Justin & Marcie

#41 - Check

2012-01-29T18:53:00.001-06:00

Number 41 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to have my sister, Lindsey Smith, take Carter’s newborn photos. I’ve been blessed with a photographer for a sister. She’ll be doing Carter’s pictures his whole life and it saves us money!! Photogs are EXPENSIVE!! Anyway, if anyone is interested in my sister’s work or using her, go to her website at www.lindseyrsmith.com or find her business, Lindsey Smith Photography, on facebook. Lindsey took so many incredible pictures and I can’t put all 60 on my blog, so I’m just going to pick my favorites to put on here. To see them all, go to my facebook page.

Absolutely LOVE all of these photos, but yes, I know I’m a little bit bias towards the subject of them

#65 and #66 - Check

2012-01-29T16:03:00.001-06:00

#65 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to re-vamp my blogs look since we’re a family of three now. I’ve wanted to do this even before Carter was born because I haven’t changed my header in FOREVER. It was well overdue. Well, if you’re reading this, you see the new header and background. I feel like it’s very “boy” since our newest addition is a boy!

#66 was to enroll Carter in Mother’s Day Out at our church. We did this last week actually. Our infant class at church only allows up to 6 infants and it was first come first serve. Our church members were given a couple of days head start over non-church members. My mother-in-law was the first person at church the day the enrollment opened to turn in our application as well as the application for the twins and we got spots 1, 2 and 3. So half of the infant class are in the Morris family. I’m so glad Carter will be in class with two of his family members. That makes me feel so much more comfortable leaving him with other kids. He’ll go on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9am-1pm. My sweet mother-in-law is our day care provider so we wanted to put him in MDO to give her a few hours twice a week to do things she wants to do so she doesn’t get burned out on taking care of him. The program starts in September and runs through May, so Carter will be 9 months old when he starts going, a great age I think!!

Carter - One Month

2012-01-28T22:28:00.001-06:00

Carter at Month 1

His next appointment at the pediatrician isn’t until February 14th, so I’m not 100% sure on weight or height, but if I had to guess on weight, I’d say he’s over 9 pounds now. For height, I think he’s about 23 inches or more (his tummy time mat has a measurement stick on it).
He’s eating 7 times a day, most of which is breastfeeding from me. Usually only one feeding is from a bottle and it’s a breastmilk bottle that daddy feeds at the middle of the night feeding. The only time we really feed him formula is if we’re out and about.
During the day, he eats about every 3 hours, sometimes shorter, sometimes slightly longer. At night he may go as long as 5 hours between feedings. Usually, mommy does the 11:30pm feeding and then daddy does the 3:30/4am feeding. This will change when daddy starts going out of town for work though…momma will be doing all feedings (a little nervous about that).
Literally, today, on his 1 month birthday, he smiled at me on purpose. Justin did some research and told me the other day that the way to get a baby to smile is to smile at them all the time until they begin to mimic your facial expressions. So I’ve been smiling at him all week and today, he smiled back at me. It was quick and I couldn’t get him to do it again and wasn’t able to get a picture. Boo.
He sleeps in a little basinet in his pack n’ play. He was originally sleeping in a small co-sleeper that attaches to our bed, but after realizing how noisy of a sleeper he is, we kicked him to the living room. His nighttime sleep and all naps with exception to one are in the pack n’ play. His late afternoon nap is done in his crib upstairs. We just started putting him in the crib this week and he doesn’t love it yet. We’re hoping he warms up to it soon.
At the beginning of month 1, Carter was sleeping around 10-12 hours a day. At the close of month one, he’s averaging from 13-14 hours a day. Much better!!
He loves to sleep in his woombie
We just started watching Baby Einstein videos during waketime and he seems to like it a lot
When he hears my voice, he gets very quiet. I definitely think he knows who I am and if he hears my voice, but can’t see me, he’ll be quiet and start looking around the room for me. At least it appears that’s what he’s doing.
I wouldn’t say he likes bathtime, but he doesn’t hate it. He doesn’t cry during his baths at all, but he doesn’t have a joyful look on his face either. I think he’s just confused.
He hasn’t realized yet that Gizmo exists. She’s licked him in the face several times but she does it so quickly that she’s gone before he notices anything..
He falls asleep pretty easily in the car, but he does it much quicker in Justin’s Jeep than in my Acura. I think it’s because the Jeep is so much louder and vibrates more. My Acura is pretty quiet.

Remember that 101 List?

2012-01-26T18:06:00.001-06:00

Back in May 2009, I made a 101 things to do in 1,001 days list. I’ve been able to knock off a good many things on that list, however, it unfortunately is not complete. Out of the 101 things on the list, I was able to complete 72 of them. Not too bad considering that some of the items I put on my list required travel and a significant portion of money and time off work (I wasn’t thinking about that factor when I made the list). Once I got pregnant, my 101 list got put on the backburner a bit and it became difficult to mark items off when we were preparing to have a baby. However, the things that I didn’t complete on the list are all still things I want to complete (with exception to a few which I removed), therefore I plan to roll them onto a new 101 list and add more realistic things as well. My original 101 list doesn’t technically expire until February 15, 2012 but given that this date is only a mere 3 weeks away and I can barely leave the house with a one month old, I doubt I’ll be marking anything off that list in the next 21 days. Therefore, I will go ahead and begin my new list. This list will have all the items I didn’t complete from the old list (minus the ones I’m not interested in anymore) as well as new items, many of which may be baby related. And this list expires on October 22, 2014. Without further ado, here is my 101 List - Part Two (items marked with an * are rolled from the previous list):

Win Bingo at work*
Go to the Grand Canyon*
Do a half-marathon*
Go to Canada*
Watch Fireproof with Justin*
Go to Niagara Falls*
Have 20 highpoints under my belt* (This used to be 30 on the old list, but that was a little too ambitious even without a small child, so I had to lower it to 20)
Get my wedding dress stored and out of my closet*
Go on an Alaskan Cruise*
Climb Mt. Washington to the summit*
See a big horn sheep up close*
Go to one church service at “The Basement”*
Go parasailing*
Serve breakfast to the homeless with the SMUMC ladies*
Go to San Francisco*
Climb Mt. Marcy in New York*
Take a roadtrip to the West*
Run the Vulcan Run again*
Buy a frame for my masters degree and display it in my office*
Go tubing down the Cahaba with our friends*
Go ice skating just for fun*
Give blood*
Introduce mountain climbing to someone who’s never done it*
Go to Rocky Mountain National Park again*
Obtain a door wreath for every holiday*
Take a couples trip to Six Flags*
Watch Justin complete a Tough Mudder Race
Run the Race for the Cure and NOT break any bones
Complete P90X again
Lose pregnancy weight
Watch Carter laugh on purpose (right now he only does it in his sleep)
Watch Carter crawl for the first time
Watch Carter walk for the first time
Teach Carter to say “momma”
Watch all previous episodes of The Big Bang Theory and get caught up to now
Get all thank you notes for Carter’s gifts written and sent out
Move Carter to sleeping all daytime naps in his room upstairs
Move Carter to sleeping nights in his room upstairs
Celebrate 5 years of marriage with Justin
Send out Carter’s birth announcements
~~Have Lindsey take Carter’s newborn pictures~~
Have Lindsey take Carter’s 6 month pictures
Have Lindsey take Carter’s 1 year pictures
Start Carter on solid foods
Take a trip to the beach with my sisters, spouses and all babies
Attempt to breastfeed for 6 full months
Take Carter to the zoo
Take Carter to an aquarium
Take Carter to the McWane Center
Get a new car
Pay off Justin’s Jeep
Sale our old house
Go to Gatlinburg again
Help host a baby shower for Tiffany and Trevor Lobdell
Meet Harper Benjamin Lobdell in May 2012
Attend one of my best friends, Ashley Matherson’s, wedding to the guy I hooked her up with
Cut my hair off
Replace the empty frames in Carter’s room with his newborn photos
Throw Carter a very memorable 1st birthday party
Throw Carter an even more memorable 2nd birthday party
NOT have another kid…and actually stick to it this time (not that we’ll never have another, just that we don’t want to have one within 1,001 days from now)
Complete Carter’s baby book, pictures and all
Give up Mexican food for lent this year
Get a rather well deserved post-baby massage
~~Re-vamp my blog’s look since we’re a family of three now~~
~~Enroll Carter in Mother’s Day Out at our church~~
Go to a Zumba class at the Hoover YMCA
Celebrate Justin’s 30th Birthday
Buy Justin a gift he’s not expecting for his 30th birthday
Celebrate my 30th Birthday
Get a canvas of one of our wedding photos to hang in our house
Get a full 8 hours of sleep again!!!
Take Carter to meet my grandparents in Moundville, AL
Take Carter to church with us
Put Carter in the nursery at church when he’s a little older
Get Carter’s immunizations…and hopefully NOT cry
Break down and finally get an I-Phone
Have Carter’s pictures made with Santa
Go to an Alabama Football game
Get an I-Pad
Go on a date with my husband, like a NICE one
Visit my friends Lillian and Craig in Nashville and meet their new baby girl Maggie
While in Nashville doing number 73, go to a church service at my old church, Cross Point to hear Pete speak
Go horseback riding at Oak Mountain
Watch the world NOT end on 12/21/12
Go to the circus
Read 30 of the 66 books of the Bible
Get Carter baptized
Go to the gym 5 days in one week
Take a day to clean my entire house top to bottom
Introduce Carter to my best friend of over 17 years, Lauren Kelly (she lives in Seattle, WA)
Introduce Carter to me and Justin’s really good friends, Bonnie and Andrew Hill (they live in Houston, TX)
Write another letter to our sponsored child in Russia and send more pictures
Go back to work from maternity leave and NOT cry all day
Make a photobook for my mom of pictures of Carter for Mother’s Day
Go ziplining again
Go off-roading with Justin in his Jeep
Go camping again
Vote for President
Go to a shooting range
Get a safe to store our important documents in our house

