18 Weeks

I can't believe that I am almost half way through this pregnancy already! 

Cravings: Chocolate :) 

Symptoms: Growing belly, a little bit discomfort during the night, constant trips to the bathroom, and still a little morning sickness and fatigue, but it's finally getting a little bit better!!!! 

Complaints: Nothing really! 

Weight gain: Somewhere between -10 and -13... I'm a fluctuate-r normally and I weighed myself two days apart, so I either am fluctuating or I gained 3 pounds in two days, lol.  

Movement: Yes! Baby is definitely moving now! Love it! 

Doctor appointment results: Good! Babies heart rate is good, and we scheduled the big ultrasound!!! Yay!!!! Two more weeks and we get to see the baby!!!!

Mood: Good!

Planning: Trying to figure out where to give birth! I've met with a midwife for the new birth center opening up in Duluth, and that went well... I'm just not 100% sure yet. So I'm going to make an appointment at Essentia and interview some doctors there as well. Moose Lake, Cloquet, and St. Lukes are out of the question, so really my only options left are the birth center or Essentia. 

Other planning, I need to get back into exercising again! Now that I am finally feeling a bit better, I really need to be disciplined and do my exercises every day. Why? Well, not only is it good for you, but I get severe pubic symphysis when I'm pregnant. It was awful with Eli and it only gets worse with each kid you have... and I for one don't want to be on my knees in pain multiple times a day, and in public, because my pubic bones slipped so far out of place while I was walking around or standing. The only way to lessen/prevent the pain is to strengthen the muscles in and around your hips, so I really need to start working on it before I start experiencing the horrid pain on a multiples times a day basis. I did some squats last night, but I need to actually write down what I need to do so I don't forget it and so that I can make sure I get all the muscles targeted that need to be worked on. 

Advice: Nothing that I can remember or that was new! 

Dreams: Yep! I had a dream that we had a boy, and that we had it sleep in our pantry... haha! Also, the most random people show up in my dreams! Last night I had a weird dream about lava, vampires, and the girl from Mama Mia... 

Baby Size: The size of a sweet potato! 

Cute Stuff: Gabriel is still convinced the baby is a girl, haha! We were joking around about naming the baby 'Jack' if it was a boy, just for the shear sake that it's Eli's favorite character in his favorite movie. Well Gabriel overheard us talking about it and got so mad, 'No! The baby is gonna be a girl cause we don't have one! God is giving me a sister! And we are going to call her 'Princess' and that is going to be her name!' Also, Eli went with my to the doctor appointment I had this week and the doctor pulled up a chair close to the table and Eli got to help measure me and listen to the babies heart beat and stuff, he thought it was pretty cool! 

Other events of the week: My husband and I got to celebrate our anniversary! This is the first year we didn't go away for a night or plan anything 'big'. We just went out for a movie, stopped to get Rocky Mountain Mints (date night tradition!), sat in Barnes & Noble looking at books, and then went out for dinner! It was fun and we haven't had a chance to be kid free for a super long time, so it was nice just be alone together for once! 

Fire

Last Tuesday night, Josh and I decided to start working on my new garden. Now, where we wanted to move the garden to was at the edge of our yard in the back, where the field begins. Last year, before we moved in to our home in September, the people who lived here before us never hayed the field, so when we moved in the hay in the field was up to my waist if not a little higher. Over the winter it got packed down, so there was a good 3-4 feet of hay that was now packed down into about 6 inches on the ground... so in other words, it was thick! 

Josh was going to remove a layer of sod with his skid steer from the new garden plot so we could prepare the dirt underneath for gardening. In order to make it a little easier, so he wouldn't have to push through the 6 inches of packed hay, we were going to burn at least the four corners of our garden so he could get into the ground a bit easier. We figured if we got the four corners done, he would know where to plow up the sod and it would give him a good start in each area. 

So, on Tuesday evening, we decided to burn the four corners of the garden. It had rained that morning, and then it became rather warm throughout the day. It had been windy at times, but the wind seemed to die down before we wanted to burn the garden, and since we only wanted to burn a small section of each corner, we knew it wasn't going to take a long time at all. We prepared ourselves with rakes and we lit the fire. Now, I thought we were only going to light one corner and work on that first, but Josh lit my corner and then immediately walked over and lit another corner. Which, was just a little miscommunication on our part, but still, it wasn't going to be that big of a deal since it was just a small section after all. 

