CafeMom Tickers

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Wow... What a CRAZY couple of weeks!

Hello everybody! It's been a minute, but I have been insanely busy the past couple of weeks. I'm not even sure where to begin. It's definitely been a roller coaster. After that last sentence, I need to talk about something off subject. Not many people will understand this, but I can't help but every single time I spell "definitely" out now, I think about one of my best friends, Crystal. She's always been the one to have correct me on literally MILLIONS of things. For instance, when I first started working in the dental field, which is how I met her, I'd say "prophy" wrong. I can't remember exactly how I said it, but it was definitely wrong and I looked like a total ass. I think she let me say it quite a few times before she finally corrected me (because she didn't like me at first). Ha. She's also had to constantly correct me because I spell sandwhich wrong. Habit. I always have to type it as sandwhich and then go back and take that first "h" out. Sandwich. She has also corrected many of my flaws... don't call people "chinks"... death is a part of life, you gotta learn to accept it... I'd be here for DAYS if I had to think about all the things she has corrected me on and taught me, but I think you get the gist of it. There has only been one or two times that I got to teach her something, but most recently she was corrected by someone for spelling "definitely" wrong. She spells it "definately". HAHAHA.. I wish I could remember what one thing I got to correct her on.. It was recently, but I can't remember! Regardless, she is one of my BEST BEST BEST friends and I love her so much. I'm so happy she got to come in town last weekend and I got to spend some quality time with her. It was much overdue. She got to use my new lens and take some family photos for us for our Christmas cards!!! I love them! We got some great pictures, even though we were only out there for about 20 minutes because it was COLD.. and it was wet on the ground! Yuck weather! Regardless, they were precious. I tried loading a couple onto here, but it always takes so long and messes up a lot...but you've seen them on my Facebook anyways!! :)

The GREAT news is... We are expecting another baby!!! We are so excited and can't wait. My mind is going ninety to nothing thinking of all the things I've got to get done and we've got to get before the baby comes! I'm only nearing 5 weeks, so it's still really early. My due date is around July 24th, but I'll have him/her a week or two earlier since I'll have to have another c-section! My first doctors appointment is on December 14th and I can NOT wait! To tell my family and friends, we got a shirt for Garrett that says "I'm going to be a big brother!" on it. I have yet to get a good picture with my good camera, I only have one from my cell phone because I put him in his carseat to take it! HA. He's so hard to get to sit/stand still! We were already going to my Mom's house the morning I found out FOR SURE I was pregnant, so the timing was perfect. Especially since my MeMaw and Granddaddy would be there too since they are living there during his radiation. So we loaded up and headed out. I just KNEW they'd notice it right off the bat. Garrett and I arrived at Mom's and as soon as we walked into the house, they pulled up... I was so excited that I didn't even go get my Subway sandwich (ha) out of the car because I knew they would notice the shirt while I was outside or something and I didn't want to miss that reaction. They all three come inside and each of them held and kissed Garrett, but I was wrong. No one noticed. So I walked outside to get my sandwich and unload our clothes and everything. MeMaw and Mom followed me out to help. We went back inside and Garrett was sitting in his Granddaddy's lap watching "A Goofy Movie" together. MeMaw, Mom, and I sat at the kitchen table together while I ate. I kept trying to get Garrett to come into the kitchen to get a bite of cookie so MAYBE they'd see it, but he wouldn't come in there. I even heard Granddaddy saying something about Garrett's shirt, but he didn't read the words. Finally, after about 30-45 minutes, Garrett was going into Mom's bedroom and I asked her if her toilet seat was down because Garrett would get into the potty if it wasn't. So she said she'd go shut it... I stood up to watch her walk by Garrett because I just KNEW she'd surely notice the shirt then.. She walked by looking at Garrett and said something like "Meme loves you!!!" and she did a double take at him.. and she ran up closer to him (cause she can't see far off) and read his shirt.. and she just started screaming, crying, and acting like a crazy lady. HAHA. You'd think something was wrong with her.. It was hilarious. But my MeMaw was like "WHAT?! WHAT!? What's wrong?! What happened?" because her or my Granddaddy had no clue why Mom was acting that way. Finally, Mom told them to read Garrett's shirt and MeMaw's reaction was the same as the first time I was pregnant and I wore a shirt saying that we're expecting their first great grandchild.. she was like "What? What? You got to to kidding me?" Okay, now I gotta see if I can upload the video from the first pregnancy. Best video ever. Anyways, my Granddaddy was STILL just staring at us like he had no clue what was going on and he says "What is it now??" and then we tell him and his reaction was also the same, he just says "Really??" and stays still on the couch "Well, that's great!!!" HAHA.. Anyways.. Most of my girlfriends caught on to the photo immediately.. most men, I had to tell them to read the shirt. Anyways, I think everyone is pretty much excited about it!! I know we definitely are!!!!

