One Last Everything Embry Post: September 17

So tomorrow our baby boy, Todd Lucas, is making his appearance! I figured I'd do one last "Everything Embry" post about our week since posting may be sporadic for awhile =) And clearly it won't be everything Embry anymore ;) We had quite the eventful last week as a family of three!!

Embry's currently napping while I'm waiting for both sets of our parents to arrive and my sister and her family. We'll have a nice relaxing evening here tonight with pizza and then send everyone on their way and have one last night as a family of three to put Embry to bed. So surreal to go to bed tonight and wake up and go to the hospital tomorrow to have a baby! Even though I had a scheduled c-section with Embry, circumstances were SO different...this is completely new to us! 

Stomach Bug

I was SO looking forward to Embry's first day of school Monday! She is staying at the same Mother's Day Out at the church where we do MOPS but the fall session began this week and Embry started going twice a week! Well Monday morning Jacob and I were both up before Embry and when he heard her, he went into her room...I heard... "Mommy, we have throw up.....". She had thrown up all over her bed.....Selfishly my mind was racing with all of the things I needed to get done while she was at school! But poor girl was pretty puny while we put her in the bath and cleaned up. She immediately wanted a popsicle and I gave her a Welch's White Grape Juice popcicle and within about 10 minutes she threw it up. She wanted one of her Greek yogurt popscicles and silly enough, I gave it to her along with water and within about 10 minutes she threw that up. I stopped on the food after that and she went an hour without puking. She started begging for snacks and we started slowly with toast, crackers with peanut butter, banana, etc. Pretty much the worst part of the rest of the day was arguing with her about food. She perked up and seemed fine the rest of the day, but we hung around the house and laid low. 

Arboretum

Tuesday we met a few of our friends at the Arboretum for one last trip before Toddy arrives! My all time favorite time of year there is when Pumpkin Village is open and it opens this weekend! Lucky for us, they already had a TON of pumpkins out! We had a fun time, picnicked for lunch, and E burned a ton of energy running with friends. She had a hard fall on the concrete....more on that later....

"First Day of School"

Wednesday Embry was pumped to go off to her first day of school. She didn't change classrooms or teachers, but there are quite a few new kids in her class. Her teachers said she talked a lot about her baby brother and all about his diapers and wipes! Hah!

How Embry really went off to school---Very into Super Embry these days!

Final OB/Perinatologist Check-Ups

I was supposed to see my OBGYN and Perinatologst for one last checkup Monday, but with a sick toddler and no family in town, I rescheduled. I had one last sonogram and Todd is measuring at 8 pounds even. We'll see how accurate that is! With Embry they were estimating her to be like 10 pounds 12 ounces....haha, so they were a pound over...but I'm thinking he'll be around 8 pounds. My fluid levels have stayed normal and in Dr. Rinehart's own words "he looks perfect"! One last quick stop into my OB's office and we touch based about Friday and she checked me and I'm 1 cm dilated. (I never dilated any with Embry)

One Last Pediatrician Stop

So E took quite a spill on concrete at the Arboretum and cut up her elbow pretty bad. She babied it that day, but I tried to ignore her. That evening I noticed her holding it funny, in like a sling position, and I started to get worried. That night Jacob checked it out and thought she seemed to be okay, but we agreed to reevaluate in the morning. 

When she got up she hopped out of bed and started playing with her dolls one handed and was back to holding her arm up on her chest... We never mentioned her arm to her either...so Jacob thought I should take her in. She would fully extend it, but not that often, so we were worried.

After rescheduling my doctor's appointments already that week, I decided to still send her to school and got an appointment for right after school. I was glad I took her in, but everything checked out fine. The doctor was able to do some manipulations on her arm and tell it wasn't broken or dislocated. He was glad we brought her in since elbows are the number one injury for toddlers, but he thinks it's just a nasty bruise mixed with a pretty bad scratch and she's babying it because of that. Phew! 

While there we got her flu shot! She let out a yell when she saw the nurse stick it in her leg, but never cried. She thought she was super tough.

Wednesday morning being Super Embry, but holding her arm funny

Photos

 

Final day as an only child! Chick-fil-a date with my girl!

So busy at lunch

 

Everything Embry: September 13

Neurologist Appointment

The biggest part of our week was the checkup with Embry's Pediatric Neurologist. 

The morning of Jacob and I were coordinating driving there and I was reminding him what hospital it was at, what building it was in. Our conversation was quite comical. "You know, the same hospital as your oncologist, but not in that back building. It's more where we found out you had cancer, at that one doctor of yours, the urologist, remember? Yeah near the center where we found out about my blood clot." I swear, one of these days the Higgins are going to get a break from medical crisis....RIGHT????? 