First Nap In The Crib

2012-01-24T19:03:00.001-06:00

Today, Carter took his very first nap in his crib. We have a two story house and his nursery is upstairs, so he’s been sleeping downstairs since we brought him home. We didn’t want him too far away from us in the beginning and not to mention, climbing up and downstairs for feedings in the middle of the night is NOT on my top 10 list of things I want to do. So he started out in a bassinet in our room until we kicked him out because he was such a loud sleeper. Now he sleeps in the living room in the pack n’ play. There’s a small insert in our pack n’ play that is at a slight incline and has a vibrating device in it. That’s where he’s been sleeping all of his naps and his nighttime sleep from Day 1. Today, when I was at the gym, Justin put him down for his nap…in his crib!!! We’ve been discussing introducing his room to him gradually since he’s so used to being downstairs, but I didn’t think we’d do it this soon. Carter really doesn’t like sleeping on a flat surface like his crib or the bottom of the pack n’ play, he prefers to sleep at an incline. Because of this, I thought introducing him to the crib would be a difficult adjustment, but apparently not.

Justin put him down in his crib for his afternoon nap and he napped for over two hours!! He did cry a little right when he was put down which is expected. Who really wants to sleep in an unfamiliar place?!?! But he stopped crying after a few minutes and fell asleep. Of course, I had to take pictures to document his first time in his crib….

And before we get attacked by all the mommas out there that read my blog, yes, we know there shouldn’t be stuffed animals in the crib. Justin said he didn’t take them out because he knew that especially in the woombie, there was no way Carter would be able to get that far to the top of the crib. But they will be taken out from now on, I promise.

Look at his sweet sleeping face. Love him!!

Our plan from here is to keep him napping in the crib for that afternoon nap and to gradually add an additional nap every few days to the crib instead of in the pack n’ play. I still don’t want him sleeping upstairs at night though. At least not until he drops the middle of the night feeding. Right now he eats at about 10/11pm and then again at 3ish before his morning feeding at 7ish. Once he drops that 3am feeding and can sleep from midnight to 6 or 7am, then I’ll start letting him sleep in his crib overnight. Hopefully this gradual schedule will get him slowly adjusted to his room!

Sleep Issues Resolved

2012-01-23T15:32:00.001-06:00

I haven’t mentioned this on the blog, mainly because I haven’t had time, but for the first few weeks of Carter’s life, he was having some SERIOUS sleep issues. Our pediatrician said he was a hyper-alert baby, meaning that he just didn’t need as much sleep as other newborns typically get. Most babies, you may have heard, will sleep anywhere from 15-20 hours a day, waking up only for diaper changes and feedings. Our little bundle of joy was barely getting 10-12 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. This was incredibly difficult on mom and dad. Carter definitely had his days and nights mixed up, a common thing in newborns. A good chunk of his sleep was coming through long naps during the day and he wasn’t sleeping well at night. On his first nights home, we were barely getting 2 hours of sleep at night.

I couldn’t take it anymore and made appointment with our pediatrician who gave us a different kind of formula to use for upset tummies (yes, I am still breastfeeding, but maybe 1 or 2 of Carter’s 8-12 feedings are formula supplement). We had been using the formula the hospital used when he slept in the nursery, but apparently that was upsetting his stomach. Once we started the new formula, we saw some improvement, though he was still having some sleep issues at night. At that appointment, the pediatrician said that if it didn’t get better in so many days to call back and he’d put in an order for an acid blocker in case Carter had reflux. Well we called back about 5 days later and got the prescription. Once we gave it to Carter with his feedings, we saw a drastic difference. The day we started the medicine, he got 16 hours of sleep. SIXTEEN!!! The next day it was 15 and has been falling in the 14-15 range since we started giving it to him. I don’t know if this actually means he has reflux or not. He shows no typical signs of reflux which is why the doc was hesitant to prescribe the medication. I don’t think he thinks that was what was going on. Justin and I don’t really think he has reflux either because he never spits up and he doesn’t always get fussy after he eats. He does sometimes, but that’s usually when he just wants more food than what he was given.

Either way, this medicine is helping him sleep much better. In addition to the medicine, we think this bad boy has made a drastic difference as well:

Everyone has heard that babies love to be swaddled really tight. It reminds them of their time when they were smashed up in the womb (I’m glad one of us enjoyed that). Well, my little one is a little Houdini and every time we try to swaddle him, he gets out. The swaddle blankets are just crap. I’ve used all my swaddle blankets as actual blankets instead of swaddling with them. The swaddle blankets that have velcro on them are better, but he can still get an arm out if he tries hard enough. Seriously my kid is so strong. Several people have commented on that including the nurse at the pediatricians office. My sister actually suggested the above contraption and even bought us this one. It’s called a Woombie. It zips bottom to top and further snaps at the top over the zipper, making it essentially like a straitjacket and impossible to get out of. It even looks like it’s choking him, but it’s not, I promise. We put this on Carter and he’ll fight it to the death for about 5 minutes, but then he’s out. We’ve also found that he can sleep in longer stretches when he’s in the woombie than when he isn’t swaddled at all. It also helps with the startle reflex. We had no idea what this was until we were told and Carter does this ALL.THE.TIME. If a baby isn’t swaddled and his arms are free, he may be dreaming about something and scare himself to where his hands jump up and hit his face or his entire body will move very quickly and it will wake him up. He literally will startle himself awake during naps and bedtime and then it would take forever to get him to go to sleep again. The tightness of the woombie prevents the startle reflex from waking them up!!! I would HIGHLY suggest this product if you are pregnant.

So the Morris household is doing much better now that we’re all getting more sleep. There’s honestly nothing better than looking at Carter when he’s asleep in my arms and see him smiling. He doesn’t have any control over his facial muscles yet, so he can’t smile when he’s awake. But when he’s dreaming a good dream, his muscles make a smile and sometimes even a laugh. Justin and I love seeing this. It’s actually very amusing, particularly the laugh because it’s so loud and we would think it would wake him up, but it doesn’t.

