2 Months, 2 Losses

2011 has not started out well for the Schade side of my family. Over the last 2 months, my dad has lost 2 of his older brothers and I have lost 2 beloved Uncles. Uncle Ralph (aka Skeeter) left us in February. I will miss his smile and his way of making me laugh.

And just last night I got the news that Uncle Jerald (aka Skin) passed away. I will miss him as well. The reunion will not be the same this year. We will miss your presence.

Rest in Peace Uncle Skeeter and Uncle Skin.

Candlelight Night

After a quick trip to the mall last night, we returned home to find that our power was out. Mike called the power company and was told there was a pole fire and they didn't expect it to be back up for hours. It was nearing dark so we did what we could to get the boys ready for bed with the little sunlight we had then had to find other ways to entertain them and ourselves. We ended up enjoying some cookies, coloring and Mike and I played a mean game of Rummy all by candlelight.

It turned out to be a pretty fun evening after all. That was until about midnight when the battery backups went out in the fire alarms and they all went off, waking us all.The power came back on sometime between then and 2:30 am. We were reminded of how spoiled we are and how tech dependent we are when it took us a while to figure out what to do. Good thing we still had our cell phones to connect us to the world or it could have gotten bad ;).

House Rules

I promise my blog isn't becoming a review blog. But literally we haven't don't much else but been home lately. I thought I had braved the cold bug with the boys last week. Boy was I wrong! It hit me like a freight train late Sunday night and all this week (so far). I have been in bed almost non-stop watching smut daytime tv and reading. I finally broke out the book Mike gave me for Christmas from one of my favorite authors, Jodi Picoult. I started and finished all 532 pages along with some Maury, Dr Phil, Opera, What Not to Wear and Fresh Prince of Bel Air episodes, over the last 3 days. I have to say I was kinda in a lull with her last couple of books I read, but I really enjoyed this one. If you are looking for a good book, here's one I recommend.

I finally broke down and looked up what kinds of cold medication I could take while being pregnant and Web MD suggested Tylenol Cold. I braved the store last night and got some only to find out the GB does not approve and ended up fighting a nasty bought of morning sickness along with the cold after taking it. So looks like just some more r&r for me and hopefully I kick this soon.

A big thanks to Mike who has been bearing the brunt of dropping kids off, picking them up and doing most all of the upkeep and childcare in the house these last few days. He really is a saint sometimes.

Zarbee's

I finally broke down and went scouring the aisles of Harmons for some sort of pediatric cough syrup that was ok for the twins to take. Most of them start at ages 6 and up. I had read on another blog about this product so when I came across it, it rang a bell and I read the box. It's good for kids 12 months and up because it's made from all natural ingredients like honey and wheat. All things that you can actually pronounce. So I gave it a try and I am pleased to say that it worked! I've had two quiet nights which have been fantastic and much needed since Mike has been out of town for work this week. And the coughs are fewer and far between during the day. I think we are on the mend just in time for Mike to return this afternoon.

I give Zarbee's an A+. For those of you with little ones suffering through the current bug running around, I highly recommend this.

Gummy Bear at 13 weeks

When we went to our 8 week appointment and we got to see an actual good shot of the baby on the screen all we could see was a head a torso and little stumps where the arms and legs would be forming and the baby was flinging around those stumps quite quickly. Mike didn't have a good angle to see it on the monitor. I later told him that it reminded me of a Gummy Bear which made him giggle. So we've kinda given this baby the nickname of Gummy Bear (or GB for short) for now at least until we know what "it" is.

On Monday Mike and I had our 13 week visit. It was a long wait since the Dr. was delivering right when we called back but when he returned, we got to see GB again and listen to the heartbeat (finally! We had only seen it up until now). GB is doing what it should and there wasn't much of an update there.

We asked the Dr. again about the Progesterone shots. His office doesn't know much more than the rest of us. He concluded that it was "highway robbery" also like the rest of us are all thinking. He is waiting to see what the pharmacy prices the vials to his office at $ wise, so they know how to pass that onto the patients. He wasn't too concerned with starting the shots at 14 weeks which we previously discussed, so he said to hang tough and hopefully he would know more about how this was all going to work at our next appoint at 16 weeks. So we'll keep crossing our fingers for some type of solution with that.

