Sick

Ugh, I'm sick.  I've been sick since Friday and I'm really tired of it.  I can't tell if it is allergies or an actual cold, but either way, it sucks.  Being sick while you are at home isn't too bad, lying on the couch, watching movies and taking naps.  But being sick at work is the worst.  I'm sniffling, coughing, my head feels fuzzy, my throat hurts and I feel hot and then cold.  And it's just too busy at work for me to call out and take a sick day.  Also, medicine wise, nothing is helping.  I'm taking combos of allergy medicine and cold medicine and in the end I just feel dehydrated and weird.  I'm hoping that this funk I'm in is allergy related and goes away soon because I have so much to do this week.  Our Austin baby shower is this weekend and so my mother in law and brother in law are coming into town to go and are staying with us.  Which means that I've got to get the house cleaned, go grocery shopping, work, get over my cold, go to birthing class and pick up a few last minute things for the shower all by Thursday because they get here Friday right after work.  Too much to do when all you want to do is lay in bed. 

But I am really looking forward to our baby shower.  It's going to be so much fun.  S and I went and got 12 bottles of champagne last week for Mimosas along with prizes for our diaper raffle.  I'm also looking forward to our last ultrasound on Friday.  We are taking S's mom to do a 3D ultrasound since she wasn't here to go to the last one.  Of course, now that we have done so many and already booked and paid for our last one is when we get flooded with information from our birthing class and what to expect emails about the dangers of ultrasounds.  I'm not too worried about it, but I wish I had known there was any sort of risk/issue with them before we went and had 6 of them.  Of course, 4 of them were with our doctor's office so we couldn't control that.  Oh well.  I'm still looking forward to seeing our baby boy.

Hope everyone week is starting out a bit better than mine!

-Liz

Yesterday's Tiny Scare

     We had a small scare with Jude yesterday.  S had called the doctor to ask about a few things for her next appointment and at the end of the call she mentioned how Jude sometimes felt like he was shaking really hard and was wondering if that was normal.  They told her they’d get back to her and little bit later a nurse from the office called and said that they wanted her to go in for an ultrasound that afternoon to be sure there wasn’t something wrong with Jude, which naturally freaked S out.  Luckily I was able to get off work and go with her and her work was accommodating enough to let her come in late after the appointment.  We were so scared.  The thought that something could be wrong with our little boy had us both in tears at different points.  We went in and they did an ultrasound and measured everything again on him and everything looks fine.  Whew.  Totally normal looking according to the tech and no issues.  He is weighing in at 2.5 lbs and is the perfect size for his age.  I could not have been more relieved.  It was nice after we realized nothing was wrong to get another look at our boy.  I was joking with S afterwards that if Jude could talk he would say, “Can’t a guy get any privacy around here?  Geez,” because including yesterday’s scan we have now had 6 ultrasounds and still have one more, another 3D/4D, scheduled for December, which will bring the total to 7.  I’m pretty sure most people only have 2-3 ultrasounds for a normal, non-issue, no multiples sort of pregnancy, so it has been nice to see our little dude so often.  They only gave us one picture this time though and honestly it doesn’t look like anything at all so I’m not going to bother to post it.  I think in the end S and determined that the shaking she is feeling is probably him coughing or hiccuping.  Just so glad he is ok!

3D Ultrasound

    This has been a baby filled few days around here.  My mom came into town late Wednesday night to spend a few days with us and it was great.  We went on Thursday morning with her to a 3D/4D ultrasound to see little Jude.  It was really cool, but of course he wasn’t being very cooperative and was breach, meaning his face was turned towards S’s spine and he had his hands up on his face just about the whole time.  I guess his hands are the most interesting thing in there right now.  The lady doing the ultrasound was funny, she tired really hard to get some good shots of him.  She had S lay in a few funny positions, jiggled and lightly smacked S’s belly and had her get up to do some stretches and had her eat tiny piece of chocolate.  He moved some eventually and we got 1-2 shots of his face.  There is only really one though that looks all that great in photo though.  We got a CD of the pictures, a few printed out and then a DVD of the whole thing.  The DVD is pretty cool.  Here is the best picture from it.