A few more pictures I had for the past week:

He likes sleeping on his daddy’s chest after a meal

He loves to stare at his lion that hangs from his car seat

This is how the startle reflex happens when they’re not swaddled. See that hand by his face? If he gets startled, both of his hands will jump into the air and wake him up. It doesn’t always happen, but it does more often than not.

Also, my sister did our newborn session a couple of weeks ago and she’s just now getting to do the editing for it and she sent me the following “sneak peak” picture:

CANNOT WAIT to see the rest!!! I’ll post them when I get them from her.

Carter’s First Weeks

2012-01-14T22:01:00.001-06:00

I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged actual words about how we’re all doing over here in the Morris household. The only things I’ve been able to post about are videos and pictures. Well, Justin and I are in bed, it’s 9:15pm and we’re actually waiting for Carter to wake up to get his feeding, so while I’m waiting, I figured I’d go ahead and post about a few things and put up a couple of pictures.

First off, the first several days home were VERY rough. The day we got discharged from the hospital, we found out that Carter had a heightened level of jaundice. Instead of keeping him in the hospital, they sent us home with a nurse from a company that provides in home photo therapy for jaundice for newborns. The second we got home the nurse met us at the house.

This is Carter on his way home. Carter was born with VERY long nails and he managed to scratch up his face significantly before we ever even got discharged, as you can tell by this picture.

So when the nurse met us at home, she gave us a little contraption to put in Carter’s bed. It was like a baby tanning bed. The lights helped to knock out the jaundice so he had to lay in this “baby tanning bed” all day and night and the only time he could come out of it was during feedings, diaper changes, or baths. This meant that anytime he was upset and crying, we couldn’t take him out to console him. We were supposed to just leave him there. Like I said, worst four days of my life. This is what the “baby tanning bed” looked like:

The little outfit he’s wearing is actually attached to the bed and he is in this contraption with a diaper on only so that the lights are hitting directly onto his skin. This also meant that he woke up SWEATING during the night. I really just wish they would have kept us at the hospital. Even if I was discharged and he wasn’t….I’d rather him be comfortable than have to deal with that! But after four days, his jaundice numbers went down and we were finally able to have the nurses get that ridiculous bed out of our home so our baby boy could sleep in his own bed.

I truly believe that the intenseness of Carter’s experience in his last day in the hospital (his newborn screening, multiple blood tests for jaundice AND his circumcision were all done on the day of discharge instead of being spread out like they should have been) on top of four days on this horrible light device affected his sleeping. Carter hasn’t been the best sleeper the past two weeks, but it’s something we’re trying to work through now and we’re getting much better. Previously, Carter would only sleep anywhere from 10-12 hours a day when he should be sleeping more like 15-18, like most newborns. Justin and I even decided to feed him formula at his night feedings because he slept more hours off of formula than he would off of breastmilk.

We had to call our pediatrician to make an appointment to talk to him about the lack of sleep Carter was having. He gave us a different kind of formula to try which we are using now and it seems to be working incredibly! I am still breastfeeding during the day though and pumping when Carter gets formula at night. At 2 1/2 weeks, Carter feeds about 8-10 feedings a day, he has about 6-8 wet diapers and 4-6 poopy diapers a day, and we’re working our way up into the 13 and 14 hours of sleep a day range. This week I started a strict feed, wake, sleep schedule that Babywise and my pediatrician suggested and so far it’s working out for us. We’re having issues getting to sleep after waketime though. I’ve gotten to where I put him down and he’ll cry but I just walk away and let him cry it out. Usually after about 5-10 minutes, he’s fast asleep.

As far as weight goes, I was so worried about whether or not he was getting enough milk from me when I was breastfeeding because unfortunately, you can’t measure how much he’s getting like you can when you feed formula. So on Monday the 9th, Justin and I took him to the lactation department of Saint Vincent’s to have him weighed to see if he had gone back up to his birth weight. Carter was born at 7lbs, 11oz. When we were discharged, he went down to 7lbs, 4oz. This is completely normal, however. When the nurses came to our house daily to check his jaundice levels, they also weighed him. He stayed at 7lbs, 4oz for the first 3 of those four days. Finally on the 4th day, he was up to 7lbs, 4.5oz. A very small increase, but an increase nonetheless. When we went to lactation on the 9th, he weighed 8lbs, 1oz. I was so excited!!! Not only had he gone back up to his original birth weight, but he had surpassed it, which meant he was getting plenty of milk from momma!! Wednesday the 11th was the day we went to the pediatrician and he also weighed him and at that appointment he weighed 8lbs, 6oz. Holy cow! He gained 5oz in just two days!! We may have a little porker on our hands!

So basically, at 2 1/2 weeks, we’re doing much better than we were at 1 1/2 weeks. He’s learned to fall asleep at the right times, even though every now and again he’ll give us a hard time and won’t go back down once we give him a night feeding. On average, Justin and I get probably 5-6 hours of sleep broken up into three different increments. This sounds bad, but it is much better than the 1 hour and 45 minutes of sleep we got the first week. Also, Carter was originally sleeping in a co-sleeper that attaches to our bed, however, after a week of sleeping in the same room, mom and dad decided that little man needed to be kicked to the living room. Our son makes SO MUCH NOISE when he sleeps. He sleeps just fine, but during his sleep he grunts, snorts, snores and makes all kinds of noises. This keeps me and Justin awake even though Carter is technically sleeping soundly. So he now sleeps in a bassinet that goes in his pack n’ play in the living room. We have a video monitor on him so we can hear and see him whenever we want.

Another interesting tidbit, when Carter sleeps, if he is having a good dream, he will smile. I LOVE LOVE LOVE seeing this smile. On even rarer occasions, he will literally laugh out loud. Seeing the corners of his mouth raise that much to see him laugh when he is completely unconscious makes my heart melt. It makes me feel like he’s happy. I haven’t been able to get a picture of this, but when we did his newborn photos with Lindsey in Tuscaloosa, she was able to get a GREAT picture of this laugh while he was sleeping during the shoot. I can’t wait to see this picture when she’s done editing!!

Ok so that’s about what’s going on with us. Here’s a few more pictures of Carter’s first two weeks. I wish I had more, but I can’t even explain that my time is not my own. I’m so busy watching Carter and playing slave to his feed, wake, sleep schedule, that I rarely have time to take pictures. I have to get better at that!

I actually didn’t take this picture. I think that either my mother or my sister did when they came over one day.

This is one of Carter’s waketime activities. He usually does this midmorning when mommy takes a shower and dries her hair and gets ready for the day, hence why it’s in the bathroom floor.

As much as I wish I could say this was his first bath, it wasn’t. It was more like his third. I actually didn’t even give him his first bath. Justin and his mom did. I was napping when they did that and I wasn’t able to get a picture.

Loving bathtime with daddy

The question we probably get the most is how is the Giz taking it all. Well, she’s taking it pretty well actually. At first she was really confused as to what Carter was and how long he was planning on staying with us. But I think she’s realized that he’s here for good. She always comes running to him when she hears him cry and sometimes she’ll even cry when he cries. She’s very protective.

So that’s where we’re at right now. Please pray for Carter to continue learning how to fall asleep on his own and how to stay asleep for mom and dad’s sanity. Also, pray for our patience as well. I know we’re not the only parents out there that struggle with the lack of sleep and late nights when a baby won’t go down to sleep, so we need patience on our side.

And here’s our family Christmas picture to end this post:

Oh and a fun side note for me….I’ve lost 26 pounds in 2 1/2 weeks. I feel so much better!! Only 10 pounds of pregnancy weight left, but I really want to lose 14-16 more. Once I hit three weeks post partum, which is next Wednesday, I plan to steadily increase my activity. I will start off with just walking around the neighborhood or at the gym and then build up to elliptical and stair master use until I can finally start running and doing P90X routines at 6 weeks. Hopefully the 14 will drop off before I know it!