I am finally starting to have less nausea, only a little here and there and am getting back a little more energy. Only a few more weeks until we find out what this little one is. Should we start placing bets?

Sick Symphony

This household has had it's fair share of colds and sickness lurking around the last couple of weeks. We ended up at the Dr's office twice within a week with 2 boys. Zaden we were told was just a cold and his rash some sort of allergic reaction (no idea to what). And then Caleb got himself a nice ear infection along with the shared cold. Last night as I was getting everyone ready for bed and not feeling real great, I found myself listening to all the sounds the kids were making and the sounds from my own body and it made me laugh as I got myself ready for bed. Here are some of the sounds.

"Cough"
"Hack"
"Sneeze"
"Sniffle"
"blow"
"thump thump" (my head pounding)
"scratch scratch" ( our throats hurting)
and right before I put myself in bed I was awakened to the lovely sound of "Puke" from Caleb who then ended up in my bed with me for the rest of the night. Which led to "Caleb, quit kicking!"

So today I've been silently writing a little ditty in my head of these sounds as we trudged through another day. It goes a little something like this:

Thump, Thump, Thump, sneeze, cough, cough, sniffle, sneeze, scratch, scratch, hack, cough, hack, Caleb quit kicking, cough cough, sniffle, blow, thump thump, scratch, PUKE, cough, cough, sniffle sneeze, hack , cough, cough, thump ,thump, scratch, blow, Caleb quit kicking!

But alas we all found a way to drift off to sleep. Maybe it's because I just recently watched the movie August Rush but I couldn't help but notice the sounds all around last night. So how's that for turning them into something positive? I think it will become a #1 hit someday.

In the News-Progesterone Price Increase

Channel 2 ran a story last night about the Progesterone price related to my last post. In the video is my friend who posted the article and her family. Their piece says that no woman will be turned down because of their inability to pay. However, the previous article states that's only for those women that are uninsured, which is not us.

http://connect2utah.com/news-story/?nxd_id=135266

Holy Crapoly!

Interesting Article : http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-preemie-birth-spikes.html

For those of you that have been around for my previous pregnancies, you know that I tend to give birth early to my kiddo's. There's no rhyme or reason to it that they have found (so far) but after having 3 kiddo's spend several weeks in the NICU, we were really laying the questions about preventing this on the Doctor at the last appointment. One of the things he suggested were progesterone shots weekly, either in the office or me learning to give them to myself (yikes!). But we figure it's all worth it if we can keep this one in there more than 33weeks (my record). So we decided we would discuss it more at my next appointment coming up on Monday and make a plan of action at that time.

A friend of mine who has the same sorts of infertility and premature birth issues as we do is currently on these shots and posted a link to this article on her FB page. All of the rights to the progesterone shots have been sold to one manufacturing group. Starting next week, just in time for us, it is expected that because of this, the price per shot will go from $10 per shot upwards to $1500 per shot. Yes, you heard that right, $1500 PER SHOT!

Mike's insurance plan is currently an HSA plan which means that up until a certain limit each year we have to pay 100% out of pocket and a small Health Savings account that his company contributes to every month. For the most part, it works-however when something like this pokes it's head in, I am at a loss. How in the world are we supposed to afford this price and weekly at that? The good news is that we would hit that deductible fairly quickly, the bad news we would be in major debt trying to pay the bills flowing in constantly until we hit it.

I am open to any other ideas and suggestions of other ways to keep this baking long enough. Any thoughts?

!!The Ouren Caboose!!

It's official! The Ouren caboose is on his or her way this September. We had our 11.5 week appointment today and things are looking good. We had a rough start to this pregnancy and have had to go in every 1-2 weeks for the last 6 weeks but at the last couple of appointments, things have looked a lot better for us and we are feeling more confident. We are very excited to bring this last addition into our family and to share with everyone the updates as we move forward.

And to put it into Caleb's words when I told him the news, "Finally!"