Anyway, it was a wonderful appointment and the neurologist is not concerned about any of her fainting episodes. The ones where there's a trigger (seeing blood or pain) he said are completely normal and he doesn't need to know about them, says they're normal. 

As for her episodes late last week... 1. He doesn't think they were seizures. She would be twitchy, it would last a lot shorter, and she would be acting differently afterwards...not going back to "normal". 2. He said in his opinion he just thinks she wasn't feeling well. He even suggested it may be a precursor to migraines or something to where she doesn't feel well for spurts of time. But, all of which is nothing to be concerned of. 

Jacob brought up her past health scares and how when she had MRIs as a newborn.... and the doctor said that any of our worries back then should NOT be worries anymore. The fact that she's had a very normal past 3 years, has met developmental milestones, seems "sturdy on her feet" (not a clumsy kid), are all signs that she has a completely healthy brain. He basically said we need to get over any of our worries about those scans. He also thinks it'd be major overkill to do any sort of EKG or MRI on her at this point. Our plan of action is to document any sort of "odd episode" she has that is not triggered by blood or pain and call him with the details and we'll go from there. Big relief!

Of course they were running like an hour behind, so lots of reading in the waiting room.

37 Week Update

I had my last appointment with my hematologist this week and second to last appointments with my OBGYN and Perinatologist. All three were on the same day and a friend kept Embry which made it SO nice! 

I only got blood work done at the Hematologist and all is well. Dr. Modi wished me good luck and said I'll see him next pregnancy! =) 

I had a quick sonogram at the perinatologist (they didn't do a size check) and everything looked good and again, my fluid levels are normal and baby looks healthy. Biggest news is Toddy is finally head down! It wasn't a huge deal since I'm having a c-section, but it's still nice he's ready to go! 

Everything went well at my OBGYN and I'm looking forward to one last checkup tomorrow before the big day Friday!

 

Embry's Third Birthday Party

Up until a few weeks ago we weren't going to have a birthday party for Embry....until it was all she was talking about. A party with "balloons and cake and presents and all my friends". Very specific. We were able to book a party at a local Dallas Rec Center in their "Fun Zone" the weekend before Toddy arrives. The kicker is it was on Jacob's 30th birthday, but he's such a trooper he was excited and wanted the day to be all about Embry. 

Since the party was at 9:00 am (again the only opening they had, haha) we served donuts, juice boxes and chocolate milk! I tried to get away with cupcakes, but Embry was very specific and wanted "cake", so I was able to get away with a 30-cupcake cake from Sam's Club. The party was perfect...about 20 of her friends were there and she had an absolute blast! Every friend who would walk into the party, she'd hug and twirl around showing off her birthday outfit from Mimi and Papa!

Our birthday princess! Her outfit was the cutest- skirt, crown and wand all said birthday girl!

Started off so happy to be sung to....

The paparazzi

Progressively getting shy during "Happy Birthday"

Opening gifts at home!

Already loves her new tool set!

Jacob's 30th Birthday

My sweet, doting Daddy of a husband celebrated his 30th birthday yesterday....by making the day all about our almost 3 year old. He wouldn't let me make a big deal out of his birthday, no party, no big dinner, nothing. He just wanted to spend the day with his little family. His only other request was to relax and watch football all day today, which is exactly what's happening. 

Embry and I surprised him with a nice watch even though we already got our iPads as our birthday gifts. He's been needing a nice dress watch and was pleasantly surprised when he opened our gift! Embry also had me write a note to Daddy and I wrote exactly what she said. So funny.

 

Cinderella helping Daddy open his gift!

Dinner out at our fave burger spot in our neighborhood!

Peaceful evening in our backyard

The Rest of Our Week

When your kid has to bring a whole picnic to a restaurant....

New iSpy game is a big hit

Walk in our new sit-and-stand stroller

Embry in her little pink car next to my car for the week (had some work done on my Traverse and they gave me a new big Tahoe as a loaner)

Highlight of her week...the Highlights Magazine arriving!

Happiest girlie!

Peace and quiet while cooking dinner...heavenly!

"D" for Daddy. She also surprised me this week by drawing a perfect T-O and saying it was baby Todd's name!

Taking Pictures on her little camera

Costco Ice Cream Treat for E

Taking pictures of her birthday cake

So the Heparin shots are not going as great as last week. I'm bruising up BIG time and bleeding a bunch when I get the shot. In Jacob's words, doing shots twice a day is not just twice as bad...it's 10 times as bad. Luckily we have less than a week left!

Play date at our house with William and Caroline

Embry and "Baby Bonnie Boo"

Our two blondie girls!

My lopsided belly!

First day of MOPS! So excited!

Very into princess dress ups AND her super cape! "Super Embry to the rescue"

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