25 Weeks

Baby Stats:

She should be averaging about 1 1/2  lbs now. She is moving and kicking constantly. Can't tell if she is head up or head down but the kicks seem to be hard ones down low as well as up high. Maybe she is just swimming around in there doing her acrobatic skills! Everything is basically fully formed and proportional now and fat is being deposited more each day. She hates to be squished or constricted in ANY way. If I'm sitting too far forward or laying too much on my side, she will let me know with all of her kicks!

Mommy Stats:

I gained 2 lbs in the past 4 weeks. I am hoping I will continue the trend and only gain 2 lbs a month from here on out. Pregnancy = I have been feeling Great! Rarely any pains/backaches, no swelling, and actually have energy and the want to get things done. Kidney stone at 23 weeks = Not so well. Lots of pain and exhausted. I have started to get heartburn but not too terribly bad. The hardest part right now is keeping up with KFC.

I had my OB appointment today and it was just a routine measure and listen to heart beat. The doctor let KFC hold the Doppler thing so she could find the baby's heart beat. She thought this was pretty cool! The doctor did check my urine for blood and he said it was minimal, which is good news since the stone has been causing me so much trouble. My next appointment is in 3 weeks to check my glucose levels. Hoping for a good result!

Summer Beach Trip 2012

This post is without pictures... Pregnancy brain has been in full swing and I FORGOT my camera! We spent a little over a week at the beach. Hubby never has vacation time and this year he was bumped up to the max number of vacation days you can earn there, so this year we have been enjoying them up. I just told him to make sure he saved one week for when the baby gets here. When we had KFC, hubby had no days. By the time we got home from the hospital, I was on my own. I had planned on KFC and I staying at the beach from June 28 - July 8. Hubby decided he wanted to spend that week with us too, so he took off work.

The Wednesday before we left, I felt what I assumed were just regular ole braxton hicks accompanied with back pain. Suffered through the meeting that night and they eventually went away by the time I went to bed. Thursday came and the same pain started up around lunch time. KFC and I rode to the beach with Papa. I tried to deal with the pain the whole car ride. About 20 miles from the Island, the pain started getting worse. By the time we arrived at the house I was in SERVER pain. Knew that this can't be normal, I left Papa to put KFC to bed and got my mom to drive me to the ER. That was the longest ride ever! Didn't just feel like, it really was a long way away. The lady checking my in at the ER had me put into a wheelchair and wheeled directly to the Labor and Delivery triage rooms. They hooked me up to the machine to monitor my contractions. Baby wouldn't stay still long enough for them to get a complete heart rate, so they wheeled in an ultrasound machine and the baby's heart rate was 150. They did a full pelvic exam, urine sample, and blood work. All while I was begging for them to give me something for all the pain. After about 3 hours, the Dr came back in and said that my urine had lots of blood in it with no white blood cells, which meant no infection (UTI) but a Kidney Stone! I haven't had one in over 3 years and I hoped that I was in the clear once I got pregnant. I barely was able to manage them not pregnant and I didn't know what I would do if I got them while pregnant. Dr sent me home with muscle relaxers and Vicodin. That is equivalent to taking Tylenol for a migraine! I was SOOOO thankful that Hubby was with me that whole week. Most of my attacks happened in the middle of the night. I would have to wake him up, get him to put counter-pressure on my back while I rubbed my contractions down and rocked back and forth. I had bruises on my back the next day. Most of these episodes have lasted between 6-8 hours at a time with the most excruciating pain lasting from 1-2 hours. My body was exhausted!!! Yesterday was my first day without him and I was super nervous. I had had a bad episode Sunday evening and I think I scared the mess out of KFC when I was basically screaming. I didn't know how I was going to handle 1. the pain by myself and 2. having to take care of KFC. Luckily, yesterday, the pain started right about the time Hubby was leaving the hospital . I made myself a hot bath, took my drugs, made sure KFC had some dinner, and into the bath I went. KFC was such a great helper!!! She told me she could push on my back like daddy did. She got the heating pad out and plugged in, ready for when I got out of the bath. She was feeding me Doritos and water! My own personal assistant! I stayed in pretty bad pain the rest of the night and about 9:30pm the excruciating pain kicked in. Hubby was putting KFC to bed so I was on my own. By 10:30 I thought I was going to loose my mind. Hubby eventually came to assist me and helped me till it went away, and then I fell asleep. So far the stone has not moved in over a week. Don't know how many more days I can take of this. 

