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!

13 Weeks

Baby and Mommy stats:

The baby is about the size of a peach and should be getting close to the 3 inch mark! Its eyes are almost proportional and not on the sides of the head! Male/female parts are now developed. Baby is basically done with the development phase and is moving to the growth phase. Should be getting bigger faster now!

So far I have gain 4 lbs since the beginning of the pregnancy. Definitively doing a lot better than when I had KFC and am on track! Morning sickness is basically over and I am usually hungry All the time!

13 Week Appointment:

Earlier this week I had my second OB appointment! This was a 'big' appointment for I was getting a full work up... Pap and all! NOT fun! I really wanted hubby at this appointment, for one, take care of KFC while doctor was, well "down there", and to also be there for me just in case any issues arose with the baby. Hubby's work, of course, got totally slammed and he wasn't able to make it. I asked a special someone to accompany me to my appointment. She did great at slipping KFC out of room when doctor was getting ready for the pap. The doctor took FOREVER to find the heartbeat!!!! All I could do was stare up at the ceiling. After traveling that doppler across my entire stomach, pressing down hard on my growing uterus, he finally came across the heartbeat. As soon as he found it, he basically took it off. Have no idea what the hear rate was, but still glad to hear it. I am pretty certain that as he had the doppler over the baby, that it kicked! It was fairly strong! I guess from him pushing down so hard I was able to feel it so well. This past weekend I'm pretty sure that I have been feeling it flutter here and there! Yay. My favorite part of being pregnant! Up until now it has been very boring. You know its there but when you feel it, it makes it so much more real! KFC really enjoys coming with me to the doctor and she loved hearing the heartbeat. I'm glad she's so involved in the process. 

Now I just gotta wait 4 more weeks till my next visit! Sigh

9 Weeks

I have finally made it to 9 weeks and have had my first OB visit and ultrasound! I was Super nervous for this appointment. I have been dreaming of this day for a year and a half and it was finally here. Even though I have had Every pregnancy symptom, it was still very surreal to be walking into my doctors office and actually be pregnant. Hubby and KFC joined me and I'm glad they did for helped me think of something other than the appointment. When I get nervous I cry; I was already nervous, the nerves made me want to cry, and I was nervous about crying in front of the doctor, which made me more nervous! Endless cycle! Fortunately, I was able to hold it together. 

First was my weight check. The 5 lbs I lost at the beginning, I had gain it back. So really back where I started. Not too bad. As we walked into the exam room, all I saw was the ultrasound machine with my name at the top! I was excited to see the baby but even more scared. Scared to know if there was more than one baby and also scared there would be no heartbeat! The doctor started looking around and up popped the baby. A VERY blurry little blob. I was so disappointed in the picture quality. When I had KFC's first ultrasound, the picture was clearer and you could make out a lot more! So I expected this one to be the same. They have newer equipment from when I was there with KFC, but I didn't expect it to be worse. :(  As I already knew, this baby came out of my left ovary. My right ovary you could barely see on the screen while the left one had a huge black circle where the egg was released. As she was looking at the left ovary, I noticed there were 2 huge back circles! She said that there were possibly 2 eggs that were released but only 1 egg that "took". I'm still a little nervous that another baby could be hiding behind this one!! She had a hard time getting a good picture of the baby anyway. Really hoping that I get another ultrasound at my next visit!

Here is KFC's first picture. You can see the head on the right, her little arms in the middle, and her little feet on the left. KFC measured 1.82cm 

Now here is this baby's picture. A BIG difference! I'm thinking this is a front on shot, where KFC's was a side shot. The head starts at the top right + and the butt stops at the bottom left +. Looks to me like its arms and legs are folded in in the middle. Baby is now measuring 2.09cm, slightly bigger than KFC!

Here is the heartbeat. Very cool to get to hear! So tiny, but already has a fully functioning heart! Baby's heartbeat came in at 173 bpm.

I have my next appointment in 2 weeks to do lots of blood work and meet with a nurse to talk about insurance and any pre-screening tests I would like to have. Then I meet with my doctor in 4 weeks for the OB physical exam. Not looking forward to that appointment, but still hoping they will have to do another ultrasound. 

My nausea seems to slowly be wearing off. I'm still queasy most of the day and at some times its a little worse. But definitively more manageable than week 7! There are still tons of smells and sights of things that almost send me over the edge. ie, this morning I saw the most biggest, fattest, hairiest spider on our kitchen wall. I ran got the fly swatter. Had to hit him 2 times before he flew to the ground! I looked up to see massive chunks of guts left on the wall. Started gagging and it was all over from there. Glad I had only had orange juice this morning but OJ doesn't feel good up the nose! haha The spider including its guts on the wall have been left for hubby when he gets home!