19 weeks and 4 days (5 months)

On November 13th we went to the doctor and it was the same routine. They weighed me, took my blood pressure, I had to pee in a cup, listened to the baby's heart beat and then we talked to the doctor. Nothing big. I've gained 4 pounds and there was a trace of protein in my urine. Which the doctor said was all normal. We saw Dr. Keller which I had never meet him before. He was very nice. He answered all of our crazy questions. The baby's heart beat was 142. Last month the baby's heart beat was 160 so now do we have anyone who wants to guess what we are having! We have an appointment December 3rd setup to do an ultrasound and find out what the baby is but I'm going to have to reschedule because Doc just told me tonight that he will be out of town the 3rd and 4th. So hopefully I will set it up sooner than later!

Smith Family Thanksgiving

We had our Smith family Thanksgiving this past Sunday the 16th. We had a great time. I didn't take hardly any pictures most of these pictures were taken by either Austin or Taylor. I realized I didn't have any pictures of my aunts or my granny! I will have to do better at Christmas. The kids did manage to get a picture of Cooper and Ava the dogs!

Emmett Smith

I'm related to Emmett Smith but he is not the football player for the cowboys. He is my grandfather. We call him Papa. These are some pictures from our Thanksgiving lunch at my cousin Tracey and her husband Chris's house in Dora, Alabama. (it's close to Birmingham)

The Governor's Cup Soccer Tournament

The doctor released Austin to play in the soccer tournament this past weekend. He was so excited to get to play considering he had surgery just 15 days ago. Kids really do recover fast. He played very well. We played at 8am on Saturday morning against a team from Demopolis, Alabama. It was freezing cold. The field was saturated from Friday nights rain plus the rain showers on Saturday!!! Look at the kids uniforms they are nasty. You can really tell the kids who played verses the kids that didn't want to be out there because it was freezing cold and wet. My child of coarse had mud from head to toe. He had my gloves on and in them he had hot hands because he was so cold. Overall, he had a great time. They played three games and lost all three games but this was a good experience for him. These pictures are of Sunday's game because I didn't take pictures on Saturday because it was raining. This team was from Huntsville, Alabama and they hadn't been beaten. We lost to them 7-0.

Austin's Appendectomy

Here is how the whole story takes place... Thursday around 10am Austin calls me from school saying that his stomach is hurting and the nurse has no tylenol to give him. He sounded really upset on the phone. I asked him if he wanted me to bring him some tylenol or check him out and he said that he was hurting really badly and wanted me to check him out. So I did. When I got to the school and realized that he said it hurt on his lower right side and he couldn't bend down to get in his locker that is when I knew we had a problem! So I called his pediatrician they worked us in at 1. When Dr. Khouri did his exam he said he was pretty sure it was his appendix. He wanted to refer us to a Decatur surgeon. Which I said lets try a pediatric surgeon in Huntsville. Doc and I had already discuss if Austin was to have surgery we wanted it to be at Huntsville Women and Children's Hospital not Decatur General Hospital. Dr. Khouri called the pediatric surgeon Dr. Gilbert and talked to him about what to do since Austin's only symptom was the localized severe pain in the lower right side. Dr. Gilbert suggested that we have a CAT scan done and then we would know for sure if it was his appendix or not and then we could go from there. So Dr. Khouri had written an order for us to go get a CAT scan done but since we have Blue Cross Blue Sheild insurance we had to have approval first from our insurance company to make sure they would pay. BCBS told Dr. Khouri's nurse that they would NOT pay!!! (since he only had the one symptom). Crazy I know. So basically we were sent home but Dr. Khouri told us that we could go to the Pediatric ER at Huntsville and the insurance would pay. So that is what we did since when we got home Austin was still in pain. Doc and I packed a bag for "just in case" and went to the ER. We got there at 7pm and we waited in a trauma room until about 10pm when the doctor came in and said he was sure it was his appendix and he was ordering a CAT scan. So, Austin had to drink 2 glasses of contrast and sprite within 45 minutes and then they would come and get him at midnight to do the scan. Happy Halloween to us!!! They took him back and they did the scan but they had to run IV contrast too. Austin didn't handle that. He throw up. It took about an hour to get the results. The doctor said he had appendicitis and luckily the appendix hasn't rupture. He said there was about 10% infection in the appendix and the other 90% was good but anyway it had to come out. He called the pediatric surgeon which happened to be Dr. Gilbert and told him. He said Austin would be the first surgery in the morning. They admitted us and we were in our room by 3am. By the time we filled out papers for surgery and the UAB resident doctor came in to ask questions Doc and I went to sleep about 4am. Then at 5:30am the nurse was back in there getting him for surgery. Austin was sleeping good because in the ER they had given him pain medication. His surgery only lasted about an hour and then I went back when he was in recovery. He was in a lot of pain then. His first words to me as the big crocodile tears rolled down his face was "I hate this!" I hate to see him like this. He was back in his room by 9am they gave him some morphine and he was out again. When he woke up he was the funniest thing. He said some of the craziest things and when he realized his voice was raspy because of the tube that was down his throat while he was in surgery he decided he would sing!!! Of coarse when he woke up he wanted to eat. He was given jello and he said that was the best jello ever! We spent the night in the hospital Halloween night (so much for trick-or-treating even though Kelly,Patrick, Taylor and Amberleigh brought Austin a bag of Halloween candy) and we came home today around lunch. Austin is doing so much better today. Even though he is moving around like a little old man. Doctor's say he can go back to school Tuesday or Wednesday depending on how he feels. No physical activities until we go back to the back on the 11th. So soccer is out for awhile. Austin really wants to play in the Governor's Cup tournament November 14-16 but it will be up to the doctor to make that decision. We will just have to wait and see!