Back to our beach trip. The first weekend we were there K&L and family and Chessy were down there. We spent the days with them on the beach. KFC and cousin P hardly ever left the water! KFC was so exhausted at night. The rest of the week, we spent the day either on the beach or swimming in the canals. By the end of the week, I think we were all done with being in the sun. No one got burnt so that was a plus. 

While we were down there, we got a call that Hubby's Grandma was in the hospital. We kept up with updates when they were available. Then we got a call Friday from the friend that was looking after our dogs, saying that one of them had dug under the fence and was no where around. I decided to go ahead and pack up and head home that night. Too much going on that it was just time to come home. Our dog had escaped a few times in the past few weeks and always stayed around the house till we let her back in the fence. I had no doubt that she would be there when we showed up at the house that night. We got home around 10pm and she wasn't there. Our other dog was so lonely that she was all over us. The next morning we went out looking for her. Searched all the nearby neighborhoods and nothing. We went to get breakfast and paint, and on the way home Hubby say what he was sure was her on the side of the road. I didn't see her since I was looking out my window. We got home and Hubby asked for rubber gloves and said he was sure he found her. KFC and I stayed home while he went back down the street to go get her. It was definitely her, so he brought her back home to bury in the woods behind our house. I noticed a bottle rocket in our back yard when got home Friday. She was terrified of thunder and especially of fireworks. I assume the neighbors lit off fireworks Wednesday night, scared her so bad that she dug herself out and ran for it. Hubby said she was about a mile from our house. She must have been in the middle of the road when a car hit her. 

This trip was the first time in years that we have had a whole week off for vacation. I will re-think it next time we decided to take a long vacation again. From the moment vacation started I was in pain to end the vacation in pain physically and emotionally! After all that, we still kept receiving bad news after another. Got a letter in the mail that KFC's insurance will end at the end of the month because we barely make too much now. And another letter with some legal mumbo jumbo that I had to deal with. The good times at the beach were really good and KFC had a ton of fun! Just too much sadness and frustration to go along with all the good. 

I realized Sunday night that we only have 8 more weeks till KFC starts Kindergarten!!! That has had me freaked out. So I am trying to make the most of these last 8 weeks with her! I took her to Walmart to let her pick out her school supplies. She is Super excited to start school!

21 Weeks

This morning I had my regular OB appointment with another ultrasound. This ultrasound was just a follow up from the last one where the tech couldn't see everything she needed to. Hubby decided not to go to this appointment. Made me kinda sad, but know its hard to make up the work hours he would have missed and he did just go to the last ultrasound. I took a friend along with me so she could get to see what an ultrasound was like. I was super excited to get to see the baby again. We didn't get the fun bubbly tech that we got last time. Boo! This lady was nice, but definitely not interested in giving us views of anything other than what she 'needed' to look at. I did ask if their machine did 3D, she reluctantly said yes. At the end she did quickly try to give us a face shot in 3D. Of course Baby was not sitting in good position and her face was blocked by the placenta. But she did give us this picture, which satisfied me somewhat.

Its a side view with her hand up at her face. Both ultrasounds, she kept her hands by her face, so cute! At one point Baby had her pointer finger pointing out! The tech did look for her girl parts again. But Baby decided to have her legs curled up underneath her. But tech said she could basically see everything and there was definitely no boy parts showing. At the last ultrasound, it showed that I had a low-lying placenta, which means possible c-section! But they checked it again today and it had moved up so we are good there! The cyst that was on my left ovary is now gone, so more good news! 

