Ultrasound

My cervix is 3.7cm! WooHoo! When I told my MIL about this, she screamed, "You're dialated three and a half centimeters?" So I had to explain again slowly that was not the case. I'm pretty excited. At this point last pregnancy I had less cervix than this. Who knows what that really means though? Things can change really quickly. We finally took Ben to the bounce house today for a late birthday present. The kids loved it! I have come to realize that I am a playground Nazi. I hate parents who don't watch their kids and who don't teach their kids proper manners. Older kids run and push past my kids all the time. Grr, it takes all the strength I have not to lecture them. But I know that is not the right thing to do.... I know I should not bother, but when it's your kid, it's hard not to get mad at those kids. Anyway, we had great fun. The kids were there for almost 3 hours and would have stayed longer if we had let them. Forgot the camera, so no pictures

The Dentist

So I went to the dentist today. I have 9 cavities. I went less than a year ago and had 10. I could blame it on my 4 pregnancies and the nursing. But I choose to blame it on all the throwing up that has happened with those pregnancies. Who really wants to brush their teeth when it's going to make you throw up again? They all tell me that my teeth look really great, they are just riddled with cavities.

Happy 2nd Birthday Ben!!

2 years ago today, ok yesterday... Yes, I'm going to pull a Shiela. After they took my cerclage out I dialated to 4 cm and stayed there for a few weeks. The doctor carefully prepped Doug for a home delivery. Doug was very freaked out. I had tested positive for GBS the pregnancy before and my ever cautious doctor wanted to treat me again. So we decided to go for an induction, which I was not super excited about. Just once I want to have a labor where I get to count my contractions and call Doug to tell him to rush to the hospital. I know, it'll never happen but that's always what happens in the movies. I was supposed to head to the hospital at 7 but got a phone call saying that too many women had gone into labor naturally (darn them) and they didn't have room for me. I was mad. I had everything planned and that ruined it. Luckily an hour and a half later they called me in. We got the two courses of antibiotics in and he broke my water sometime around 2:45. I got my epidural finally and by then I was at an 8. I pushed for 40 minutes because Ben's head was stuck on my pelvis. At 6:18 he came out. He, like Charlotte had breathing problems and had to be sent to the NICU for a few hours. We came home the next day.

When you ask Ben how old he is now he says good as if you have asked him how he is. He does not hold up 2 fingers yet but he knows he is 2. We had a family party last night where he was overwhelmed with presents. He did not know which gift to play with first.

Yes, he has all 18 candles on his cake. He loves to blow out candles and two just did not seem like enough.


Ben had a great birthday with balloons and donuts and trains and books and puzzles.

Charlotte was really excited about Ben's train set and could not understand why it was Ben's. Th whole day was understandably quite a struggle because Ben did not have to share right away. Thank goodness for naps. While he was asleep she spent the time playing with his toys.

We figured out the reason why Ben loves bananas so much. He actually calls them BENanas.

Whenever we can't find Charlotte it's safe to say she's in her room putting this on! This is her ballet outfit she says.

I forgot to mention

Did you know that you can see contractions on an ultrasound? There was a small black void on the screen. When I asked what it was the perinatologist casually said it was a contraction. I had no idea those were things you could actually see!

We're having a....

Yeah, I don't know. Doug and Donna know. Anyone wanna take bets on how long that will last? I am actually enjoying it so far. It's only been 6 hours, but still. I know Doug will slip up. My cervix looked long and closed. Here's a tip for any of you trying to increase your cervical length for an ultrasound. Have a full bladder. For some reason, it adds length, albeit fake length, to your cervical length. It measured 4 cm. I'm not sure my cervix has ever been that long, which is why I believe the bladder thing. So far no bedrest, so for that I am grateful. I really like my perinatologist, so if somehow he wants to be my OB, that would work. Ha, I know. The baby looked healthy, which is always a huge sigh of relief. I wish any of my doctors would ever have the same answers to my questions. I get to have another ultrasound in a few weeks when we reach viability!

Merry Christmas

This was one of the first snows of the season. The kids loved it. They played out there for a good half hour, just running around. Now there's much more (though nothing compared to Spokane, I know) so it's harder to run around. Though Ben does love to put his boots on and tromp around until his hands get too cold from all the snow eating.

Ben is big into legos lately, plus I just think this is a funny picture. He will play all by himself, something Charlotte just started doing as well. Charlotte loves to get dressed up in her ballet outfit (a church dress and tap shoes) and take her baby to the store. She enjoys changing her clothes multiple times a day. Here she is with her baby, one of the many.

Doug and the kids love to go sledding in the backyard. I'm not technically on bedrest yet (it helps that my dr hasn't checked anything since the cerclage was put in) but I figure that sledding is one of those no nos anyway. My ultrasound got postponed cuz of stupid insurance. I will be having a drs appt on Tuesday and my ultrasound on Wednesday. I have an appt with a different doctor but I could not get in til the middle of January so we will see.

So forgive the picture of a picture but I thought it was worth showing. We went and waited for a half hour to meet Santa but I'm cheap. I wasn't going to pay 20 bucks for a single picture. Ben had smashed his head into the corner of the chest of drawers and it started gushing blood. The first bandaid I could find was blue and he would not let me take it off. So off to see Santa we went. One of Santa's elves tried to get me to buy a picture to commemorate the bandaid, but I still wouldn't do it. So she gave it to me for free so that I could scrapbook it. I didn' t have the heart to tell her I don't scrapbook. Blogging is scrapbooking, right?


Christmas was great this year because Charlotte really understood what was going on. We spent much of our time going from house to house. It's weird to have so much family around. Charlotte and Ben sure love having so many people to love them. We got to have dinner with my father, then dinner with my grandparents and Mom's family, then dinner with Doug's family and then breakfast with my family. Bob and Donna (Doug's parents) were here for a few days and the kids just love them. We did not spoil our kids too much this year, but my family did.


This isn't the best picture, but we had a Burke family pig out and Grandma Donna got Hannah Montana costumes for the girls and pirate costumes for the boys. The girls loved singing Christmas sons for the crowd. I was still working out the red eye on the camera and all the kids have blue eyes. We sure enjoyed seeing so much of our family lately. I hope you all enjoyed this Holiday season, even if you did have too much snow.

Here's a picture of the whole Burke Family pig out. I've got my pregnant fat face stated, I know, I shouldn't whine...... Aunt Debbie in the middle is also pregnant after many struggles. I honestly could not be happier for them. It helps that we are only six weeks apart so my baby has a close cousin. But still, we are so excited!!!

BYU game

We got tickets to a BYU game that was at 5 pm so we were finally able to bring our kids. Most times the games are at 8, and tired kids at a basketball game don't equal fun to me. We got to go up to the Energy Solutions Arena. The kids were really good. It helped that we kept giving them food. What's a game without popcorn? Afterwards we went and saw the lights at Temple Square. I believe we all would have enjoyed them more if it had been warmer.
We went to try and find Santa at a mall but were unsuccessful. But the mall was great fun. It had poppy water and a huge Christmas tree. I believe the highlight of the night was when I fell heading up the stairs at the game. I swear 100 people saw me. Luckily I didn't get hurt.



Here is a picture of our beautiful tree. We have already lost 3 ornaments...




Here is Doug's belated Halloween Costume. He was, of course, the Hulk.


The kids love the snow, though luckily this is the most we've had so far. I don't think our luck is going to last much longer.

I have my ultrasound on Tuesday. I'm trying not to find out what we're having. I'm not sure I can stick to my guns about it. Hopefully all is well. They should also be measuring cervical length, so we'll see how it goes.