A Christmas Gift for Baby

Merry Christmas!!!! I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and had a lot of fun with friends/family, had lots of good food, and some time to relax.

We had a very nice Christmas and now we have a nice break from work to look forward to. We are planning on getting some productive stuff done and having some fun time too. Should be good stuff :)

I just wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know that Nick and I have made some progress with our decision making. As much as I would love to name our little girl baby, angel, or honey (since that is what I have gotten used to calling her) we decided that we really needed to pick a name so we could make sure that we liked it before we had to commit in February. So that was her Christmas gift - a name :) Now as a disclaimer - we are still reserving the right to change our minds - so don't go getting anything engraved or embroidered :) This is kind of our test run time to make sure that we love the name that we have chosen :)

So, drumroll........

Aurora Braelyn

:)

A New Record

5

I got up to pee 5 times last night.

Just thought you would all like to know.

"Be Anxious for Nothing"

So this weekend was fairly eventful. It seems that most weekends now-a-days are. It was good because we did get to do some fun stuff and we got to check a few things off our to-do list.

Friday was an off-Friday. I love off-Fridays so much. It's like getting a present every other week. So awesome. We spent the day doing house stuff. Nothing huge - did some cleaning and we spent a lot of time going through pictures to put in frames that we bought for the shelf above the TV. And we spent the evening being lazy which was much needed for both of us. Nick worked 60-something hours last week - one day he was at work until 3AM, so he was tired. And I'm just always tired :)

Saturday Aunt Jan and Darryl flew in to surprise Grandma and Grandpa and spend a little mini-Christmas/Grandma's birthday here. I picked them up at the airport, went to Babies R Us (yeah, I'm pretty sure baby is getting very spoiled), and we had dinner with them later that night. They left Sunday so we didn't get to see them as much as we would have liked, but I'm thankful for the time we had :) My family is awesome.

Saturday afternoon we had part 1 of our Prep for Childbirth class at TMC. To put it NICELY - it horrified me. The videos they made us watch really grossed me out, the statistics about Cesarean deliveries was shocking, and I just felt really helpless about everything. I got a lot of good information, but it made me feel very not in control when you look at all the things that could go not according to plan. I'm not really worried about the pain - I know it is going to hurt, but I know millions of women have done this before me - I will survive :) I just have a certain idea of what I want and I am very afraid that for one reason or another I won't get that. So yeah, not feeling so great about all that after that class.

But Sunday morning in church I felt like the message was prepared just for me. We went over Phillipians 4:6-7:

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

That has always been one of my favorite verses, and it was such a great reminder. So, I gave it to God: I'm not going to worry, or stress or obsess over how things probably won't go the way I want them to. The things that I am able to control I will, but the rest is going to happen the way God intends for it to happen. And in the end, as long as I end up with a healthy baby - what does it really matter?

So I was able to attend part 2 of the child birth class on Sunday in a much better state of mind :) I learned what I could and now I just want to get the whole thing over with.

After class we went to Zinburger (yummy!!!!), ate way too much food, and then went to Winter Haven to see the Christmas lights. It was very crowded! And it really wasn't cold out - I brought my jacket but ended up carrying it the whole time. But the lights were pretty as always and I love walking around the neighborhood with Nick. It is a very fun tradition :)

Monday I had a doctor appointment. This every 2 weeks thing is a little much, but its nice to have the peace of mind. This appointment wasn't as routine as the others though- I said some bad words and caused some more doctor appointments for myself...

So I wasn't worried about anything, but I was trying to answer the doctor's questions honestly...

She asked if I'd been having any problems. Well, I haven't been having problems, but I have had heartburn really bad some nights and I've been having some chest pains. Bad words #1: "Chest pains." I thought the chest pains were probably from heartburn, but the doctor wants to treat them as a separate issue.