Baby Stats:

Tech said she is right under 1 lb. Her heart rate was 132. Internet says she should be around 7 in. head to butt. As soon as I hit 20 weeks, she has become Super active! Right now her head has been staying around my belly button area and her feet are straight down. When I'm laying down I can see the shape of her head poking out! She gets excited when I eat and kicks all around. She is also very active at night when I first lay down, so hopefully she will get out of that pattern by the time she gets here. 

Mommy Stats:

I have gained 4 lbs just is the past 2 weeks! Ah! 10 lbs so far since beginning. Up until the past couple days I have been ridiculously tired!!! But lately I have had a burst of energy. Hopefully this will continue so I can get things done! Definitely feeling really good lately. This is just about my favorite stage of the pregnancy. I can feel her moving like crazy, so I know she is doing good, but I'm not too gigantic yet to where I'm miserable. Wish I could stay in the 20's weeks forever! KFC is loving that she can see the head bulging out and I think it makes it even more real to her to see an actual figure in my belly.  

Gender Reveal Party

IT'S A GIRL!!!

Look to the right of the arrow and you can see the two, well ya know. :)

Last night we had our Gender Reveal Party. I got the idea, of course, from Pinterest. I saw a picture of a couple opening a box with balloons inside that revealed the sex of their baby way before I got pregnant. I knew if I ever did get pregnant that this was what I wanted to do. I had plans last weekend so the party was pushed back to this weekend. Which, I think, killed everyone in the process. KFC wanted to tell EVERYBODY, everybody wanted to trick KFC into telling them, and I was just plain tired of random people asking (if you are reading this, then you aren't one of these people haha). I think by the time the reveal was ready to take place, between Hubby and KFC not watching what they say and the one random slip-up from Chessy, there were 7 people there that knew what we were having. To say the least, I was very disappointed. In my head, for months I had played out how this reveal was going to go, for it basically not to have happened like I wanted it to. Lesson learned... (1) Don't tell a 5 year old a secret that they will have to keep for 10 days, (2) Don't let people who do know drink alcohol, as this can make anything come out. (3) Don't tell people you know a secret, they will commit a crime just to find out. 

I decided to have a cook out for the party. I didn't want this to be a "party" but a chance to have people over, grill out, eat dinner, and oh yeah reveal the sex of the baby. 

We have basically narrowed down our list of baby names for both a boy and a girl. I thought it would be fun to put out a list of the first letter of each of the names we are thinking about and have everyone try and guess what they thought the name was going to be. At this point no one knew what the gender was yet. Two people each got one name right. One name we had been talking about for a long time, so many people knew it but only one spelled it right. And the other person figured out one name because of her "love" for it. Here are the crazy names on that made this list:

No, we will not be going with BBQ, or Poopy, or Catlin, or Vlodeevlodstov. For the boy names it was going to be Asher, Corbin, or Vann. And for the girl names it is going to be either Avery, Brynn, Paisley, or Skyler. It takes me a while to know if I love a name or not. Hopefully by the end of this pregnancy I will know for sure which name we will choose.

Hubby brought home a box from work, that he spray painted black and put question marks on each side. Funny cause some people didn't know how we were announcing the sex so this big random box in the yard stirred up questions. Kids just wanted to know what was in this big random box. Good thing Hubby thought to put zip ties on each side of the lid. 

Cousin B wanted to help pull the sting with KFC. Which actually turned out good. In our trial runs with KFC she never would pull hard enough. I wanted the lid to fly open to release the balloons and she always opened the lid too slowly. Cousin B gave it that extra umph it needed to fly open! 

I made signs that said Pink and one that said Blue. I got everyone to stand on the side that they thought the baby was going to be. Most people on the boy side were VERY VERY sure it was going to be a boy!!! I was 100% convinced it was going to be a boy also. Knowing how strong these people's feelings were toward a certain gender made this reveal so much more fun! Well, for me anyway. :) I sent Hubby out to get the balloons. He was the one that put them in the box. In my head I wanted the balloons to come busting out individually. He did have them tied together, but I guess from it being SO hot outside that the balloons lost some of their helium, so when the lid opened, the balloons came gracefully lifting up out of the box. Not what I had expected them to do, but very funny to see them slowly come on out! It also made for a good photo opportunity! She was able to get people's reactions with the balloons still in the camera view. B.R. was my favorite reaction! He was the one hold the pink sign. The first picture he looks all surprised, second picture he is like 'Yes, I was right'. and third picture he is doing the 'I told you so, boy's group'! This made me laugh when I was looking through the pictures!