Carter’s Photo Birth Video

2012-01-12T20:09:00.001-06:00

Like I mentioned before, my sister put together this incredible collection of Carter’s birth photos set to music. Enjoy!!!

Video By: Lindsey Smith Photography

www.lindseyrsmith.com

Labor & Delivery Pictures

2012-01-12T17:52:00.001-06:00

As promised, here are many of the labor and delivery pictures that my sister took. She also did an incredible slideshow telling the story of the birth through these pictures and I’ll post that slideshow in another blogpost, but for now, here’s some of the labor and delivery pictures.

This is a book my sister gave me. Sweetest book ever and made everyone that read it cry!

My two sisters (the one on the left is the one that took all these pictures)

The headlines on his birthday

Everyone in the family was guessing weight, height and time of birth. Justin’s dad won the height, his mom won the weight and Justin won the time. Clearly my side of the family sucks at estimating things!!

It was time to start pushing so we were saying goodbye to the family one at a time.

This is Justin’s dad, Gordon, and it was taken when he got the picture text to the right from Justin once Carter was born.

This is Justin’s grandparents when they saw Carter’s picture

He literally came out of the womb with those eyes WIDE open. Our pediatrician has since referred to him as “hyper-alert” because he’s afraid to close his eyes since he may miss something. Very nosey and always looking around at his surroundings.

First family photo

Our pastor, Don Cross, gathered everyone around me and Carter and said a prayer for Carter and for our family. It was so incredibly sweet.

Love those sweet and precious little feet!!

Lindsey actually didn’t take these next several pictures because she wasn’t in the room when Carter was born, it was just me and Justin. Justin took a couple and then the nurse grabbed the camera and took some of us all.

There you have it. Those are some of the fabulous pictures my sister took. If you’re looking to book someone to do a newborn shoot or a birth video of pictures, call her!!!

www.lindseyrsmith.com

See my next post for the video she did of these pictures that was set to music. So sweet!!

Labor & Delivery

2012-01-03T13:01:00.001-06:00

**Literally started writing this blog post on 12/29. That’s how much my time is not my own these days**

Just an FYI, this will probably be a long post. I want to document everything that happened during labor and delivery, which is shocking because part of me wants to forget all of it! It all started when we came into the hospital to be induced at 8pm on December 27th. Up to this point, I had only been dilated 1cm and was only 50% effaced. Since my due date was the 27th and it was clear I was going to go past that, we decided to induce. Justin and I checked into the hospital at 8pm and were put in room 337. Once there, my nurse for that night, Tina, did all of my admission paperwork, checked to see if I was still 1cm (I was) and started my IV fluids. After all that, she inserted the Cytotec pill that was supposed to further dilate me. She only inserted a portion of the pill and said that she’d come back at 1am to check me to see if I had dilated more. I watched a little Grey’s Anatomy on my computer and then at 11pm, finally asked for an Ambien to help me sleep. At 1am, she came back to check me, but I was not dilated anymore so she gave me the second dose.

At 5:30am, I was put on the pitocin drip. And it worked! The contractions that were happening weren’t incredibly painful just yet, but very uncomfortable. Justin was constantly staring at the contractions monitor seeing exactly how intense they were getting and how far apart they were. At 6:40am, the on call doctor came in and broke my water. It wasn’t as painful as I thought it was going to be. Don’t get me wrong, it hurt, but it was quick. STRANGEST FEELING EVER!!! To feel that much fluid exit your body….so weird. When the doc broke my water, she also inserted a monitor directly into my uterus to monitor my contractions so that they were more accurate than the ones that were monitored on top of my stomach. I was 3cm when my water was broken. Once my water was broken, they gave me a drug called Nubain. This stuff was FABULOUS! I couldn’t feel a thing! At 7am the next shift of nurses began and I lost Tina and gained Lindsey. LOVE LOVE LOVE Lindsey. She was incredible. Justin went down to the cafeteria to get breakfast because I was only able to eat ice chips. The night before, I had a pop-tart at 10:45pm and that was all I had until after I delivered Carter. That was DIFFICULT!

At 8:30am I got my epidural, which also wasn’t as bad as people make it out to be. They numb your back first so really the only thing that hurts is the initial stick that numbs the spine. It felt like any other shot to me except that it did go a little deeper, but it still wasn’t bad. I got a VERY VERY VERY bad case of “the shakes”. This was a side effect of the epidural that no one mentioned to me. My entire body was shaking uncontrollably and there was nothing I could do about it. Everyone that looked at me thought I was cold, but really it was just the medicine. Once I had the epidural, I also got my catheter since I wouldn’t be leaving the bed anytime soon. At 8:50am, I was 4cm. At 10am I was 5cm. At 10:50am I was 6cm. And then I stalled. I stayed at 6cm for almost 3 hours. Lindsey (nurse) said that at St. Vincent’s, if you stall out for 3 hours, they’ll usually just go ahead and do a section because if you were going to further dilate, you would have done it in a 3 hour period. In a last attempt to get me to further dilate, Lindsey cut down the pitocin drip and planned to kick it back up. She said that sometimes will jump start the contractions forcing dilation to continue. Once she decreased the pitocin, Justin and his mom stared at the monitor the rest of the time, hoping for big numbers when contractions began again. Fortunately, the numbers got much bigger indicating that the contractions were stronger, but we wouldn’t know for sure until they checked me again. At that point, my doctor came in to check on me and Lindsey told him about the stall out. He checked me and to my surprise, he said that I was 8cm and 100% effaced. Shortly after that, Lindsey checked me again and I was 9 1/2 cm so she told me that in 15 minutes I would start pushing. So Justin and I began saying goodbye to all the family members that were there and sent them to the waiting room so that I could begin pushing.

At 3pm I started pushing. At this point, I had been in labor for 10 hours and was already exhausted. I’ve heard stories about how tiring pushing really is. I know people that have fallen asleep during the process. In my mind I always thought “how the heck do you fall asleep during something like that?”. I know now. Basically I pushed three times during every contraction. After an hour and 15 minutes of pushing, Lindsey started to get worried that Carter wasn’t going to be able to get past my pelvic bone so she called down my doctor to have him take a look to see if they could get Carter out using forceps or if I’d have to go back for a c-section. The doc got there and said he thought he could get him out with the assistance of forceps. If you don’t know what forceps are…..here you go:

Use your imagination.

Once he tried to use the forceps, he realized why Carter wasn’t coming out on his own with just my pushing. The umbilical cord was tied tightly around his ankle and was keeping him from descending past the pelvic bone because every time I pushed, he would come further down, but the the cord around his ankle pulled him back. I never even had a shot at getting him out without intervention from the beginning. It was almost devastating to realize that I pushed for over an hour and a half when I should have just had a c-section from the beginning. However, my doc thought that he would be able to get him out without going to c-section, but only if he cut me. A 4th degree cut mind you. I had no idea what a 4th degree cut was until after I delivered Carter. Apparently it’s the worst cut you can get. I choose not to describe it on this blog. Feel free to google on your own. So moving on. After cutting me, I kept trying to push and to no avail. The doc gave me one more contraction to push and he said that if I couldn’t get him out after the three pushes in that contraction, that I would be taken back for a c-section. Imagine my thought process at that point. I had just pushed like crazy for almost two hours, gotten cut up apparently the worst you can get cut up and now I was about to have to go back for a c-section???? Kill me now please.

So I had three more pushes to get him out. Nothing on the first. Nothing on the second. The doctor said “ok Marcie, this is our last shot”. Carter made his entrance on the third push. I didn’t hear him cry initially, but I knew he was out because I heard the nurse yell “16:45”. So I knew he was born at exactly 4:45pm. Then I heard his sweet cry. I was uncontrollably BAWLING at this point. I will put up pictures of when I held him for the first time in another post once my sister is done editing them and making them all pretty.