Isn’t he a cutie?  We have another appointment set up for the beginning of December when S’s mom will be here for our Austin baby shower.  He will be pretty big then and the ultrasound lady said that then we will get some really good shots.  Very exciting.

       While my mom was here we also did some baby shopping.  We got S some new maternity clothes and a few outfits for Jude.  We also tried to get a glider but were unsuccessful.  They are just either super ugly, uncomfortable, or $800.  I think that we are going to keep our eyes open for something used for the next few months and if nothing comes up I think we are just going to get a rocker chair from Ikea and have my mom get us the travel system instead.  Also it was annoying to go to every baby store ever pretty much and they just don’t have much cute boy stuff.  It was all so full of girl stuff, but the boy stuff was either nothing or just pastel blue sports themed or pastel blue cars and trucks.  I want a few more crib sheets and our nursery is all about bright colors and there just isn’t much of anything out there that is bright.  I think that’s weird too because babies can’t really see pastel colors, they like bright high contrast stuff anyway.  I think I’m going to have to just make my own crib skirt and possibly learn how to actually sew and make my own crib sheets.  I have a sewing machine, I just don’t know how to use it (also not sure if it works, it’s old and I’ve never looked under the case).

    Our Tulsa baby shower is only two weeks and a day away, I’m so excited!  It will be so nice to see everyone we love and have a quick weekend away.

Time to clean the kitchen.
-Liz

14 Week Bump Pic

Here it is, this week’s bump!  I think that S is really starting to show!  It looks rounder in person and feels different than a non pregnant stomach feels.  I love it!

Also, very exciting news.   S made the doctor’s appointment yesterday where if the baby cooperates, we will found out if it is a boy or a girl!  The appointment is for August 25th!  I can’t believe we will know so soon!  It STILL all feels like a dream.  I’m sure S is tired of me saying that, and I’ll probably still feel that way until the baby is 3 years old!  Or 22!  Hard to tell.  But it really does still feel just unbelievable that we are really doing this.  I just couldn’t be happier at this point.

One more pic to share with you all.  I’ve been working hard on my letters for the alphabet wall in the nursery.  I finished the W the other day, it is so cute and wrapped in yarn, pictures soon to come, I just haven’t taken any yet.  And one of our dear friends came over the other day and made her & sign (‘cause you know, x, y & z!) and it is yellow and covered in different colored buttons.  I will post some pictures of that one too.  And other people have finished theirs, I’m so excited to get them all done and hung up together!  Anyway, here is the picture of my H, isn’t it cute?  It’s made with mega blocks, which are the big size of Lego's for little kids.  I got them along with a bunch more (with a farm theme, random) at a second hand store here for $10.  I still need to glue them all together (the ones that arn’t snapped on), but I just love it.  It’s about 10-12 inches tall and 7-9 or so inches wide, so it is a pretty good size.  Next I need to start thinking about how to make the K, our last name starts with a K, so I want the K to be really big and really cool.
-Liz

12 Week Ultra Sound Pictures!

This morning S and I went in for her 12 week NT scan, where they do an ultra sound to check for a few disorders and take a few drops of blood.  Everything so far is within the normal range but we should know more in 7-10 days.  It was so exciting to do this ultra sound, the little bean actually looks like a baby now!  It was pretty amazing to see it move it's little arms and legs around and twist and just jump about!  I could hardly believe it.  I can't wait till we can do our next one, but I'm sure that won't be for another month or two.  I tried to get the tech to make a guess of boy vs. girl, but she said that she couldn't even begin to make a guess for our baby because of the quality of the picture and the position and what not.  So, sigh, I will have to wait some more.  In the meantime though, I've made a poll that's on the right side of the blog, so be sure to vote if you think boy or girl!  I'll leave you with a few pictures:

Here is the baby's profile and that thing sticking up is an arm with a wee little hand.

