Thankful, Thankful, Thankful

Please excuse the awkwardness of this photo (35 weeks)

If I haven't mentioned it yet, I probably should.

Deciding to have a baby, completely remodel a house, raise a toddler, and take care of two dogs is borderline crazy.  I keep reminding myself that while life feels a little (a lot) nutty right now and a bit (completely) disorganized, that all of the things we are working on are things we are blessed to have on our plates.

Who am I kidding?

• A (mostly) healthy pregnancy with a bouncing baby we cannot wait to meet? Oh, don't mind if I do!
• A practically brand-new house in the heart of a city we adore? Yes please!
• Days and days with a little girl we could not possibly be more in love with? I'll take a million, thank you!
• Two canine creatures we cherish and who can't get enough of their Sissy Piercy? Gracias.

A few treats that arrived from Santa today

The other part that I occasionally (often) remind myself is how much more difficult I imagine this being with more than just one child in tow.  And, honestly, I cannot fathom not having had this incredibly sweet time living with my just-turned 85 year old grandmother, Joye "Angel" Flanagan, for whom Piercy Joye is named. It has been a valuable experience for me and my family to glean a bit of her incredible wisdom, and spend a lot of quality time with her. I don't think she'll miss the raucousness when we do finally move back in to our own house, however. Okay, maybe she will.  Just a tiny bit...

Piercy Joye, ecstatic about her new and improved princess-colored room

Clawfooted beaut

....

Yesterday amid the chaos that is: baby's arrival, completion of our home renovation, Christmastime, the usual day-to-day, we had a very important appointment at my Obstetrician/Gynecologist's office.  The pre-eclampsia diagnosis I received at 28 weeks gestation was scary, and after a concrete decrease in my over-the-top activity level that comes with the territory (listed in bullet form above), I have had two consecutive 24 hour urinalysis labs come back showing my proteins in the "normal" range. 

Holy heck.

The doctors and physician's assistant at the office have called my case an anomaly. It simply doesn't happen.  The PA mentioned she's seen it happen once, but that after two weeks, the symptoms (and proteins) returned, and it was on to pre-term induction for mommy and baby.

Well, friends, I'll tell you what is the real anomaly:  The support my little family has seen in the last 10 weeks.  Not only have our families done their darndest to pitch in along the way, but perhaps more amazing has been the love we have received from my mommy friends.  Two of my dearest friends who I've known only a year, and whose daughters each have a birthday within a week of my sweet P's, worked to set up a Care Calendar for us.  With their help, and the help of many, many of my other mommy friends from playgroup and Mom 2 Mom (a program I attend at a local church on Wednesdays), and one very dear Arizona swimming sister who now lives here in Austin, I was able to actually rest and take care of myself. I literally have cooked dinner maybe twice since my diagnosis.

Scenes from nesting-land: Making Roman Shades for the kiddos' rooms at the same table that my cousins and I learned to sew.

For those of you who have had toddler(s), you know how challenging getting a meal together during the late afternoon hours can be.  It often involves holding a heavy child in one arm while stirring a hot pan in the other, consoling frustrated cries, negotiating time-outs, or keeping little people from climbing into a fireplace while chopping celery.  You know what a huge physical relief it is to not have to prepare a meal. 

Most of you who have toddlers and are reading this, probably know what it's like to cook dinner for your family AND mine at the same time.  You are superwomen. I absolutely, positively know that this is the reason my health has improved so drastically. Thank you, sweet friends.  I owe you the world.

Piercy's Big Girl Room curtain fabric

I was told back in October that I would definietely (no questions asked) be delivering Baby Dos on Friday, December 14.  Last week, I collected my urine for the last time prior to what was to be my induction date: this Friday.  On Monday we would review the results, get measurements of Baby Dos in utero to estimate current weight and health, and schedule a game plan for a 37 week induction and delivery at the end of this week.

Serendipitously enough, the lab mistakenly tested my urine with the wrong tests (frankly I'm not sure how this happened as they have run this specific test on me 4 times in the last 2 months).  I don't know how much, if any protein my kidneys are spilling.  My blood work, however, came back normal, my headaches have decreased drastically, I have little if any edema, and my blood pressure is currently better than anyone else's in my family.  Due to all of this fantastic news, I've been cleared to go into labor on my own, whenever that should happen!