Within about 60 seconds of lighting the fire, everything was going well. We were stomping out the fire along the edges and it wasn't going too fast to be out of control... and then, the wind picked up. A strong wind came along and Josh and I looked at each other and I said 'Um, this better stop, the fire is going really fast...' But our not so windy evening turned into a very windy evening after all. Once the wind started, it didn't stop. And the fire, got out of control. 

Josh ran to get his skid steer to try to stop the fire as it was heading right for our neighbors land and I kept running back and forth trying to get the fire to stop with water, rakes, and stomping on it. Nothing worked. While Josh went to get his skid steer, I ran and grabbed my phone from Eli who was contently reading a book on it, and I called 911. 

I couldn't even see the fire anymore, it was out of sight, all I saw was smoke. I grabbed both the kids and ran to the fork in our driveway to tell the firemen where to go when they got here. I could hear my husband driving the skid steer as fast as he could trying to stop the fire but I couldn't see him at all. 

As I stood there with my kids, my stomach started hurting really bad. I am 17 weeks pregnant, and have pretty well been sick since week 8. Meaning, I haven't exercised since then either, so all the running I had just done was not exactly normal for me or baby. I could tell I was contracting, and I was coughing, either from being out of shape and my lungs were trying to deal with all the running, or from the small big of smoke I inhaled, I couldn't really tell which. And I was half crying. I was trying really REALLY hard not to cry... but I'm pregnant after all, stress just makes me cry... and I was scared. 

As I was standing there, I heard something backfire. It didn't really sound like a big boom, just like a car backfiring. I turned around, knowing fully well that my husband was driving his skid steer in a fire, only to see a wall of flames behind our house. The wall of fire was almost as tall as the tree that bordered our field. I kept telling myself that the backfire I heard wasn't big enough for it to be my husbands skid steer exploding... but I wasn't really believing myself. 

Soon, a firetruck arrived, and as they drove past a guy yelled out the window that there were more rigs coming... how many rigs? I had no idea, so I just stood there and waited. I turned around a couple of minutes later and my husband was walking up the driveway towards me. I don't think I was ever so thankful to see Josh! He told me that the flames got so high at one point (only for a couple of minutes, which is when I saw them) that he had parked his skid steer because it wasn't helping at all, and when he shut it off, it backfired. He also said that by the time he got the skid steer and drove it out to the fence that bordered our neighbors land, which he said was probably 2 minutes, the fire was already over the fence and well into our neighbors field. That's a long way people! The fire covered the distance of a good 3 or so acres in 2 minutes. 

More rigs showed up... lots and lots of them! The kids thought this was pretty awesome and I was wondering if it was ever going to end! Josh took the kids back to the back of the house to watch the firemen and all their trucks. At this point I just knelt on the driveway, my stomach was killing me. No more trucks came after that, so I finally, slowly, walked back to the back of the house and sat down in the grass. 

The boys watched the fire. 

And they thought the firetrucks were pretty awesome. 

And this was after they put out a good portion of the fire on our side of things. 

We talked to the fire chief, and then to the DNR, and then just sat there helplessly and watched. At one point one of the smaller fire trucks got stuck, they just flat out sunk right into our field, so Josh drove his skid steer out there to try to help get it unstuck, but they were stuck all the way up to the bottom of their truck so they had to call in help to get them unstuck as Josh's skid steer wasn't big enough. 

Not too long after that, a helicopter showed up. We didn't know what they were doing at first, they just sat in our neighbors field for 5 ish minutes and we were just praying we hadn't given our neighbors a heart attack or something like that. In reality though, it was a fire helicopter and they ended up getting water from our ponds and dumping it on the fire that had spread to our neighbors swampy brush land. 

You can see the little dot in the sky, that's the helicopter. They only were there for about 45 minutes or so...

The firemen were there, mostly on our neighbors end, until well after 11PM. I went to bed first, probably around 10-10:30... I was exhausted and although I stopped contracting, I still hurt. Josh went to bed shortly after the last firemen left. 