Now at this point I had developed a VERY bad case of “the shakes” due to the epidural. I was also ABSOLUTELY FREEZING. The nurse had to warm up three blankets for me to put them all over me. I couldn’t even hold Carter I was so cold. I had to wait until some blankets were put on me to warm me up. Turns out, my blood pressure had dropped to 65/43 and I had lost A LOT of blood. Justin texted our families that were in the waiting room to let them know Carter was here and I know they all wanted to come back as soon as they knew we were done, but I told Justin no. I was still in recovery even though I hadn’t had a c-section. My blood pressure had plummeted and I was so delirious that I couldn’t even hold my own son and I was not ok with anyone else holding him before me. It took two hours before I was back to somewhat normal and allowed our families back in the room. I feel so bad. They waited for 4 hours in the waiting room. But the look on all of their faces was priceless. Justin got a video of everyone seeing him for the first time. First, my sister Lindsey came back by herself to get some pictures of Carter. I wanted her in there first so that she could also get pictures of everyone else’s reactions when they came in to see Carter. She’s working on editing those pictures now and actually sent me a text yesterday saying to “get the kleenex ready”. She said they would probably be ready around Friday, so I’ll share as soon as I get them.

So that’s my labor and delivery story. Hope it’s not too scary for those of you that are pregnant or are planning on becoming pregnant. I’m totally fine now, but it has been a long week of recovery. It’s very difficult to come home from the hospital with a newborn that needs your constant care and attention yet at the same time, you have to take care of yourself as well. I have no idea how single mothers do it. I can’t imagine this past week without Justin’s help. He’s been amazing with Carter and amazing helping me heal as well. I’ll post more about Carter now that he’s a week old in another post. This post took me 5 days to write. Hopefully the next won’t be like that!!

Introducing…

2011-12-29T01:49:00.001-06:00

Carter Gordon Morris

December 28, 2011 at 4:45pm

7lbs, 11oz

20 1/2 inches

He is perfect in every way. He opens his eyes all the time. He loves to hear people’s voices, but he particularly loves to hear his momma’s voice and doesn’t really like being too far away from her (and I absolutely love that about him). He has barely cried since he was born. He feeds incredibly well, usually latching on within the first two tries. He doesn’t mind being passed around from person to person. Within 5 hours from birth, he had the following songs sung to him:

Baby Got Back
Red Solo Cup
I’m Sexy and I Know It
Ice Ice Baby
Happy Birthday

Again, he doesn’t really care what he’s hearing so much, but just LOVES to hear people talk. He met the following people on his birthday:

Mommy and Daddy
Nana and Grandpa Gordon (Justin’s parents and Carter’s namesake)
Gigi (my mom)
Pops (my dad)
Cici (my sister Lindsey)
Aunt Jen, both of them (both my sister and Justin’s sister are named Jennifer)
Great grandma and grandpa Skelton (Justin’s grandparents)
Don Cross (our pastor at St. Mark UMC)
Miss Lindsey (my bff of 17 years, Lindsey Owens)

I had a VERY EASY labor and a VERY HARD delivery. I’ll go into more detail on that later. Of course, my precious boy was worth every painful moment, but needless to say, momma could use some prayers for healing. I’ve heard people say that having a child is like your heart walking around outside your body. You have no idea how true that is. I didn’t think I could love another man as much as I love my husband (who by the way, deserves MAJOR props for his part in delivery), but my son is a close second. God created me specifically for these two men. They are my world and I thank God for them both. We’re a family now and I couldn’t be happier. I’ll update tomorrow on Day 2 with little man, but figured this was enough for now. I wanted to write some of this down before I lose these memories. Lindsey Owens was the only non-family member (though really after 17 years of friendship, she’s pretty much my 3rd sister) that I wanted at the hospital tonight since my delivery was so difficult and I was in a lot of pain still, so I’m waiting until tomorrow (Thursday) for all of our friends to come see him. I can’t wait for him to meet all the people that will have such an influence on his precious life.

My Big Fat Belly - Friggin 40 Weeks

2011-12-27T12:55:00.001-06:00

I can’t believe I made it this far. I truly thought that I would have not only had Carter by now, but that he’d be at home with us. But we’re not too far from that!! My 40 week appointment was today and again, I had not progressed at all from what I’ve been since week 36. So, they decided to admit me tonight. Justin and I will have our bags ready and head to the hospital at 8pm to “check in”. I love how they say “check in” when referring to going to the hospital. It’s certainly not a hotel. What a strange way to word it!

Anyway, around 9pm they’ll start my first dose of Cytotec. Depending on how that starts my contractions/progresses me, I’ll get another small dose at 1am. Hopefully by 8am, I will be induced enough to have the doctor break my water. If not, they’ll put me on Pitocin to speed things up to where they can break my water. My doctor said that that chances of having a c-section have now increased since I’m having to induce, but I kind of knew that was coming. You run that risk with forcing a baby to come out instead of waiting for them to come on their own. Problem with leaving them in there longer is that it’s not safe for the baby. As comfy as they are, at some point, they’re going to have their first bowel movement called meconium. If Carter does this while he’s still in my uterus, they’ll have to do an emergency c-section to get him out so that he doesn’t inhale the amniotic fluid that has his poop in it. There are several other reasons why docs don’t like babies going past 40 weeks, but as far as I know, that is one of the biggies. Doc did say, however, that he won’t do a c-section just to do one (a lot of doctors get impatient and just opt for c-section to move things along). He’s going to try to make it to where I can give birth vaginally, he just wanted me to know that if Carter still isn’t making his way on his own, we may have no choice.

Either way, our sweet little boy will be here tomorrow, December 28th. There is still a small chance that he could be born today, like if the Cytotec works REALLY well on me. However, that’s highly unlikely. As of this morning, I’m up to 36 pounds. Bummer. I really didn’t want to go over 35. However, had Carter actually come at a decent time instead of choosing to stay put for the entire 40 weeks, I know I wouldn’t have gained that much. I don’t even care anymore. I’m just so ready to meet him. To see what he looks like, to see if he recognizes me and my voice and how he’ll react when he sees me. So I guess my next post will be announcing his birth!!! Thanks to all my fun readers for still following my blog when it became nothing but pregnancy related crap. It’s hard to talk about anything else when that’s all that’s going on with you!

40 Weeks exactly – is it even remotely possible to get any bigger than this???

New House Pictures….Finally

2011-12-27T09:14:00.001-06:00

Yes, it is almost 2012 and we moved into our house in August 2011. It’s been 4 months and I still haven’t put up pictures of our new house. What a better time to do it though than when it’s decorated for Christmas!!! Here’s the pics of our new home!!!

Living Room

Kitchen

More kitchen

Dining Room…with the Giz

View of the living room from the kitchen

Master bedroom. We LOVE all the windows. It was supposed to only be two windows, but we added a third and put them all together. The Giz absolutely loves looking out these window into our backyard!

View of bedroom into bathroom

I love our shower!!! Our whole bathroom rocks!!!

I take NIGHTLY baths in this bad boy

Bathroom into closet

Also love the size of our closet. MUCH bigger than what we had before!

This is the spare bathroom downstairs. It’s connects to the hallway by the dining room and to Justin’s “Man Room”

The “Man Room”

More Man Room

I love that the laundry room connects to the closet. Another revision we did when we had plan review to build the house. Justin refers to this as my room, since he has a man room. It’s kind of amusing given that he does more laundry than I do!

View of the stairs/dining room/laundry room from the man room

The upstairs playroom in between Carter’s room and the upstairs spare bedroom

The upstairs bathroom in the playroom

Upstairs spare bedroom. There’s not a lot going on in this room or the playroom because we just didn’t have the money and time to decorate these two rooms. They aren’t priority right now so we just put enough furniture in them to get by.

And now for the big NURSERY REVEAL!!!

One of his newborn photos will go in the gigantic frame above the crib. I love this frame!!! Props also to my sister Lindsey who painted Carter’s letters for me! Her husband and Justin hung all the things in the nursery after my mom’s side of the family celebrated Christmas at my house (last night). So yeah, nursery has just now been finished…talk about waiting until the last minute!!