Wow.

Precious P and Handsome GB in the waiting room at the OB/GYN's office

This was so much an answer to many, many prayers, and I am so thankful to have the opportunity for an induction-less birth.  I know that I owe my friends so much for my health, and I'm glad so many of them have new babies cooking in their ovens so that I can pay it forward in a few months when I have my feet on the ground again post move-in/infant transition.

"I just want my body back." -A familiar lament

So here we are: 36 weeks and 4 days pregnant.  I have to tell you I think I'm more like 37 weeks 4 days or 38 weeks today.  Since the day I tested positive for pregnancy (very early), I have thought my dates were wrong. I think we're truly at "any day now" status, and I can't possibly be more excited.  The best part: I don't care that we very likely won't be bringing baby home to our new and improved house.  My early pre-e diagnosis cleared me of these concerns, and I'm just anxious to meet this little person.

Oh, and by the way... here is Littlest Browne...

Measuring in the eighty-fifth percentile at 7 pounds, 4 ounces on Monday, and looking certainly related to Big Sissy P (who only weighed 6 pounds, 14 ounces upon delivery)! Who are you, little baby? We can't wait to meet you (and name you)!

A New Plan

I feel like parenting gives me many opportunities to try to explain to my sweet daughter how things don't always seem "fair."

"I know it doesn't seem fair, but you may not have 18 gummy bears a day from Angel's gummy bear jar."

"I know it doesn't seem fair, but you must wear clothes when we leave the house."

"I know it doesn't seem fair, but you have to brush your teeth twice a day."

One of the great parts of parenting is how you can often hear lessons prescribed for you in your own parenting voice.  Last week, I heard Piercy Joye's mom whisper in my ear and say,

"I know it doesn't seem fair, but you've been diagnosed with preeclampsia again this pregnancy, only this time much earlier. I know it doesn't seem fair, but we need to create a new plan for when this baby can arrive in order to keep you both safe.  I know it doesn't seem fair, but you will very likely not get to experience that ideal birth plan you created two years ago. I know it doesn't seem fair. I'm so sorry, but it will be okay."

The last week feels like a whirlwind. In the interest of shedding light on a relatively unknown complication of pregnancy, I've written a long post about my experiences with preeclampsia... Read on if you're interested, and if not, you'll have to know my feelings are NOT hurt!

I had a regular 28-week OB check-up a week and a day ago, to test my blood for glucose intolerance (gestational diabetes: which I do not, by the way, have! Yahoo!).  When I mentioned to my obstetrician's PA that I'd been having nagging daily headaches, she wrote me a script for a muscle relaxer and sent me on a trip to pick up the dreaded orange jug.

Do you know which one I'm talking about, ladies?

I did.  This one liter plastic orange jug is an old "friend" of mine. Last pregnancy I had to do two 24-hour urine collections.  One was prescribed after I was admitted to the Labor and Delivery unit around 35-36 weeks following a major blood pressure acceleration (160s/90s). I don't know the actual results of that urinalysis, but it wasn't showing that there was a problem so major that I'd need to seek induction.  The second urinalysis was ordered routinely two weeks after the first and showed significant enough protein concentration in my urine that my doctor scheduled my induction the day after the test results were available.

The results of that second test confirmed our suspicions of what was a likely outcome: I had developed preeclampsia, and due to the serious nature of this condition and its ability to go from bad to fatal (for mother and/or baby) very quickly, I would need to deliver right away.  Piercy was 38.5 weeks gestation at the time, and because she was term, there were no major complications anticipated with going for an "early" induction.

I was pretty certain that I had a good chance of developing pre-e with my first pregnancy.  I had a few major risk factors: my mother had pre-e with my older brother (her first), I have a history of migraine headaches, and I'd been developing serious vision changes and headaches beginning in the third trimester.