Then she asked if baby had been moving around and all that stuff. Bad words #2: "Not as much." The problem is that I am used to her bouncing off the wall. Apparently the rule of thumb is that I should feel movement 4-6 times an hour. I usually feel movement 50 times an hour (or more). Baby moves constantly. But ever since Saturday she hadn't moved as much. She was probably still moving the 4-6 times an hour (but I wasn't counting) and I know on the weekends I don't notice it as much. So if it was just the weekend, I probably wouldn't have said anything. Except yesterday when I was at work she wasn't her usual energizer bunny self. She usually wears me out she moves so much. So I wasn't necessarily worried, but she wasn't moving as much so when the doctor asked I figured I should tell her that.

And then bad words #3: "Abdominal Pain." Sunday night I was having some pretty bad pain. It felt like contractions/cramps without the up/down in intensity - it was a constant pain. So I didn't think they were contractions since they didn't fluctuate, but I have a very cautious doctor :) I said it was probably because I was walking around a lot, but they always want to check things to be safe.

SO - all my no-no words resulted in:
1) A scheduled appointment with a cardiologist. That should be fun. I'm not worried - I've never had heart problems before, but as I said - my doctor is very cautious.
AND
2) An ultrasound, baby heart monitoring, and contraction monitoring immediately following my appointment. It was kind of funny because when I got to TMC I found that one of my friends from my soccer team that is a nurse was working so she took care of me :) Ultrasound showed (an adorable baby) with my fluid levels looking good. I also found out that she isn't in the position that I thought she was. Her head is down (hooray!) which I had kind of figured, but she always sticks out on the right side - I had always thought that was her back or shoulder. Apparently her back is actually on the left side and its her legs that she keeps poking out. Really shouldn't be a surprise I guess :) But it was funny to find that out. The heart monitoring showed baby's heart rate looks good, and the contraction monitoring showed that I am having contractions. THAT resulted in me having my cervix checked (twice) which is NOT comfortable. My cervix is closed and hard - I'm not going into labor yet - hooray! And they took some cells that they are supposed to test to see if it looks like I will go into labor soon - I don't know how it all works, but again - I'm not worried. I'm expecting the results to come back saying she is definitely not coming in the next few weeks. I mean - she's got 9 weeks until her due date and I've always thought she was going to be late.

The one other result of that appointment was that I do have another ultrasound scheduled for Monday. This one is not a result of my big mouth - I guess my uterus is measuring small for this stage, so they want to check baby and take some measurements. I'm not exactly sure what they are looking for - I'm not sure if she is small, or if she just doesn't have much space in there. The doctor said I have nothing to be worried about and I'm not going to be worried. There's nothing I can do about any of this stuff and I trust God to take care of me and baby. I'm done stressing :) I'm going to be "anxious for nothing." :)

I hadn't intended for this update to be so long, but I guess I had a lot to say :) Now you are all caught up!

I hope everyone has a great week and enjoy the last few days of prep before Christmas!

No Longer Any Question...

Well, there is no longer any question - I look pregnant. Full blown big tummy, everyone asks about it pregnant. Hooray!

She has grown so much in the last few weeks! I'm a little worried if she keeps this pace up...

Here's the latest picture :)

This is my Pregnancy Brain...

I have been doing stupid things ever since I got pregnant. I've left the house in the morning with make-up on only half of my face. I forget EVERYTHING unless I write it down. And then I usually forget where I wrote it down. I will walk into a room and have no idea what I was intending to do in there. I leave things everywhere. I'd list the things I've lost because of it, but I can't remember what they are. I'm a disaster. I know there is a funny list of specific things I've done - especially earlier in the pregnancy, that I should have kept track of but again - I can't remember what they are.

My latest and greatest though, is this morning I got to work, dropped off my purse and lunch at my desk, and then walked to the break room with every intention of putting my keys in the fridge. I got halfway there and realized that I meant to leave my keys at the desk and put my lunch in the fridge... Oops. I guess at least I realized it before I did it :)

10 weeks of this madness left - I really hope I get my brain back once baby is born!