The crib does have a bumper that goes with it, but I took it off for now because of the risk of SIDS. Yes, the animals will come out as well when Carter eventually starts sleeping in it.

So that’s our new home!!! There’s still a few updates and decorating that needs to be done but with a baby on the way, we just didn’t have the time or money to do it all the way we wanted to just yet. As for where we’re at on the arrival of our baby boy, our doctor appointment (MY 40 WEEK APPOINTMENT – YES, I am unfortunately one of the small percentage of people that is going to go over my due date) is today at 10am. If I haven’t progressed past 1cm and 50% effaced, the doc wants to admit me to the hospital tonight to start me on a cervical ripening drug (either Cytotec or Cervidil, not sure which yet) that will work over night to thin me out more and dilate me more so that he can break my water Wednesday morning and hopefully I’ll be holding Carter by the end of the day tomorrow. Please keep myself, Justin and Carter in your prayers. The question I’ve been getting the most of lately is “are you nervous or scared about giving birth?”. I can’t really explain it, but no. I just want him here so badly that I am willing to do anything to get him out. If I have to do it naturally, so be it. I just want him here. “I can do anything for one day”. That’s a quote from the teacher of our childbirth class and I just love it!

False Alarm

2011-12-23T18:06:00.001-06:00

So yesterday we had a small false alarm. Last night after dinner, I went to the gym while Justin went to Yarbrough’s house to hang out and watch the football game with the boys. I’m so tired of being pregnant, so I figured I’d step it up a notch at the gym. I normally just walk about 2-3 miles. Last night, however, I walked about 2 miles, did 100 squats, 50 wall push-ups, and spent about 15 minutes on the treadmill on a 5.0 incline. Clearly my normal workout routine was not encouraging enough for Carter to come out so that’s why I chose to step it up.

When I got home I started to run a bubble bath and went to the restroom while I was doing that. In the middle of using the bathroom, I thought my water broke. I’ve heard stories about women who’s water breaks either while they’re on the toilet or in the shower. It’s the absolute worst time for it to break because it leads mom to not have a clue if it actually broke or not. For those of you that may not know, if your water breaks, the baby has to be delivered within 24 hours because the lack of amniotic fluid in the uterus can lead to infection for baby. So basically, even if you “think” your water broke, you need to call your doctor.

Well, I still wasn’t so sure, so I just waited it out for a while to see if I’d start having contractions or not. Never felt anything, then Justin got home around 10pm. About 30 minutes after he got home, I finally told him that I think my water may have broken, but that I wasn’t sure since I was using the bathroom when it happened. Naturally, he went into research mode and started googling any and every thing about water breaking on the toilet to see what everyone was saying. After about 2 hours of “research” he told me he really wanted me to call the doctor. At this point, it was 12am. I knew that if I called, they’d want us to come in, which I wasn’t looking forward to because if my water hadn’t broken, they’d just run tests to prove that and then pack us up an send us back home babyless.

When I called, the nurse said to come in immediately to be checked to see. So we packed up the suitcase and everything we needed for the hospital stay and put it in the car to head to labor & delivery. Also, pretty much immediately after I got off the phone with the nurse, I started having PAINFUL contractions that were about 6 minutes apart. Justin was actually the one doing everything because I couldn’t pack up the bag and get the other items to take to the car because the contractions hurt so badly. However, the minute we finally made it into the car and out of the neighborhood, the contractions slowed and died down to mild cramping. I was immediately pissed because this is the SECOND time I’ve had bad contractions very close together and once I finally make a decision to call or to do something about it, they die down and go away. My body is confusing the crap out of me right now.

Anyway, we got to labor & delivery and they took me to a room where they used a pH strip to see if I was leaking any fluid. If I was, the strip would have turned blue. However, my strip didn’t turn blue indicating that I was in fact NOT leaking fluid. The nurse wanted to check my cervix to see how dilated I was and guess what?? She said that I haven’t made much progress since being 1cm. I don’t know how much progress was made, but I can’t imagine it being over 1 1/2 cm. She also said that baby boy is actually still very high in my stomach, indicating that he hasn’t even dropped yet. She then strapped two monitors onto my belly (like my stress test I talked about already). I was honestly thinking they would only monitor me and baby for about 30 minutes like they did last time, but this time she said they wanted to monitor for “a couple of hours”. As soon as she said that I freaked out. It was already after 1am at this time!!! And I knew they weren’t going to keep me so I honestly just wanted to go home. But I couldn’t so I had to stay and be monitored. Carter is completely fine and I was having contractions, they’re just not where they should be to be in labor (not close enough together and not intense enough).

Finally at 3:15am, we were able to leave the hospital to come home. I immediately took a Tylenol PM and went straight to sleep, not waking up until 10am this morning, quite the rarity for me!! So lesson learned….I will NOT call the doctor or go in unless I am 100% undoubtedly in labor. I refuse to go up there again to get my hopes up for being admitted just to be sent home. So here I am, at 39 weeks 3 days and still pregnant. It’s so frustrating to see people in my newsfeed on facebook who aren’t due until January already giving birth. Why isn’t that happening to me?!?! Why do I have to be one of the small handful of people I know that will most likely go over my due date? Certain family members and friends are all still texting me saying that there’s still a shot he’ll be born before or at least on Christmas. Honestly, I don’t think he will be at this point. I’m fully expecting to go to that doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, be admitted Tuesday night and be put on Cytotec and then be induced Wednesday the 28th. I will obviously be pleasantly surprised if that isn’t the case, but in my mind, I’m thinking that is what will happen. I have to remind myself that God has a plan and that He already knows exactly when Carter will arrive and that there’s a reason he hasn’t been born yet. I have no idea when he will come, but I trust that the Lord knows what’s best for our family and will provide him when He’s ready for him to be here.

But on that note, let me add something to this. I’ve made a post before about Pregnancy Faux Pas. In addition to the things I added to that list (a listing of things you shouldn’t do or say to pregnant women), let me add these tid-bits:

When you know a pregnant woman that is quickly approaching her due date and hasn’t had the baby yet, DO NOT come up to her and say “Wow when are you gonna have that baby??”. TRUST ME PEOPLE, IF I HAD CONTROL OVER IT, HE WOULD BE HERE BY NOW!!!! This kind of comment is only a reminder that I thought I would have given birth at this point and haven’t. And particularly at a holiday of such importance as Christmas, where all I really wanted for Christmas was to have my son here with us, this kind of comment has the potential to send me running to the bathroom in tears. Thanks for the reminder.
Do not make the idiotic mistake of thinking that just because I may actually go full term in this pregnancy or even past my due date, that it in turn means that I will have a 9 pound baby. I am SO FREAKING SICK of people telling me I’m going to have a 9 pound baby. Let me explain why this comment is rude. First off, with a 9 pound baby, there’s a high likelihood that you won’t be able to deliver vaginally and will have to have a c-section. Why would you wish that on me?? And even if you thought that, why the hell would you tell me that? Keep it to yourself!!! Secondly, even if you would be able to have the baby vaginally, chances are, you’re going to have significant tearing in your hoo ha and it will never be the same. Again, you telling me you think I will have a 9 pound baby is like telling me that this will happen to me. Keep your freaking mouth shut if you can’t give me encouraging words at this point in my pregnancy!!
“Well honey have you tried walking to start labor?”. No. I haven’t even though about it! Really? Walking induces labor? Wow, I had no idea. YES I HAVE FREAKING TRIED WALKING!! I have tried everything!!! This one doesn’t bother me as much as the other two because I know people are just trying to give suggestions, but I assure you, any woman past week 37 has done research on natural ways to induce labor such as walking, exercise, caster oil, pineapples, full moons, etc. Justin and I have tried everything. And our doctor said that none of that stuff is medically proven to to help induce labor. Anyone that says that any of it sent them into labor is just stating what they did last before their water broke or their contractions began. If I was at work when my water broke, I could say writing financial statements will send you into labor. Get it? Anyway, particularly the exercise part isn’t working on us and I think it’s because I’ve been active this entire pregnancy. I’ve walked anywhere from 5-12 miles a week almost every week that I’ve been pregnant so Carter isn’t feeling anything that he hasn’t felt already, therefore he isn’t really uncomfortable and wanting to evacuate because of it.