Here is Garrett wearing his shirt (photo from my phone)

The pregnancy tests were sure confusing though. Here is how it all went down... On Sunday, I was feeling a bit weird and like my pregnancy before, my boobies (sorry if there are any guys reading) were really tender. It wasn't quite time for me to start yet, but I figured I'd take a test anyways.. I immediately saw the "-" sign on this test before the 3 minutes were up, so I just threw it in the trash. About 5 minutes later, SOMETHING was telling me I needed to go get the test out of the trash. When I did.. this is what it looked like.. It had a faint + line... I was freaked! I went to Walgreens and got a 3pack of Early Response tests and the Clear Blue Digital tests for a few days later....

I went ahead and took an Early Response test the night that I went to Walgreens and got more tests which is the second test in this photo. It looks really negative, but a few minutes later, it had a very faint line. Very, very faint.. You can't even really see it in this photo. So I waited til Monday morning, first pee to take another test... It was a little more positive than the night before, but still a confusing "iffy" test.. so I was just telling myself to wait a few more days until I was REALLY late. Brandon was like "No, please take one tomorrow morning".. so I held my tee-tee all night and woke up on Tuesday morning and took the digital one so it could be CLEAR by saying "Pregnant" or "NOT Pregnant" because the lines were just stressing me out. I've never taken a digital one before, but it was pretty cool.. except those three minutes feel like an hour! The little time glass was just blinking and blinking and blinking... Brandon was in the kitchen getting his stuff together to leave and I was just staring and waiting.. and all of a sudden, BOOM... It popped up PREGNANT. My mouth hit the floor. I came in the kitchen kinda hiding the test and showed Brandon. He was ecstatic! We were so excited. And of course he starts the whole talking to my belly thing and saying "Daddy has another little boy on the way!" Oh boy, I think I've finally got him to accept that it's a good chance it's a girl too. Just for grins and giggles and pure curiosity, I stuck the last Early Response test in the same urine sample just to see what it'd say and the line was more profound that time. And now I am way late... and I can definitely tell I'm pregnant now without a test.. so I'm definitely pregnant. I'm just waiting to go to the doctor!

Okay, okay... Enough about me being pregnant. After we told my Mom and Grandparents.. Garrett started getting ill feeling AGAIN and as the night went on, it got worse and worse. So I had to cancel his Speech Therapy session and take him to the doctor instead. He's got a viral infection and sinus infections, bless his heart. It's been a rough week.. it's tough for my baby to breathe at night when he's trying to sleep. He's been coughing and gagging. Not eating well at all. It stinks, but I think he's starting to feel somewhat better. A day after I took him to the doctor, I woke up with MY throat killing me and my sinus' are acting up too!!! I hope we both are 100% better ASAP! I am so ready to go back to therapy though... the day we found out I was pregnant, he did the "more" sign language sign and it was SO AMAZING! He did it a few times asking for more cookie. I loved it... he hasn't done it again since that day though! But he's learning!!!! He's a smart boy!!!

Heath got to come home last Friday!! So he's officially been home for a week and a day. His homecoming parade was amazing! That is one of the few things I love about a small town like this one... the community is all like family and something like that is a BIG DEAL!

Granddaddy is doing pretty well with his radiation. He's still tired all the time and weak a lot, but he's doing better than he was during chemo. He'll be going into his third week this week!

We got some not-so-great news this week about Brandon's Popaw. They have decided that there isn't much more they can do for him. They stopped his radiation and chemo... and he's now on Hospice at home. It was just so rough on him going back and forth from Sarepta to Shreveport EVERY SINGLE DAY of the week for radiation. He's just exhausted, tired, and in pain all the time. So they've decided to take him off of everything, including his pills, and let him be at home for the remainder of his time here on earth... until he goes to live in Heaven with God! This breaks my heart, but it absolutely hurts me to see him suffer and holler when he's in pain. He's so tired, and so tired of hurting. It helps me to know that he says he "is ready" even though it will break all of our hearts. Please keep him, Mamaw, and our whole family in your thoughts and prayers through this difficult time. I was just talking to my mother-in-law about photos of him and I ran across this one of him and Mamaw dancing at our wedding and it made me all giddy inside!


I reckon that is all I can come up with for now!!! I've been typing on this on and off for most of the day... I had to pause to go take a picture of Brandon's big ole 8-point he killed!!! He was so excited!!! Until next time...

2 comments:

Louisiana Girl said...

Congrats Andrea!! So glad the next Neal girl is on the way. You tell Brandon I said that!! :)
I love that pic of Patsy Ruth and Melvin Ray. I love them and I know he's tired of hurting but I know its hard to let him go. I'm thankful Brandon has you to lean on. Love ya!!

Andrea Neal said...

HAHAHA! I will totally tell him that!! I think he's actually warming up to the idea of a girl... but he's also good at pretending he's okay too.

Thank you for your sweet comments. I love my two or three readers!!! :)