What I truly did not think would happen is that I would develop this condition again in a subsequent pregnancy.  I sort of figured I'd done "my time," had my own crazy, non-ideal birthing experience, and I would be able to move on to uneventful pregnancies in the future with a birth that included going into labor naturally, and possibly trying again for a relatively unmedicated labor.  Many stats claim that once you have preeclampsia, you're finished! No mas! Onward, Mama, to the birth plan of your dreams!

You can imagine that I was a little disheartened when the Physician's Assistant merely ordered the urine collection.

Piercy and I went to turn in my jugs (nasty) on Monday and have my blood drawn to check for another, dramatically more serious although similar condition called HELLP syndrome (H -- hemolysis, the breakdown of red blood cells; EL -- elevated liver enzymes; LP -- low platelet count).

Then my obstetrician's PA left a message on Tuesday asking me to call her on the cell phone.

Uh-oh.

The verdict was in: mild pre-eclampsia.   As my kidneys are now struggling to function properly, I had spilled 301 mg of protein/24 hours.  Ironically, the cut-off for a pre-eclampsia diagnosis is 300 mg.  Thankfully my blood pressure is still low-normal, but due to my history and current headaches, I am now being monitored weekly for changes in addition to the twice-daily blood pressure checks I am taking on my own at home.

I will likely be delivered as soon as I am 37 weeks pregnant (December 14), to ensure that our baby and I both remain in good health.  Hopefully that will mean I will be able to be successfully induced. If my condition worsens drastically between now and then, the baby could be delivered via Cesarean section if and when that time comes.

"I know it's not fair, but..."

I'm currently on a very modified version of bed rest (toddler-parent-modified-bed-rest). We may have a baby prior to 37 weeks and have to stay in the NICU. We will most probably not be moved into our house by the time the baby comes. I may have to have a Cesarean section. We will be bringing a baby home to my Grandmother's house, not our own house. We most likely won't have a Christmas tree this year (sweet Angel is a Jehovah's Witness and doesn't exactly celebrate Christmas).

There are many things that are not ideal about this news, but this news is our reality, and we plan on doing whatever it takes to bring home a healthy baby and healthy mommy. Even if it's not fair, or fun, or according to the plan we made.

In the interim, we've had so many friends and family step up to help us. We've had folks offer to drop off food so that I don't have to cook, and grandparents take Piercy while I get good rest in. (Yes, we are accepting meals! No, we aren't picky eaters, and my condition does not require a low-sodium diet). These people will get us through, and our Baby Dos will know how the village helped him/her make it into this world healthily!

Thank you, everyone.

This Old House

Once upon a time in 1941, a sweet little house was built on a plot of land at, what was then, the northern edge of Old Austin-town.  Way up on 33rd street, a family who would own the house until 2003, made their home on a sweet little corner lot, planted pecan trees, and would probably never begin to imagine what would be happening 71 years later to their modest, two bedroom/one bathroom home where they would raise a family. We've heard that Mrs. Pauline threw garden parties in her backyard, and was allegedly well-loved by many in the neighborhood.

In 2003, a kind woman named Kathleen would buy this home and add a lot of fantastic features to the house, including central air, new electrical wiring, updated plumbing, and a beautiful paver patio in the backyard. She spent a lot of time planting beautiful specimens around the yard and entertaining her two grandchildren, who would stay in the small spare bedroom when they came to visit.  Her two pug dogs were a fixture on the block for their friendliness, as was she.

Fast forward to 2010, when Greg and I, as a young couple in our second year of marriage with no children, would purchase this old house as only the third owners in nearly 70 years.  We dreamed of a family, and living in what had become in all of the time passed since 1941, very much Central Austin. Barely two weeks after we moved in we found out we had a long-anticipated baby on the way, and we spent the next months preparing for her arrival.  

We knew when we bought the home that we'd have to expand our house in order to accommodate the growing family we'd been anxiously planning. An 1,100 square foot, two bedroom/one bathroom home was perfectly cozy for a family of three (plus our two beloved pups, of course), and it allowed us to brainstorm the perfect home addition over the last two years.