So long pink balloons

The kids had a great time playing outside and on the trampoline! No need to rent a bouncy house, just buy a trampoline!

Even the big kid liked it

I was very thankful a friend said she would take pictures for me! I mainly just wanted pictures of the reveal but she did so much more! I was so glad to not have to think about keeping my camera with me to capture everything. She has some new lenses that she was playing with. My favorite is the fish eye lens! Here are some cool pictures she got with that lens:

17 Weeks

Baby Stats:

The baby is measuring right at 5 inchs from head to butt. Per internet, this week the fat is now forming and the baby should start looking less like a skeleton. 

Mommy Stats:

So far, I have gained 6 lbs since my first ob visit. I still am very tired a lot and have a headache just about every day. I have developed restless arm syndrome... never heard of it before, but the symptoms seem to fit what I'm experiencing. It has gradually became more bothersome as it wakes me up at night and I can't go back to sleep till it goes away, which is usually around a 2 hour spell. Nesting is in full swing now as I want the baby's room done... Now! 

Today I had my second ultrasound! I was definitively less nervous going into this one. I have been feeling the baby kick for weeks now and knew it was probably fine. We were excited to find out the sex of the baby! I didn't know if at 17 weeks you would be able to tell, but it was pretty evident what the baby was. We are announcing the gender next weekend, so stay tuned! While I am VERY excited that we have a baby on the way, and I truly didn't care which sex it was, I knew I would have a sadness either way. If it was a girl, I was going to be sad since Hubby Really wanted a boy; but if it was a boy, I was going to be sad to never get to use KFC's clothes ever again, and I LOVED her baby clothes! I did shed tears after finding out what it was - not ungrateful just hormonal! :)

The ultrasound technician needed to get a better look at the baby's face to look for abnormalities with the chin and cleft lip, but of course baby kept turning its back toward us so she didn't get what she needed. She also needed to see more with the heart, which the baby wouldn't cooperate with that either. She said she will need another ultrasound to check these things at my next appointment! YAY! I get to see the baby again!

Here are some of the pictures we were given. She didn't do any 3D photos, which I was hoping for, but I guess if she did, it would have just looked like a skeleton baby. Maybe next appointment I will ask her. I am not including the butt picture quite yet, that reveals the sex.

Side view with baby facing up.

This one if my favorite. The baby has its hand up at its face, you can see the whole outline of the spine, and the shape of the legs and feet!

The baby was totally asleep when she started the ultrasound. But after all the moving of the technician the baby was up and moving all over the place!! She was able to get very good picture of the baby's face, and we were able to see the baby opening and closing its mouth!! Its crazy how small it can be and we are able to see the baby doing amazing stuff. It kept bringing its hand up to its face, kicking, and stretching out its legs a lot. 

All of the baby's organs looked good. She said its bladder was full so its kidneys are working great. We were able to see the 4 chambers of the heart and she turned on the color and we were able to see the blood passing in the heart and also in the umbilical cord. She said brain looked good too. She got a good picture of the feet looking straight up from the bottom of them. I thought she printed that out, but we didn't get that picture. 

KFC was super excited to see the baby up on the screen! It has been so much fun that I have got to see her experience this and her actually understand everything that's going on! The ultrasound lady printed off 3 pictures are the first picture. I loved this lady! She did it so KFC could take one to pre-school with her to show off her sibling! Hubby and KFC left after the ultrasound, since I had a regular OB visit after, that was a 40 min wait in between. Hubby took KFC to school and he said she showed the picture to all of the other kids and was very excited!