Some Entertainment

TheBump.com has some cute onesies that are pretty entertaining. Thought they were good for a few laughs. This one is my favorite:



Here's the website in case you wanted to check them out:

http://pregnant.thebump.com/new-mom-new-dad/baby-gear/slideshow/hilarious-baby-onesies.aspx?cm_ven=Responsys&cm_cat=Newsletter&cm_pla=Pregnancy&cm_ite=December%2014,%202010&MsdVisit=1

No Sleep For Me...

So apparently me being active during the day means baby is very active at night. Most days I spend sitting at my desk at work so baby moves around a lot then and is pretty quiet at night. But over the weekend I didn't really sit down at all - we were (trying to be) productive and I think all the movement put baby to sleep. But that meant that when it was time for me to sleep she wanted to play. So I really did not sleep well this weekend at all. With a ping pong ball in my tummy and incredible heartburn it was not a good combination. And the heartburn continues... I've had it on and off ever since the second trimester, but the last few days it seems to have really kicked it up a notch and it is not fun. It doesn't seem to be dependant on what I eat either - I just get it no matter what.

We had a pretty good weekend. We really spent most of the time getting stuff done around the house. I could bore you with the details, but the short story is that we made progress, the house looks more like a place where people live now rather than the aftermath of the apocalypse, and we still have a lot more to do but we are hopeful that we will get everything done in time for baby. We hit some minor snags - like re-routing wires wiping out our internet for the weekend and we had to waste hours trying to troubleshoot, but it looks like we've figured out the problem so that is good... A waste of time, but oh well - stuff happens.

On the fun side of things I did get to go to a baby shower for one of the girls on my soccer team so I got to see some of my soccer friends that I feel like I haven't seen in forever! I miss soccer :( It was fun to catch up with everyone and it was fun to get even more excited about the arrival of our little one :) My friend is having a girl too - little girl stuff is too cute!!!!

Sorry that I don't have more interesting stuff to report on than my sleep schedule and house progress, but that is life right now. Just trying to get things done and maintain (or re-acquire) some balance and sanity before the holidays :)

Pregnant Workouts

I hate working out. I always have. For any of you that actually like to work out, I think you are nuts. I envy you, but I think you are nuts. That's not to say I don't like physical activity - I love soccer, hiking, swimming, etc - fun stuff :) But to do physical activity purely for the purpose of doing physical activity is torture to me. I love the way I feel afterwards and I know its good for me so I do it, but I hate it.

I hate it even more now that I'm pregnant. Before there was at least some motivation knowing that pushing myself would increase my endurance for when I played soccer or that every time my muscles hurt I was making myself look better. I liked sweating during and hurting after workouts because then I felt like I'd accomplished something. Now I don't even have that. I have to be careful not to get too hot, not to elevate my heartrate too much, not to exercise on my back, etc... I'm no longer working towards a goal! Forget results: I am continuously gaining weight, as I should be, but that is all very counter-intuitive to what I am used to with working out.

It's hard to do something when I can't see the benefits to it. I know that it is supposed to be good for me and for the baby, but I don't really feel like it does much for me, and I definitely have no measure of impact on baby. Not to mention that my ankles are swelling, my lung capacitance has gone down, and every time I stand up I have to pee.

I suppose that is enough complaining. Only 11 weeks of this left, right? And then talk about goals and motivation!!!!!! It will be very nice to work towards results (as long as I get them...)

Fat Ankles

Well, It was another eventful, productive, busy weekend. I think that will most likely be the trend for the rest of the year. Probably until baby is born.

On Friday I had my dreaded glucose test. I have to say - drinking the sugar drink was a lot harder this time. I think the first time I had myself so convinced it was going to be awful that when I was actually able to swallow it I realized it wasn't that bad. But this time I went into it thinking it was a piece of cake so it was a little more painful. But I managed. Baby went NUTS over it - especially considering it was on an empty stomach so she got one major sugar high. And then they had to draw blood 4 times! Once at the beginning and then once every hour. I am not a fan of blood being drawn in the first place - I am one of those that can (and will) pass out (on occasion) so the thought of 4 times was pretty scary. The first 2 times I was fine - I am really lucky that there is a super nice lady that works in the lab and she talks non-stop to distract me while she does it. The third time was harder because I got a different lady and she didn't talk so I had to try to distract myself. Plus it hurt - she wasn't as gentle. But the fourth time I got the friendly lady again so I was OK. So, I survived! It definitely wasn't fun, and I didn't enjoy spending so many hours of my off Friday in the doctors office, but at least it is over. AND at my doctor appointment today I found out that I passed "with flying colors." So that was definitely good news :)