Shortly after Piercy Joye's arrival in the spring of 2011, we began meeting with an architect about our desire to expand and update our home. The process was slow, as we felt no immediate pressure to pull the trigger on a project, and frankly, we were covered up in the newness of navigating parenthood. By the beginning of 2012 we had nailed down the conceptual plan for the addition and knew we were becoming increasingly ready to expand our home... and our little family again!

In the midst of interviewing general contractors (twelve of them), finalizing our architectural plans, griping with our architect (who, as it turns out, isn't even an architect after all... Lesson learned: always check the credentials of your designer/"architect"), and recovering from Piercy Joye's first birthday celebration, we realized that our target start date of "October 2012" would have to be amended.  I called Greg one April evening while he was flying the friendly skies to let him know that we needed to move our project up: we were expecting again!

In the last six weeks we've been slammed with all of the details of star alignment so that we had a shot at beginning construction of our home, a contributing structure in an Historical Neighborhood, in August.  This is no short order, y'all.

I'm talking meetings with our voluntary neighborhood association, meetings with the city, packing, moving some of our things to storage, finally choosing a general contractor, closing on a home improvement loan, moving others of our things to my grandmother's attic, removing fixtures and appliances we didn't want demo'ed, moving plants that we didn't want completely trampled and/or bulldozed, making many (many) trips to Goodwill, moving in and living with my saint of a grandmother, "Angel," and trying to give our child some semblance of routine and normalcy in the midst of the chaos.

Last week when we were really close to being completely moved out, I took a few final "before" photos of our little bungalow that has treated us so well, and in which we've made the sweetest of memories. In addition to all of the changes listed, we'll be replacing all of the windows, re-siding the house with hardiplank, and insulating the walls, floors, and ceiling with spray foam.

Our Master Bedroom

This lovely room is one of my favorites in the house, and after some adjustments, it will become the nursery for the new baby.  I love the light in this room.  We are going to be moving the closets to another wall in this room (the one with those black floating shelves, below), and creating a hallway in the space where the current closets are.  Also, we're adding recessed lighting, a welcome advancement for 21st century living. When all is said and done, this room will be nearly exactly the same size as Piercy's room.

These are the closets Greg (on the left) and I (on the right) have been using for the last two years!

 The Hallway

I do love this hallway, but it will no longer end where it does today.  Instead, it will take a turn and continue to the brand new master suite and utility room and connect on the other side of the kitchen, making a second route through the house that will be extraordinarily convenient.

Piercy Joye's Room:

I adore Piercy's room, but...  It gets cold in the winter and hot in the summer, partly because there is no insulation in any of our walls, partly because the windows are so leaky (even though they're painted shut), and probably mostly because the attic access is in her room.  Well, sayonara drafty old room! We're moving the attic access to the brand new re-built garage (more on that in a bit), adding recessed lighting, and of course, replacing windows and insulating the house.

Dining Room:

Not much is changing in the dining room.  We are opening that arched entryway to the kitchen on both sides (more on the left than on the right) so that we will have a centered, squared, wide opening to the kitchen for more of an open concept.  We'll lose some counterspace and cabinets to this change, but we'll be making up for it in other places.

(PS, I don't love the columns, but they're staying for now)

 Dining Room:

This room is one of the more untouched rooms in the project.  We're adding recessed lighting and expanding the window (on the wall opposite all of the appliances, that I failed to take a picture of) to be a large picture window.

Kitchen:

This is, conversely, one of the most touched rooms in the renovation/expansion.  We will be pushing out the northern wall (on the left of the picture directly below), to capture a previously unused portion of our two car garage.  This space was a landing that housed a huge, precariously placed hot water heater and my sweltering "laundry desk."

All of the cabinets will be gone tomorrow.  There are a lot of them for this age house, but I'm so excited about the custom cabinetry that will be taking their place.  Also, that dark granite tile countertop that you see? Never again.  Grout lines in the floor are hard enough to keep relatively clean.  No cook that ever expects a relatively high level of sanitation for a relatively low level of upkeep should settle for grout lines in their countertop if at all possible.