The next day, we went out to inspect the damages...

This is standing on the edge of our field, where everything started and looking out over the burnt land. 

Gabriel walked in the ruts where the firetruck got stuck. It was literally up past his knees. 

This is at the fence in the field that separates our lands and looking into what was burnt of our neighbors land. 

This is looking back at our house from the fence line. The fire was started not too far from our house. This is how far the fire went in the two minutes it took for Josh to get his skid steer. Can you say fast moving?

The only thing we have to replace after all is said and done is these two railroad ties that hold up the fence at the corner of our properties (the fire effected three properties). 

And this was the area, and further back that we can't see, that the helicopter was needed to put out the fire. 

After all was done, we figured the fire burnt about 15 acres of just grass and brush. Much more then the few feet that we had planned on burning so we could dig up my garden. Thankfully, neither of our neighbors were mad. One, whom was an ex-firefighter, said he wished it had burnt more of his swampy brush land... and he also said he was really bummed that he was stuck in meetings at work and had to miss the 'show'. 

Alas, it was an interesting experience. And stressful. And emotional. And scary.

Gabriel, and one of the firefighters, said that now I can have a super big garden since it burned so much :) I think not. 

16 Weeks

Cravings: Hmm... Nothing really that I just HAVE to have. I still love my fruits during pregnancy :)

Symptoms: Still morning sickness. Seriously, this stuff is getting old! I'm glad it's not a constant feeling. Just mornings, and occasionally afternoons... and nights... Ok, it's really not all day, well, some days it is... I swear every day is different. I am guaranteed not to feel well in the morning and then some days afternoons are bad and some days evenings are bad, and every night at 9PM on the dot I start not feeling well. I'm pretty good at hiding it though, so most people don't know that I feel like I'm on nauseous or on the verge of throwing up when I am talking to them when in reality I am. 

Complaints: I guess my only complaint/frustration is when a few people have treated me like I choose what kind of foods make me sick or 'if you would just eat x or x, I know you would feel better and have energy and not feel so sick, you just don't want to try it.' Umm... I have no control over what makes me sick! I hate half the foods that doesn't make me sick and I am so TIRED of eating them. And if eating a salad was the key to more energy (which I have a hard time putting down because of the smell of salad dressings) then I would be shoving my face full of them. It's just frustrating, and half the time very emotional and infuriating, when people treat you that way. Believe me, going on 3 months of feeling like crap at some point of every.single.day makes a lady very tired and kinda emotional and just plain miserable, so don't treat her like she is choosing it! Just because they have never been through a pregnancy where you feel sick constantly, or know someone who was sick constantly, doesn't mean that those of us who are have something wrong with us or it's some easy fix. Pregnancy effects each woman differently! Just because I'm not like you, or your sister, mom, wife, aunt, or cousin, doesn't make something wrong with me and it DOES NOT mean that I am choosing this or have control over it! Ok, sorry. I've just had two people do that to me lately and it's really not fun to go through that and you leave the conversation really wanting to cry :( 

Weight gain: Still at -12 pounds. 

Movement: Flutters and occasional soft kicks! 

Doctor appointment results: No doctor appointments lately. 

Mood: Pretty good for the most part. Sometimes overwhelmed if I think about how long I've not been feeling well, but if I take it one day at a time and not dwell on the length of sickly days and what not, then it's not so bad. 

Planning: I bought a swing and a car seat :) The swing just came today, so we have to set it up and see if we like it. I like the car seat though :) 

Advice: More advice on how to deal with morning sickness! I've tried lots of different tips, some work, some don't, but I'm thankful people are trying to help with different ideas! 

Dreams: Nothing too odd! Random people show up in my dreams, but it's not too crazy.

Baby Size: The size of a avocado. 

Cute Stuff: My kids :) 

Other events of the week: We got baby chickens yesterday! The boys, especially Gabriel, is super excited about them and asks to go look at them multiple times a day. It's also Mother's Day on Sunday and all I asked for was for all the dishes to be done, that would seriously be the best gift EVER!  Gabriel also starts soccer on Monday, so we are very excited about that! We went out tonight and got him shin pads, tennis shoes, and his very own soccer ball to practice on at home :)