I hate sounding so mean when I say these things, but seriously people, be careful how you talk to pregnant women. We are going through more than you could ever imagine (for those that haven’t been pregnant before) and you have no idea what it does to our bodies and our emotions. I am over the moon grateful to God for blessing Justin and I with Carter when I know so many people that aren’t able to get pregnant at all or that are having miscarriages. My complaints are nothing compared to dealing with that, so I assure you, I do have perspective. The point of adding these rants on the blog (other than the fact that I really just need to vent) is to inform people of the things that are considered rude. Some people aren’t aware that what they’re saying to pregnant women can be misconstrued as hurtful and that’s mainly because of ignorance on the topic of pregnancy. So I just wanted to inform any readers I may have out there of these soft spots. Please keep praying for me and Carter and that he’ll make his debut soon and that I WON’T have to have a c-section to get him out. I hope everyone has a blessed Christmas with your families and loved ones!

Another Disappointing Doctor Appointment

2011-12-19T13:49:00.001-06:00

I’m going to make this brief because I am exhausted from getting no sleep last night and the fact that I have been crying uncontrollably today is making me more tired, so I am about to head to the couch to watch movies and do absolutely nothing all day. I sent an email today to some family and close friends giving an update on the doctor appointment so I’m just copying from that email so I don’t have to rehash it all again. Several people called and texted me during the appointment and I either didn’t respond or I was very short in saying I didn’t want to talk and for people not to call me. So this was my follow up email to that:

I’ll give you all an update on what happened at the doc today. For those of you that I texted or even didn’t respond to a text, I apologize for being short. I was devastated and really just didn’t want to talk to anyone. We’re back at home now and I’ve calmed down a little bit so here’s the full gist of what the doc said:

First, I’m still not progressed from what I have been the past three weeks. Frustrating. Doc said my body is really not ready to be induced and he doesn’t really want to yet. So he told me to schedule an appointment for next week. He is out on Monday so I scheduled it for Tuesday at 10am.

Second, since my actual due date is next Tuesday and I’ll be 40 weeks then, he will check me again and if I’m still sitting in the same spot I am now (1cm and 50%) then he’ll admit me that evening and start me on cytotec (a pill they have to put in the hoo ha for it to work – not looking forward to that). They’ll check me every few hours and if I have to be put on Pitocin I’ll be put on Pitocin, but some people have gone into labor just off cytotec and never needed Pitocin, so it just depends on what works for me, or Carter I should say.

Finally, they had me do a non-stress test today, which was unexpected. The nurse asked me if he was still moving all the time and I told her I felt him move while we were in the waiting room, but that overall, he doesn’t move all that much anymore. The only reason I’d never brought that up in previous appointments is because I was under the impression that as he we get closer to the due date, movements are supposed to slow down because there’s just nowhere for him to go. She talked to my doctor and they wanted to send me to ultrasound to do a non-stress test (we didn’t get an ultrasound though). They put me in a recliner in a room and strapped two monitors around my stomach and monitored his heart rate and my contractions (I had none – shocker). I had to press a button anytime I felt him move. The test was to see if his heart rate went up as he moved around because it should be (just like our heart rates jump when we move or do activity). If it wasn’t, it could indicate that he isn’t getting enough blood through the umbilical cord or enough oxygen, in which case they would have done an emergency c-section. I was hooked up to the monitor for about 6 minutes of him not moving so they brought me some Mountain Dew to drink. It was still another 5 or so minutes before the MD kicked in and he started moving like crazy. His heart rate increased each time he moved so the test indicated that he’s perfectly fine (and unfortunately completely content in my stomach).

So basically, worst case scenario, he’ll be here next Wednesday, the 28^th. I’m still praying he comes on his own before then, but he is just really not showing any sign at all of wanting to leave my stomach. Sorry I didn’t text or respond to some of your phone calls. I didn’t even make it off of the exam table once the doctor left the room before I was uncontrollably crying. For those of you that haven’t been pregnant or haven’t been pregnant this long, I know it’s hard to understand why I’m so upset about this. I have never been more uncomfortable/in pain in my life and it’s not a pain that comes and go in waves, but this kind of pain has yet to leave my body in the past 4 weeks. I have gotten to where I literally can’t sleep more than 2 hours a night. I’m exhausted, I’m cranky, I’m hurting everywhere….and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. And that’s really hard to handle. On top of everything, I was so desperate for him to be here before Christmas and now that there’s a good chance he may not be, it’s kind of ruined my holiday. I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow, right now it’s all still fresh and I’m still upset, so please don’t be mad if I didn’t respond to you. I’m laying on the couch all day today and will probably just turn my phone off. Love all of you to death, and thanks so much for calling/texting and checking on me. Please just pray for me and for Carter. I know God has perfect timing and I promise I’m doing my best to remember that.

Marcie

So there you have it. That’s what happened today. Unless Carter decides to come on his own, I’ll be pregnant for over a week. Yes, I know that to some of you, that sounds like not that long of a time. But if you’ve ever been pregnant, you know how awful the last leg of it is and how even one more day is excruciating, much less 8 more days. Just pray for us. Either that Carter comes on his own before then or then or that I become more comfortable, either prayer is fine with me. I’ll take anything!

My Big Fat Belly - 38 Weeks

2011-12-14T13:11:00.001-06:00

Yes, another week has passed and yes, I am still pregnant. This sucks. And it sucks bad. I am so uncomfortable. A lot of pregnant women talk about when that week is that they begin to be so miserable that they aren’t sure they can make it another week being pregnant and they get really emotional and cry frequently. That’s week 38 for me. The first time I cried was Monday when I got to work. Luckily, no one at work saw me. I closed my door and blinds so that no one could see. I just called Justin and let it all out. I was so uncomfortable and I’m not getting any sleep anymore. I get a good 3 hours and that’s about it. Part of it is due to the constant need to pee and the other part is due to my sciatic nerve that runs down my back and into my thigh. That nerve causes whatever side I’m sleeping on at the moment to become numb to where it wakes me up and I have to switch sides. This happens about every hour and a half when I sleep which means I do nothing but toss and turn and pee….all night long. And then have to go to work the next day. It’s getting unbearable.

Anyway, I had my 38 week appointment today and got the disappointing news that I am STILL 1cm and 50% effaced. I was so sure I would have progressed because I’ve been having so many pains the past several days. Whether they’re cramps, braxton hicks or just pressure as Carter was moving further down into my pelvis, I wasn’t sure. But I knew that pain = something was happening. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case for me. On the brighter side of things, the doctor said that he didn’t want to wait a full week to see me again and wanted me to come in on Monday (I’ll be 39 weeks Tuesday) so that he could check me again. He wants to induce next week as long as I’m at a point where he can break my water. I don’t really know what point that is, but I’m getting the feeling he just wants me to be a little more than what I’m at now to induce. It’s Saint Vincent’s policy to not induce prior to 39 weeks unless medically necessary so I’m guessing that’s why he wanted to see me Monday. My guess is, he’ll check me Monday to determine if he can break my water and if he can, we’ll schedule an induction for one of the following days. I don’t really want to go past the 22nd because in the 25% chance I’d have to have a c-section, I’ll be in the hospital for 3 days and that would put us coming home on Christmas Day and I’d rather be home by Christmas Eve. Of course if that’s what happens, then it’s what happens. I just want to try to avoid it if possible.