Here is a picture I took of myself last week. Huge... I know! :)

1st Beach Trip This Year!

We haven't been to the beach since probably last fall. We were in desperate need of getting away. Busy weekends here have left us exhausted. It was nice to have a weekend where we had no obligations or fixing something around the house. KFC and I went down Thursday afternoon and Hubby met us there Friday after work. As always, the weekend flew by! 

My ideal day at the beach is sitting under the shade of the canopy. I'm white, I burn, and I peel. Shade = Friend while Sun = Enemy! I spread spf 50 lotion on before going out and re-apply the spray of spf 85 while out there. And I still got a little sun burnt! Only thing that I can count on is spf 100, aka indoors! 

The high was only in the upper 70's so under the shade, and intermittent clouds blocking the sun, it was fairly chilly at times. Meaning I had to venture out of my shade to get warm. I apply the same spf treatment to KFC, but she on the other hand tanned just nicely! She's white like me, but seems to tan like her daddy.

KFC met some friends each day at the beach to play with. Nice when we can now sit back and just watch her play and not have to entertain her the entire time. Hubby still likes to play in the sand so he was out playing more than me. His and KFC's favorite are the big holes he digs in the sand.

Papa insisted on getting KFC a new bathing suit since most of the ones last year she has outgrown. There was one that still fit her from last year that she wore on Friday. Well, she had a wardrobe malfunction and the clasp in the back of the top broke and it completely fell off! Good thing we had a cover up for her so she could continue playing. 

Loving Daddy

Don't let these picture fool you... the water was ICE COLD!!! She acted as if it were bath water! On Friday, after she had been playing in the water for some time, I decided to join her, totally not thinking it was cold with how easily she jumped in as was playing. Basically once your limbs got numb, you were good to go.

Kinda hard to see in the picture, but there was a cool rainbow in the cloud that appeared.

There was a group of dolphins that kept swimming back and forth very close to the shore!

Us <3

Sunday we went back out there one last time. There was total cloud cover and it was a lot chillier than the other days! Hubby didn't wear sunscreen and his back got pretty red! Being cold and cloudy can totally be misleading! Hubby and KFC spent most of the time there playing :) We had most of the beach to ourselves since most people had already gone home.

We noticed a jellyfish in front of where we were sitting. Then we noticed jellyfish after jellyfish all the way down the beach right at the shore line!!! No way was I getting in the water. KFC thought it best to just bury them. Hubby assisted her in burying 2. Hope nobody goes digging a hole there! Eeek!

Memorial & 2 Day Assembly

I'm am so far behind at updating our activities! I am going to try my best to get caught up!

This year our Memorial was held Thursday April 5. We actually got to the Hall way early and found seats in the main area! This year KFC really started to understand what the memorial was about and how it works. I took her to the front to see the emblems so when everything was passed to us, she wasn't wanting to stare at them for a long time. She did really good this year and sat patiently for most of the meeting.

About half way to the Hall I realized I had left my camera at home! So I only had my cell phone to take this year's picture. Which totally came out blurry. Maybe next year I can remember the camera, unless of course the 6 month old I will have makes me forget again! :)

On to the 2 Day Assembly, which was the following weekend. We really wanted to stay in a hotel there so we didn't have to get up early and drive everyday, so we asked another couple if they would like to get a room with us just for Saturday night. So that's what we did. Drove up early Saturday morning and stayed over that night.

The Friday before the assembly, the baby decided to have a growth spurt. I was definitely popping out now and I was having to figure out new ways to sleep, as I couldn't sleep on my stomach anymore. Both days of climbing those stairs, I was pooped! Not to mention all the times I had to get up to pee! 

KFC did very well both days. As the Assemblies are now getting easier and easier with her, I will be adding another one which will start this process all over again. I survived these past 5 years, I will manage to make it through the next. Hubby started coming down with a terrible cold Saturday night! Severe throat pains along with fever and chills. I slept as far away as I could from him and constantly was using hand sanitizer! And I never got sick! Yes!

Our crazy pics before the assembly started

The girls! They complimented each other well!