Here is another profile shot.

Here is a little hand and arm waving hello at you!

And then this one is my favorite, it is the little legs and feet! 

In other news, S has reached that magical 13th week and still feels crappy.  She has been going longer and longer feeling better but the last two days have been puke city for the poor thing.  She has an appointment this afternoon with the doctor and we are really hoping that they will tell her that she can stop taking the progesterone, as we think that this extra boost of hormones is what is keeping her feeling so sick.  We will see.
-Liz

Ultrasound #3 and The Baby Whisperer

Baby, baby, baby, that is all that is on my mind right now.  It was pretty amazing going to S’s doctor appointment on Monday.  Seeing the little dude on the ultrasound, and having it actually look sort of baby shaped was cool, but hearing the heart beat was amazing.  The picture that we got sent home with isn’t great, and isn’t nearly as clear as the ultrasound pictures we got from our RE, but I think you can still get the idea.  On the actual screen S and I could both tell without being told which end was the head and which end was the “rump” as they like to call it and we could see the arm and leg buds waving around.  I think we could even see a bit of a profile, but that might have been more of us seeing what we think we should be seeing rather than what was there if you know what I mean.  

In other baby news, our work on the nursery continues.  We were supposed to get it cleared out yesterday, but alas, S felt too sick and I felt too lazy to get anything done.  We did however get a new fan/light fixture and get a few paint samples to put up on the wall.  Right now we are talking about painting the room either an aqua color or a gray.  I love the idea of doing a gray, it really makes the other colors pop, but I think to pull it off, we would need to get a white crib, and S wants something cherry wood.  I think cherry wood would end up being too dark.  And if we did go the direction of a white crib, then we’d probably have to take back the cherry wood colored fan and get something white instead.  Decisions, decisions.  Here is an example of what the gray would look like, in case it sounded totally awful to you.

And lastly, I am getting more and more convinced we are having a girl.  I’ve had two dreams now about the baby and in both dreams we had a girl.  Also, my dad and his wife were visiting us this weekend (and while they were here my dad got us a 42 inch plasma TV!!) my dad told us that he thinks we are having a girl.  My dad is the baby whisperer, apparently, he correctly predicted me and both of my brother’s gender correctly (my mom was wrong all 3 times) and again he correctly predicted a co-worker’s child as well.  So maybe he is correct?  Only time will tell.

-Liz

Procrastinating

I need to be cleaning right now, but I am having a hard time getting moving today.  My dad and his wife are on their way to town for a quick over night visit.  They were in Houston for a wedding and are driving up to Austin to say hi.  I’m excited to see them, but I wish I had managed to clean the house yesterday.  I was pretty worthless yesterday.  I had a fun vodka drinking night with one of my BFFs on Friday and thus Saturday was a waste of sleeping and being lazy.

In other news, S and I both also have Monday and Tuesday off together.  S has an appointment with our new OB that we graduated to Monday morning.  They should be doing an ultrasound so I’ll get to see the little baby for the first time. I’m really excited!  Luckily the appointment is early the morning so hopefully my Dad and his wife just sleep right though it and then we can spend the day together.

On Tuesday S and I have big plans to make some headway on the nursery.  We had previously started cleaning the room out (it was a unused office before) and on Tuesday we are going to finish that task, buy a new ceiling fan/light and get a few paint samples to put on the wall.  I know it’s a bit early to really do much of anything to the room, but I’m just too excited not to.  Also, we don’t know if its going to be a boy or a girl yet, so I’m going to keep everything neutral for now.  The color I’m leaning towards right now is a light sort of aqua.  For a boy it can be paired with greens and browns and for a girl I want to pair it with corals and yellows.  Pretty either way.  Any of you other January due mamas started working on your nursery yet?
Happy Sunday!  I’d better get cleaning!
-Liz

Baby’s First Picture **Update

Isn’t she the cutest?  We love her little face already!

**We don't know the sex yet (of course not), but S has a feeling it is a girl**