Declawed

One of the conditions of living in my mom's basement is that Gogo had to be declawed so he didn't claw up the carpet. So on Monday I took Gogo to Animal Crackers Vet and got his front claws out. He was so groggy when I brought him home. All he wanted was to be held and sleep. When he walked around he stumbled around like he was drunk. It was sad and funny to watch at the same time. He had bandages on his paws and when he started waking up he wanted to get them off. During the night he managed to get one of them off by putting his paw in between a tote and the bottom of a shelf and pulling. He is a pretty smart kitty. The other one he got off the next day by flicking his paw a bunch. He is starting to feel and act more like himself now. I think he is sad that his claws are gone, but he will just have to deal.

Moving

So a couple of weeks ago my mom offered to let me and Joel live in the apartment that they put in their basement. Joel and I took her up on the offer because it will allow more space for us, Gogo and Colin when he gets here. This last week has been very busy with packing, moving, and putting things where they need to go. Joel has been amazing with all his hard work. He has had to do more than he normally would have because I can't do as much as I want because I am pregnant and have high blood pressure. Joel has been making sure I don't do too much because he wants Colin and I to stay as healthy as we can. So far we are pretty well situated. We just need to get the rest of our stuff from the storage unit. I am very excited to have more space than the little room we were in at Joel's parents' house. Gogo is loving it too.

Bi-Weekly NST

So after my hospital visit my doctor decided to have me go into a doctors' office in the hospital for bi-weekly NST's and an AFI. An NST is a Non-Stress Test, and an AFI is an amniotic fluid check. My doctor just wants to monitor my blood pressure really closely to make sure it doesn't go up too high. So twice a week I go in and they do an ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid levels and then they hook me up to two different monitors. The first one measures Colin's heartbeat and the other one sits at the top of my uterus and measures to see if I have a contraction. I am also hooked up to a blood pressure cuff that goes off about every ten minuets. I usually am there for about half an hour. What they are wanting to see is my blood pressure going down from me resting and they want to three good spikes in Colin's heart rate. The spikes are good because it tells them that he is moving well and getting the things he needs from the placenta. I really like the nurses that are there. They are super nice. They will even print me out pictures of Colin when they are doing the ultrasound.

What A Week

Last Wednesday was the first of 4 days that Joel and I watched Britta's and Nun's kids. It was quite the adventure. Especially since I don't have the same amount energy with being pregnant. Joel was so good with the kids. He played with them and helped me get them ready and such. We didn't have to put any of the kids in time-out the whole time we were with them. That was a very nice thing. On Thursday I had a doctor's appointment so I got to take Landon and Tyler with me to the doctor's. They were really well behaved even though we had to wait for a while. Thursday night, Abby had a birthday party to go to. She had an awesome time. On Saturday Charlene was watching Amanda's and Aaron's kids and we decided to take all the kids to McDonalds. They had so much fun playing on the play place. When we got the kids home, they all just crashed. They got worn out playing. All in all we had a good time, but it is hard to go from having no kids to having to take care of three. We were very worn out by the time we got home late Saturday night, and we were very happy to be able to sleep in our own bed.

Hospital Visit

So on Thursday I had a doctor appointment. Everything was going fine until the nurse took my blood pressure. She took it right after I peed in the cup and it was high, so she had me just sit there for a few minuets hoping it would go down after getting on the bed. When she took it again, it was still high. It was 141/84. This number caused concern with my doctor and she had me go to the hospital after my appointment. She checked Colin's heart rate like normal and he was right where he needed to be, which was a relief. At first I was really scared that my blood pressure was so high. I was thinking off all kinds of worse case scenarios. The one I thought of most was that I would be delivering Colin that day. Having Joel with me the whole time was a great comfort. I don't know how well I would have handled things on my own. On the drive to St. Mark's I had started to calm down, which was really helpful with being able to talk to the nurses. When I got to the hospital I had to talk to the billing and coding lady to be put into their system. I then went to get an ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid levels, which were all good. They then took me to the triage room and had me take a stress test which consisted of them hooking me up to the fetal monitor and a blood pressure cuff and having the thing take my blood pressure every 15 minuets. After about 2 hours they sent me home with a 24 hour urine collection jug and told me that every time I went pee I was to put it in this jug and bring it back the next day so they could see if there was protein in my pee. (Having to do that was so weird and a very annoying task.) So on Friday I went back and they did another stress test and they took some blood to do some other labs. All of my tests came back just fine. I just have gestational hypertension. So far the doctor's orders are that I just need to take it easy and not do too much. The OB that was at the hospital said that I might be delivering 4 to 5 weeks early, but we will see how things go. It is going to be hard to just sit. I am more of a doer than a sitter. But I know that my wanting to have Colin be healthy is more of priority than curing my own boredom. While we were at the hospital Joel took the liberty of taking some pictures, mostly out of sheer boredom. And the picture of the drinks is included because on Friday the ice chips were all that I could have. I didn't complain too much because they were abnormally tasty.

Full Recovery

Gogo was a very good kitty at the vet. When he got home he was still very groggy from the antithetic, so he stayed in the pet taxi for a while before he realized he was home. When he tried to walk around, he looked like he was drunk because his back end was numb still. It was funny and sad to see him stumble around. When I put him on the bed all he wanted was to cuddle so I let him make himself comfortable and I let him sleep on me for a while. It was too cute because he let his head drop every few minuets and his nose ended up being pushed into my leg. He was just so tired. Gogo has now made a full recovery and is just as active as ever. I just hope being neutered makes it so he won't pee on things anymore.

Gogo's Surgery

This morning Joel and I took Gogo to the vet to get neutered. For the past couple of days he has been acting quite melancholy. Like he knew something was going to happen. Last night I had to take away his food and water so he didn't have anything in his tummy for surgery. I felt really bad this morning when he was meowing at me for food and I couldn't give it to him. Last night we gave him a bath so he would be really clean for the vet. He was really good for his bath. he didn't try too hard to get out of the tub. But he sure was glad when he was all dry. He was really good in the pet taxi on the way to the vet, and he didn't try to get away from the vet when she had him on the table examining him. I hope everything goes well today. It is weird not having him home. I will be excited to see him again, even though he won't be gone for that long.