giving thanks

This past week was great. Cody was home and able to spend a lot of time with us. In attempt to help me stay off my feet he has stepped up and taken over a lot of the things I normally take care of. He gets up with Rhys in the middle of the night when his teeth are bothering him. He makes multiple runs to the grocery store a week. And, he does nearly all the Rhys related work around the house. All on top of his normal day job and his side home projects. I'm sure I don't tell him often enough how much I appreciate the help, but I do! Love you babe!

So far the terbutaline pump hasn't been so bad. Except for the massive headaches it gives me. I had a constant headache for about the first three days, and now I seem to only be getting them in the afternoons. The catch is they are really hard to get rid of. I hear the side effects should wear off in between 3-5 days, so I am really hoping they don't hang around. The jitters are mostly gone, except I still have a pretty unsteady hand. It isn't nearly as bad as it was the first day after the meds started, but it is noticeable.

The contraction monitor is a bit of a pain. The monitor will pick up most stomach muscle movement so you have to remain fairly still. No bending over, walking, etc. It even will pick up laughing or coughing. These don't necessarily show up as a contraction, but the nurses who review the strip can tell something is going on. So far I have had some minor irritability (that I think was me readjusting my position while lying down) and one small contraction that lasted less than 45 seconds (when I was asleep). Having the monitor is somewhat reassuring, but I never had signs of labor with the boys' delivery so that has me a bit worried. According to my OB the 17p injections are really proven to work, so that combined with the cerclage, taking it easy and aggressive doctor's checkups should get me a lot farther this time.

Rhys has recently started indicating that he isn't wanting the cereal in his night time bottles. The past few days we've only given him milk at night and that has actually seemed to work just fine. We were previously keeping the cereal in his night time bottle because he was waking up starving in the middle of the night without it. He has also started indicating he really wants to eat his solids. If you don't get the spoon out fast enough he pitches a little fit. He will eat up to 16 ounces with the spoon a day. Too bad we are still limited mostly to his yogurt. He has six teeth now, with two more bottoms nearly poking through. Those little suckers are sharp too! He is fascinated by fingers and loves to chew on them. Not so much his fingers, but others' fingers. Gross! His weight gain seems good as well, at nearly 21.5 pounds.