After I got some food in my tummy (Good Egg with Mom and Taylor - YUM!!!!!) I had ANOTHER doctor appointment - eye doctor this time. Since I have such dry eyes the doctor finally convinced me to switch from hard to soft contacts, so I have had 3 eye doctor appointments in the last month to try to adjust my prescription with the new lenses. Like I wasn't spending enough time at the doctor! But I guess that when you switch your eye changes shape, so your vision changes. Fun stuff.

So I got home from my fun with doctors with just enough time to bake cookies for a cookie exchange (Butterscotch/Cashew yumminess!) that we were having at our monthly crop (scrapbooking with lots of other women). I tried a new recipe and I was pretty happy with the way they turned out. Especially considering how much time I had to throw them together. So the rest of the evening was fun at least :) Getting to scrapbook is always fun.

Saturday Nick and I volunteered at the "First Lego League" Competition that has sort of become an annual tradition for us. This was the 4th year and it was super fun like always! It's a day where kids (age 8-14) come to present and compete with their Lego robots that they designed. It is a huge project that takes them months! They have a certain mission that they have to complete with their lego robots and they do all the work designing and programming them. It is amazing to see how smart and creative they are. I am always impressed and they are so stinkin cute! They also have to complete a research project and present that as well. Every year we are "judges" and I have to say - it is so hard to do! They are all so good!

I was exhausted after the day - my brain especially. But I learned a lot about Biomedical Engineering so that was cool :) (They have a different theme every year). What was NOT cool was that when I took my shoes/socks off I discovered horribly FAT ankles! I had no idea body parts could swell like that. It was pretty terrifying! I mean, I knew I was tired, but I had not expected my feet to look like that! And the same thing happened Sunday evening too! I guess the rest of my pregnancy will include daily fat ankles. I'm really not a fan. It looks very unnatural.

Sunday we spent doing house stuff. Nick spent hours in the attic doing cable/wire routing and put several holes in the walls :) Plus we got all of Nick's artifacts moved out of baby's room and with what we have so far - baby's room is done! We don't have a crib yet or a new dresser for her, but we have a bookshelf and a chest of drawers that we moved in there that are now filled with her books and clothes. It felt so weird to put away my little girl's clothes - I kept trying to imagine what she would look like in each outfit - which is so hard to do because I have no idea what she is going to look like. I think its a pretty good guess that she will have dark hair and brown eyes, but you never know... We have blonde hair and blue eyes on both sides so even though that's not what Nick and I have it is still a possibility.

So it was really fun and really weird at the same time. We have her bedding now and I think it looks great with the color we painted. I can't wait to get the rest of the furniture!

Here is a picture - it really doesn't really do the color justice, but you can see how cute the rug and bedding are:



It feels good to have one room mostly done. Not having the furniture doesn't seem like that big a deal to me for some reason... I know it will happen soon so I'm not too worried. The office has all the furniture in place, but Nick still has a lot of papers to go through - he has saved every bit of paper from college so he needs to decide whether or not he really needs to keep the notes from that humanities class he took freshman year :) He saves everything :) So there are papers all over the floor until he has time to go through them. And it needs a little help from the decorating perspective... But otherwise I'm feeling pretty good about that too. And we got all the Ikea bookshelves together so I arranged the ones in our room this weekend so we just need to finish with the ones in the TV room.

Things are coming together. It is fun, but exhausting at the same time and things always seem to take longer than we expect. But any progress is good! Too bad we have a 5 day work week ahead of us. It is always hard to be at work when there are so many other things I'd rather be doing.