We are hoping to salvage the built-in ironing board (on the right of the picture directly above), and the screening on the cabinets just below the sink (also above) due to a strange attachment and desire I have to reuse these elements in the new design if it can be accomplished.  Also, another game-chager:  We are adding a pantry! W.O.W. Our lives are going to seriously be altered with this addition.

Above is the other perspective of the kitchen/dining entryway that will be widened considerably. Also, we will be adding a center island and under cabinet lighting.  I am entirely thrilled about our new kitchen and can't wait to see it come to life.

Garage:

Oh, garage.  You are funny. See that photo below?

Well, it's hard to discern from this picture, but you can tell from the street that this garage has some problems.  The roof very obviously sags. I hope you click on that image and open it to full size to get the full effect.

Beloved Despised Laundry Desk 

This is part of the landing area that is going to be captured and used for our kitchen expansion and remodel.  Yeeeeee!

Garages are hard to come by in this neighborhood, especially two-car garages, but this one has its share of frustrations.  

• It is built on a sectioned slab: essentially multiple ~4X4 square slabs of concrete that have moved and grooved independently in the last 71 years to create a cracked, catawampus surface. 
• That door to the backyard you see there on the right? It's built for a person no taller than 5'9", which does not work for our family
• The garage door opening mechanism is ancient, does not have a working remote, would not open or close unless you pressed and held the button at just the right pressure and angle, and caused the garage door to buckle in the last three weeks we lived in the house, making the garage door essentially useless.
• I think someone as knowledgeable about wiring as I am wired the joint.
• There is a drainage issue at the front of the garage where it meets the driveway and the solution one of the previous owners thought would be useful was to cut a trench in the concrete so that the water would just go directly into the soil.  FYI, this isn't a proper method for engineering a French Drain, and all that collected in that trench was a plethora of pecan leaves.

We are completely demolishing the garage from sagging roof ridge to sectioned slab and starting over.  The right way this time 'round.  Oh, and guess what won't be in the garage: My. Laundry. Desk.

Windows:

I know I've mentioned that we are replacing all the windows, but I had to share the most embarrassing view of our house.  Yes it's right by the front stoop so it's... hardly noticeable at all?  See those two plastic coverings I had to make after Sheriff June Bug the Blue Lacy Dog punched out two separate window panes on two separate occasions? They happened fairly recently when we were gone and June was undoubtedly trying to fend off neighbors walking their dogs armed intruders. In the future, the dogs will be quarantined to the mudroom/utility room (with access to the backyard) so that they are unable to cause this kind of mayhem when we are out to dinner. 

Front Porch:
See that tiny stoop we have leading up to the front door? Piercy and I spent many hours there this summer, watching storms come in, and enjoying the sole tolerable morning hours.  We are so excited that we will be expanding the stoop to include the entire right side of the house - from the front door to the edge of the front wall where it meets the chimney wall. I can't wait for some proper front-porch sitting!

Kids' Bathroom:

Wow.  I can hardly write that, it is so foreign! First, I can't believe we will soon have multiple children, but mostly I can't believe that Greg and I will no longer have to share space with Piercy Joye's Elmo loofah! I don't really mind the Elmo loofah part, but I definitely prefer the opportunity to have two operating toilets.  The single operating toilet facet has... brought Greg and I quite... close (?)... in the last two years.  It's probably not a lie that one of us has, on occasion, used the toilet at the Burger King down the street in emergency situations when the lone toilet was in use. I'm glad to see the end of this era.  Not much will be happening to this room, save a new coat of paint.

I love you, sweet old house, and I thank you dearly for what you've done for our family so far.  I hope we can do right by you, your history, and the history of the people who have gone before us in these walls.  It is our goal to preserve your character, while increasing your environmental friendliness, livability, and value.  Here's to seven times seventy years ahead!  Cheers!

Guy Clark Tribute Post

Well, there ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon and lettuce and homegrown tomatoes

Up in the mornin', out in the garden

Get you a ripe one, hey, don't get a hard one

August 19th means it's practically September.  Where do the days go?

Big kids start school around these parts in a week's time, and, sadly, tomato season has just about passed us by.

