Good people surround me

All has gone smoothly this past week. We continue to adjust day by day. TThe newness of it all has begun to wear off. Sure...I can see changes in all of us. Anabelle struggles with the random meltdown - which we rarely experienced before all this happened. Bryon falls asleep so hard at night that he snores loudly - which only happens when he's exhausted. I'm having difficulty with aches and soreness from laying all day and I'm not sleeping all that well at night. What can I expect though, I'm not burning off any energy during the day. But, as a whole, I'll speak for our entire family, we can't complain. I've had no further issues and baby movements are excellent.

I'm still working with the U of M to get my follow up appointment scheduled. I'll get my first whiff of fresh air since my ride home from the hospital two weeks ago. One question I plan on asking is that if a blood transfusion is anticipated, can I bank my own blood? I did some research and found that they let women bank their blood if their hemoglobin is 11 and on the rare occasion they let a level 10 bank. My level is 10. I mean, let's face it, I take a potent cocktail of meds each morning and night. While in the hospital, the nurses weren't allowed to touch one of my meds because it was labeled "hazardous". So, what would "clean" blood do to me during a transfusion? I need my toxic blood. And...yuck, I really don't want someone else's blood. Unless...Bryon and I are the same blood type. Think I could get him to pony up? He's not real keen about needles. I still remember when I was getting my epidural during the last delivery, he was supposed to sit in front of me and hold my hands as I leaned over on a tray. Instead, he turned green/gray and laid his head on the tray. I was giggling so hard that I was scolded because they were trying to carefully place a needle in my spine. His queasiness only led to a nurse following him with a rolling chair for the remainder of the delivery. She was behind him every moment. Ah....good times. :)

Bryon's mom - Jane, came up on Thursday night and stayed Friday. She worked sooooo hard to do the things around the house. She also spent hours just sitting with Anabelle doing every craft you can think of - fingerpainting, cutting, gluing, coloring, etc. Anabelle told me though that Grandma Jane "needs practice" to color as good as she can. :) I think the two of them had a really great time together and I truly appreciated all of her efforts. It's just really nice to have family around.

Of course I knew I'd forget somebody when thanking neighbors (a.k.a. my EP family) in my last email. I neglected to thank Linda for hauling over an extra bed and all the fixings for it. Again this week, several meals were delivered by my kind neighbors. Holly dropped off some chicken noodle soup too for lunch. My brother Brandon and his long-time friend Jeff stopped by. I had spoken with Jeff in years and he was full of good stories - very fun. Yesterday, Anabelle scored after the mail was delivered! She had a fun valentine package from Grandma Clocks (my mom - she started calling her Grandma Clocks because my mom has chiming clocks in her house which Anabelle just loved), she got a card from (follow me on this one) Bryon's high-school friend's mom, Iris Goodnature - she got her very own Pizza Hut gift card. :) She also had two boxes delivered from Amazon.com. We didn't know who sent them until she opened them. She received fun shrinkydinks and her own walkie-talkies! Very fun! They were from my coworker Shibani. How extremely kind and thoughtful of her! A very fun surprise. My aunt Kim was also extremely kind and generous to send us kind words and a gift card for our favorite takeout restaurant - Pei Wei's. It's Asian cuisine. Yum.

Plain and simple....people are so generous and thoughtful. When I get up and out of here (with a new, healthy, wiggly baby in my arms), I'm going to find a way to show my immense gratitude - besides words.