that way everyone has a place to go if they need to. I'm sure Josh's mom and my mom will sleep at the house a few nights to help in the middle of the night if I need them to though.

So my questions are really: am I worrying about this for no reason? What did you do or have you thought of that was helpful?

I am sure that I have absolutely no idea what the transition will really be like and I am ok with that, I'm just nervous about it too. I know that with my personality I will want to make sure everyone else is ok but I really don't want to be worrying about that with a new baby. Thanks for your help!

Kadesh

The theme this year was Revolution. It was a new theme and admittedly hard to deal with for those of us who have been campers, counselors or group leaders. The biggest change was that the rhythm and the schedule of the week was entirely different. Typically the climax of the week is on Thursday night with some kind of big "experience". This week there was no Thursday night experience. Instead all day Wednesday was similar to a retreat and very busy. The week as a whole is always exhausting - physically, mentally and spiritually but it is also a lot of fun. I was worried about going and being pregnant since I am more easily tired than usual. For the most part I did ok and there were times that I was able to get away and rest.

Changes and frustrations aside, I enjoyed and got a lot out of this theme. It focused mainly on the church and how the church needs to change so Christians need to change. We talked about how we have gotten away from the original intention for the church - so often we say we go to church or just attend church rather than thinking that we ARE the church and should belong to the church. We also had a lot of discussions about how we should act as representatives of Christ in order to bring about the Revolution that our world so badly needs - things like be caring and Christ-like to those around us, really worship honestly, and to live a truly revolutionary life that scripture calls us to.

It was good for the teens and they were challenged more than in past years to actually go back home and make some changes rather than just learning what they should do. As a University Church of Christ youth group we came up with some great ideas that the kids are trying to implement now that we are home. Some of those are things like asking the people who live around the church if they need any help with physical things (mowing yards, painting etc) when we go around every few months to ask if we can pray for them. Another idea was to make more of an effort to make our church a "safe place" where people can come and be real and know that they will be loved and accepted where they are at - hopefully this will spill over from the youth group to the church as a whole. For our group, a lot of this theme was stuff that Josh has worked with them on before, this week of Kadesh just took it one step deeper. For a lot of other youth groups I think this idea was entirely new.

Either way, I'm excited to see how God will work in the weeks, months, years to come from this experience.

The first picture below is the University group outside of Highland on Sunday morning. The second is the group of college freshman that Josh and I lead during the week.

Abilene

I was in Abilene all last week for Kadesh at ACU. The theme this year was Revolution and it deserves its own post within the next few days.

As much as I enjoyed Kadesh, just being in Abilene has nice. It is so familiar and comfortable that it makes me happy. I was able to eat Chicken Express and Taco Bueno - neither of which we have in Colorado. One of my favorite things was Cajun Cones! These are truly the best sno-cones on the entire planet and I ate way too many of them. There are a lot of flavors that I like but one of my favorites is the Blue Hawaiian. It is actually a sno-cream, is bright blue and tastes deliciously like coconut.

Sunday we went to church at Highland (where I went while at ACU). It was one of Mike Cope's last sermons there as the preacher. I tend to have a huge smile on my face whenever he says "pour through me the gift of preaching" as he prays before each sermon. After church I went to lunch with the Shilcutt family and my brother and sister-in-law at El Fenix. I miss Abilene Mexican food.

After lunch I went with Jackie Beth to her parent's house and we hung out at the pool. I guess I am no longer a true Texan because I got a sunburn even after using sunscreen. Admittedly, I did not use a super high SPF, but still.... Anyway, it was not very comfortable for a few days and then turned into a tan. The worst part was my ankles. My feet got pretty swollen because of the heat and even bruised turning an ugly purple color on the tops and sides. It doesn't neccesarily hurt it is just uncomfortable. I called the doctor's office on Tuesday and a nurse said just to keep them elevated while I sleep. That helped a lot but they were pretty big again each evening. I know the heat made this worse so hopefully it will at least be a little better now that I am back in Colorado.

I have several pictures of the trip that just haven't made it onto the computer yet but I will add them in the next few days.

My favorite day of the week

Thursday mornings are one of my favorite parts of the week. That's when Josh and I go on a breakfast date. We started this about a year ago when we realized that there were few days that we were home together for dinner because of both of our work schedules, elders meetings, yoga class etc. These breakfast dates are a time that we can spend together hanging out, catching up on the week and just talking. We have one or two places that we go to but I also like to try out new places that I find.

