A little excitement…

Yesterday was my 32 week visit with my midwife and I finally had questions to ask. I never have questions! I was so prepared, I even wrote them down so I wouldn’t forget.

Well, I get there and due to a mix-up with my blood draw last time they had to re-draw. No biggie. Then we go through the normal stuff of weight, blood pressure (still good, yay!), feeling the baby (head down, yay, lets stay that way), and then checking the heartbeat. We heard it right away, but something was odd. She listened and I listened and we both were like, “huh?”. Every couple beats there was an off beat. She put the Doppler down on another area and we listened again. Yep. Unmistakable. There was an arrhythmia. She told me she wanted me to have that looked at via ultrasound like now. She’d had this happen two times in her 7 years of practice and both times it turned out to be nothing, but better to have a look and make sure everything was ok. So I didn’t get to ask my questions and instead drove to the MRI place and got everyone stewed up with worry (including myself a little, though I know fetal arrhythmia is really common so I wasn’t totally freaked).

I had the ultrasound and the tech and I could see that every 5-8 beats there was a spike. She said that as far as arrhythmias go, this was really minor, in her non-doctor-so-don’t-hold-me-to-it opinion. The heart structures looked perfect, no holes, all 4 chambers, it looked just as it should. There was just this little irregularity. So I left feeling better, went home, Googled, felt better still, then the midwife called. I was a little afraid they were going to drop me because of risk, but nope. They just want me to go in next week for a fetal EKG to double check what the first place found. If it checks out, then no biggie. I can deliver with them, no worries, no need to change providers or take any special precautions or do anything out of the ordinary. This sort of thing often resolves right after birth and its quite possible that in two weeks when I go back in it will have already resolved!

Now, lets just hope that the next appointment will be a little less dramatic, yes?

Yummy recipe

I have just a moment before I need to get the kids ready to walk over to VBS, but I wanted to share this recipe I made the other night. I have a lemon-thyme plant that I put in just for its lovely smell. I've never cooked with it. Its really taken off and I wanted to use it for something, so I looked around and found this recipe. It was delicious! I was worried that the amount of lemon-thyme would be overwhelming, but it wasn't at all. The sauce was really good!

The only two things I would add to this recipe are this: Drain off some of the fat after browning the chicken and run the pan under a broiler for a few minutes at the end to crisp up the skin. Otherwise, its absolutely delicious as written. My family wolfed it down.

Chicken with Lemon Thyme
from The French Farmhouse Cookbook by Susan Herrmann Loomis (an excellent cookbook btw)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 chicken (3½-4 pounds; 1¾-2 kilos), cut into 8 pieces (2 breast pieces, 2 wings with portion of breast attached, 2 legs, 2 thighs), with giblets reserved
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 large onions, peeled and diced
5 cloves garlic, peeled, cut in half, and green germ removed
1 large handful fresh lemon thyme prigs plus 1/3 cup (loosely packed) fresh lemon thyme leaves
1/4 cup (60ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Heat the oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it is hot but not smoking. Add the chicken, season it with salt and pepper, and brown it on both sides, about 5 minutes per side. The chicken should be deep golden.
2. Remove the chicken from the skillet and add the onions and garlic. Cook, stirring constantly, until the onions turn deep gold on the edges, about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium, and return the chicken to the skillet. Add the lemon thyme sprigs and the lemon juice, and stir well, scraping the bottom of the pan. Add the giblets, cover and cook until the chicken is nearly tender, about 20 minutes.
3. Stir 2 tablespoons of the lemon thyme leaves into the chicken, cover, and continue cooking until the chicken is cooked though. about 10 more minutes. Remove from the heat. Remove the lemon thyme sprigs, stir in the remaining lemon thyme leaves, and taste for seasoning. Let sit, covered, for about 10 minutes before serving.
4. Transfer the chicken pieces, all of the onion and garlic, and any of the cooking juices to a warmed platter, or simply divide them among four plates. Serve immediately.
4 servings

A few moments…

Whew, life has been flying by since my last post. I had this vision of how our summer break was going to go and its not gone anything like I imagined. It hasn’t been bad, just not what I had in mind!

Every week we’ve had a playdate of some kind. With friends or my MOPS group. We have our weekly visit at Nana’s house. Every couple weeks now there is a midwife appointment. Cub Scout meetings. Then there is grocery shopping day. The other days fill up with random things and before you know it, a quiet day at home is not the norm but a treat!

One of the places we went a few weeks ago was the Evergreen Arboretum. My Mom had read about it in the newspaper and we gave it a look. Its VERY small so don’t plan on it taking up more than 30 minutes max. Its shady and cool and pretty though, so it would be a nice spot to hang on hot summer days. There are lots of sculptures through the garden that the kids found entertaining.

There were some really odd looking plants, like this one. It was enormous. I could have sat in the cup of the leaf!

This one was also odd, but also pretty cool. I bet the fall color is amazing. The leaves were enormous… taller than Ethan!

Its in the same park as American Legion Park in Everett, so after taking a walk through the Arboretum, we went to the park and let the kids play for awhile. Then Mom and Jen came back and joined us for dinner. Nice day!

Earlier this week we went to Flowing Lake Park in Snohomish with MOPS. It was hot and I got a bad burn, but it was fun all the same. Not many pics… I ruined my last camera by having it on a beach so I’m paranoid now about bringing it out in sandy environments! I love these rash guard style swimsuits now. They are so good about protecting the kids skin from burns. Gwen was the only one without so the day after this I went and got her one.

 

Wanted to share this darling picture. Elsa absolutely needs Daddy time when he gets home. She really misses him during the day. He was doing some work on his computer and she came in, crawled under his desk and just laid there. I thought she was asleep at first, but nope. She was happy just chilling near her Dad.

 

I’m 31 weeks now and time is ticking down… I alternate between moments of panic at the thought of having another baby and then feeling just fine with the idea. In a way, I feel like we’ve really hit a groove with the kids… E & G don’t need as much supervision and little E is gaining independence. Now we’re gonna mix it up again and start from scratch. Its overwhelming to think about. The homeschooling thing is gonna be tough too. How am I going to do it with a 2.5 year old and newborn? It’ll all work out, and that’s why I’m trying not to focus so much on the “GAH!” aspect and trust that things will fall into their own routine, like they’ve always done.