Back in June (when life seemed a little less hectic than it has in the last 6 weeks or so - more on that soon), Piercy Joye and I were checking our vegetable garden regularly for produce in the mornings.

Plant 'em in the spring, eat 'em in the summer
All winter with out 'em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' and diggin'
Everytime I go out and pick me a big one

We planted far too many tomato plants this spring, and paid for it by having a vegetable garden so jungly that it was hard to harvest the crop we produced.  We had mortgage lifters, cherries, romas, heirlooms, and a couple other varieties among our always prosperous and varied pepper plants.

Now you can go out to eat and that's for sure
But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put 'em in a salad, put 'em in a stew
You make your very own tomato juice

Most mornings, after enjoying some of these luscious tomatoes with our daily scrambled eggs (yes... every morning we eat eggs, you're welcome egg farmers of America, I have conditioned our child to be completely unsatisfied by a continental-style breakfast) we would head out back to check on the tomatoes, to see which had ripened up nicely for us.

You can eat 'em with eggs, eat 'em with gravy
Eat 'em with beans, pinto or navy
Put 'em on the side, put 'em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle

Who, however, can resist the sweetest homegrown snack in all of God's creation?  Not this girl, or her mother for that matter!  We would be lucky to make it in the house with any tomatoes at all.

If I's to change this life I lead
I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed
'Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see, yeah

Last week Greg picked what was to be the final collection from our tomato plants, and as soon as Piercy Joye saw that basket, she let out a shriek, dove right in, and came up smacking on a bright red cherry tomato.

When I die, don't bury me
In a box in a cemetary
Out in the garden would be much better
And I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes

Until next spring, tomatoes, we love you!

Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
And that's true love and homegrown tomatoes

Remind me to tell you about Krause Springs

The busiest summer ever has been taking my breath away.

Much like this precious face/fingers/toes make my heart skip a beat

We have not sat still for long, and things are on the fast track to crazier as the days pass. Last month we took an expedition down a Hill Country road for a lesser-known Central Texas oasis, Krause Springs, and sat stationary, breathed deep, and enjoyed each other under the giant cypress trees. (FYI, Krause Springs sounds like "Crozzy" Springs).

There is a man-made, spring-fed pool...

Hello, 16 week-ish baby bump!

... Which is cold but so much fun...

Tah-dah!

 (Oh, hi, Baby Dos!)

... And there are gorgeous natural pools...

... Which you must take this precarious route to reach (with a toddler in your arms and a teeny tiny baby throwing your -my- already questionable balance off a bit)...

... Precarious enough to incite this untrusting expression...

Mom?

... And flowing little pools like this...

... Stunning scenery....

... Equally Stunning Eyes (and pout)...

... And only the most amazing Daddy...

I'd never had the pleasure of exploring this incredible treasure in my youth, though my South Austinite husband has memories from his former days at this family-owned operation out Spicewood way.  The water is good and cold, and the grounds are magical.  I wish I'd taken pictures of the enchanting gardens at the entrance to the pools.  They are something. Piercy Joye was almost as enamored as her Master Gardener daddy and fairly uneducated (in all things horticultural) mother.

I'm holding to the promise of long summer days with children who can swim unassisted in those frigid Krause pools, stopping only to admire a waterfall or to grab a bite to eat from a picnic blanket.  For now, in this sweet, sweet time with our one and only P gaining independence daily, and her little tiny sibling packed neatly away inside my belly, every toddling step will suit us just fine.

Happy Summer!

Daddy...

Happy Father's Day, my dearest Greg!

You are doing such a great job.  You work so hard and far from our family to help ensure that I can stay home with our Piercy Joye. You love our little girl in such a tender, complete way. She knows you adore her, and all of us who watch you as Daddy know too.

We've missed you today while you're on the road.

But Piercy Joye wanted to tell you something very important.

She's not quite sure how she feels about this...

But she's very excited to make sure you know...

That she's going to be the very best BIG SISTER that she can possibly be!

Happy Father's Day from Sweet Piercy and the Littlest Browne!

Oh, and I love you too, sweet Greg! You are the best man I know. And the most incredible Daddy to our BABIES! We are blessed to have you.