These mornings are such a blessing to me and I hope this is something we will be able to continue for a long time.

Ewww..

That describes how I feel today. I am not a big fan of gaining a ton of weight even if it is because we will have a sweet little baby in 4 months. I knew that this was part of the deal and I was expecting it but that doesn't make me like it any more. I have been in shape and athletic for as long as I can remember so this is a challenge. I really don't have a problem with having a round, huge pregnant belly - it's the extra fat in other places that frustrates me. I really am eating right, working out a ton and doing things I should but it doesn't seem to be helping.

So, really all I needed to do was to vent that I am feeling totally gross today and I have a feeling it is just going to get worse. Thanks for listening...

Interesting Observation

My cousin brought to my attention that when Addison is born it will be the first time in my life that I have met someone who is biologically related to me.

Wow! I hadn't thought about that before. I will actually know someone who shares part of my DNA. I guess it doesn't make that big of a difference but when I've never been able to say that before it's pretty cool.

Being adopted has never really been a huge struggle for me. Off and on it's been a source of confusion, frustration or whatever. I have never a burning desire to find my birth parents. When I became very sick after a trip to Africa my parents got ahold of my maternal grandparents who said they wouldn't even give us medical history. After that my desire to meet my bio family was even less. After hearing some research on the subject I do think that children who have been adopted often react more strongly to any type of change or loss and I can see that in myself. But it has still never been a big deal for me - being adopted was just part of what made me me. But I am definitely excited to be able to say that I will have one person that is genetically related to me.

Having a baby is like getting married....

I have been thinking about this off and on lately and I have decided that having a baby and getting married are surprisingly similar.

1. You get to register for all kinds of cool stuff that you may or may not end up using.
2. People constantly ask you how the planning is coming.
3. People also feel it neccesary to give you their opinions, advice and horror stories.
4.Your husband may or may not be interested in the planning for these events.
5. You get to do all kinds of decorating, organizing etc.
6. Major life changes will occur.
7. As happy a time as both of these things are, it is also super stressful.
8. And the biggest one...we seem to spend a lot of time "getting ready" for the wedding or the birth but don't seem to spend as much time and energy preparing for actually being married or being a parent.

It's this last similarity that I have been thinking the most about. When Josh and I got married we did the typical premarital counseling, talked a lot about being married etc. but most of the planning and time revolved around the one day event of the wedding - what color bridesmaid dresses, what kinds of flowers, picking out my dress, what flavor and style of cake etc. There were lots of things that I realize now we should have done more work around to help prepare for being husband and wife and living together. Some of those things are things like what chores we would do or hate to do, who was going to be in charge of paying bills, what we would do with merging family traditions etc. I know that a lot of things like that are things that most likely need to be figured out as you go a long; but I still think it is true that we spend more time preparing for a party than for the lifetime changes.

This is really freaking me out with pregnancy. Being pregnant has had a way of making me focus a lot on my health, how I'm feeling, what I am doing now to keep the baby safe etc. We have spent time picking out bedding, deciding on how to decorate the nursery, choosing a name and all that other fun, necessary stuff. What we haven't spent a lot of time on is learning about how to raise a child and take care of a newborn. Some of this stuff I know and some of it will come with time but I think there is more I can be doing now. I have thought about how to breastfeed/pump while working. I've thought about what we will do for childcare and how much time I can afford to take off of work. But, I have no idea how to decipher things like sticking to a strict schedule vs. letting the baby be flexible, what we will do about food and feedings as she gets older (baby food vs. making our own), to swaddle or not to swaddle, what kind of vaccines we want to get for the baby or not, how will we handle discipline as Addison gets older, will we use a pacifier and for how long etc. etc etc.

This could be a lot of my own paranoia and need to know what is going. However I am hoping that it will make me more mindful while preparing for Addison's arrival. I'll let you know if I have any life changing revelations about any of my questions....You can also let me know if you have any input on any of those child raising issues....

Blog design give away

My friend Sharon is doing a blog design give away on her site. She does GREAT work - you should check out her blog - http://redbuddesigns.blogspot.com/

Thanks everyone!