I’m determined that the “could be any day now” phrase is the worst phrase ever because it gives you false hope. By the way, the drive home from the doctor today was the second time I cried in this ridiculous emotional rollercoaster that is the final stages of pregnancy. I was so hopeful that I would have been progressed more and was totally crushed when I wasn’t. I weighed in this morning and I’m up to 33 pounds…which depresses me even more. The longer I have to hold him in the more weight I’m going to gain that I have to lose. Another bright side however is that I can still feel and see Carter moving all the time. I have no idea how he hasn’t run out of room to where he can’t budge because my stomach is friggin rock hard…and not in the good “I have a six pack” kind of way. The cool thing is that in the last week, I can feel certain body parts. When Carter kicks me and leaves his foot there, I can feel the outline of the bottom of his foot from his heel to his toes (with my fingers). That’s pretty awesome and puts a smile on my face every time. Luckily, I still have no stretch marks and my belly button has still yet to pop. I don’t think either of these things will happen before Carter makes his debut, so that’s good.

38 Week Picture….and hopefully my LAST picture:

Notice the pack-n-play set up and ready to go by the fireplace. COME ON CARTER!!!

To My Husband

2011-12-12T16:29:00.001-06:00

Two blog posts in a day!! This makes up for my extreme slacking on the blogging lately, although this post is really for only one person. Justin. He has some app on his I-Phone that tells him when blogs he reads have updates, so I know he’ll see this. Yes, he reads lots of blogs, but mine is the only blog he reads related to “chick stuff” as he would call it. The other blogs he reads relate to running and mountain climbing. I felt he not only needed a shout-out from his wife, but that it should be public for all to see so that everyone knows how wonderful he is to me.

Babe,

I don’t even know where to start. You have been so incredible to me the past 9 months that I tear up when I think about it. You have been the best husband a wife could ask for and the best dad-to-be to our son, even though he hasn’t been born yet (unfortunately). I know it hasn’t been a cake walk dealing with the change in my hormones that came with this rollercoaster that is pregnancy, but you’ve handled it remarkably. I don’t think saying a simple “thank you” is enough in return for all you’ve done for me and I don’t know how else to show you my gratitude other than this. The past 9 months, but even especially the past month, I could not have done this without you and your help. You’ve done things that I didn’t even ask you to do, but you just knew they needed to be done so you did them.

You put together and set up all of Carter’s things for us and I didn’t even have to lift a finger. Even when I gave you the never-ending list of things to do, you never once complained…no matter how many times I kept adding things to the “closed” list. You just kept marking them off. You’ve pretty much cooked every meal for the past month and done dishes and cleaned the kitchen while I did nothing. You’ve given me massages constantly even though I know you absolutely hate giving massages. I know that my sleep schedule is wreaking havoc on your sleep schedule too, but you have yet to say a single word about it. You turn off the TV to go to bed when I say to. You change the channel when I don’t want to watch what you’re watching. All because you are being super sensitive to my situation. It all makes me think about the 5 Love Languages test we took during our marital counseling with Don before we got married. You know I don’t need gifts or flowers or even a ton of quality time as a way of you telling me that you love me everyday. I only need you to show me that you love me and you’ve done that…over and beyond done that. You’ve been there for me emotionally when I needed you to be and have done well over your fair share of helping get our lives and our home ready for Carter all while making sure I’m relaxed in the process. God made you for me and He made me for you. I don’t think anyone else could handle either of us which is what makes us so perfect for each other.

You are such an incredible uncle to the twins. Every time I watch you play with them, hold them or feed them, I am reminded of how incredible of a dad you’re going to be. Although I know you don’t need to hear that because like you say, “you’re gonna be awesome at this dad thing”. I can’t wait to see you with him. Hearing you talk about the future with him gives me goose bumps. Taking him to Auburn games, having him do highpoints with you, going camping with him when he’s a boy scout, building an off-road paradise in our backyard for his jeep power wheels that I am absolutely sure he will one day have. He truly will idolize his daddy. And I know that watching you fall in love with him is going to make me fall in love with you all over again. And I can’t wait.

I love you more than you’ll ever know. And I am more grateful than I will ever be able to express.

P.S. I totally tried to download a ringtone for when you call me. Remember the 90’s hip hop song that goes “Who dat is? That’s just my baby daddy. Who dat is? That’s just my baby daddy. Who dat is? That’s just my baby daddy….T-Bird it’s just my baby daddy!”. Unfortunately they only had the MP3 and not the ring tone. I may have to just purchase the red solo cup song and call it even. Loves you.

Jingle Bell Run 2011

2011-12-12T13:00:00.001-06:00

This past weekend was the Jingle Bell Run 5k. My firm has Birmingham’s largest team every year and I always have at least 10 of my friends sign up with me, even if they don’t all actually show up to do the run. This year I had 9 of my friends sign up, only 4 of which actually ran though. Justin and I have done this race with my firm every year since I’ve been working here. Last year was the first year I had to walk the race instead of run it. If you’ll remember, I broke my ankle during the Race for the Cure in October and we were about to leave to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa a couple of weeks after the Jingle Bell Run last year, so I was playing on the safe side and walked the 3 miles instead of running. This year, I was obviously not going to run the race at 8 1/2 months pregnant, however I did fully intend to walk the 3 miles again. Those plans got shot at my 37 week doctor appointment when I found out I was 1cm dilated and 50% effaced already and the doc told me not to do it. So I had to sit on the sidelines this year taking pictures of my fellow employees and friends doing the race without me!

Getting ready to start

And they’re off!!

Anyone who has run this 5k knows that the hardest part of it is the massive hill that’s right at the beginning of the race. You can kind of see the sea of people going upwards in this picture, but it doesn’t do it justice. It’s probably a good idea that I didn’t walk the race. It most likely would have taken me 30 minutes just to get up this hill!!

Justin was the first person signed up with our firm to finish.

He finished in 23:31 per the clock, but it was most likely less than that because he wasn’t at the front of the line when the race started. That’s not a personal record for Justin for a 5k, but he was just coming off of running a 40 mile trail run the weekend before that.

My neighbor Chrissy finished in 26 minutes. She’s amazing!!

Shelly was able to finish in 38 minutes with literally no training prior to the race.

All of us after the race. Funny story….right after we took this picture, some old guy behind us tapped me on the shoulder and said “Ma’am, I hope you don’t mind, but I took a picture of your belly”. Really?? What do you say to that?? I literally just chuckled a little bit and turned around to face my friends again and everyone was giving me a weird “what the crap was that” face. Justin didn’t understand why he didn’t just take the picture and not even tell me. What was the purpose of telling me? It’s not like I can say “no I do mind” after he’s already taken the picture. I would love to know what he plans to do with it. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Yes, I’m still pregnant. Full moon theories didn’t help Carter make his way to the world. I’m 38 weeks tomorrow and my 38 week appointment is Wednesday at 9am. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pray that I’m further dilated and effaced and still showing progression towards getting this show on the road!! My stomach, back, brain, feet, muscles and overall attitude would greatly appreciate the prayers.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-12-08T16:07:00.001-06:00

Yes, I am blogging about Thanksgiving in the 2nd week of December. At least I’m blogging about something other than pregnancy. I SOOOOO did not want to be that blogger that got pregnant and everything was about that, but trust me, it’s hard for every blog to NOT be about that when so much is going on at that time and outside of all things pregnancy, you just don’t even have the energy to do anything that’s really blog worthy, hence my lack of checking anything off my 101 List since getting pregnant!

So Justin and I kicked off our Thanksgiving on Wednesday when we went to the farm in Scottsboro. Two of my very best friends in the whole world have a family farm up there and their whole family was there; spouses, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc. And I know everyone in their family and LOVE them as if they were my own family. We weren’t able to go for long, but we drove the 2 hour drive up there after our doctor’s appointment and we spent a few hours with them before having to drive home that evening. Here’s some pictures.

We went on a hayride tour of the farm. Even though I’ve been friends with Lindsey and Lauren and their family for over 17 years (HOLY COW WE’RE OLD), I’ve never been to their farm, so this was my first time and I was getting the grand tour via hay!!

Heart them.

Lauren and her husband, Garrett, came down from Seattle to be with the family for Thanksgiving.

My and the hubs…with a donkey in the background. Justin is dying for us to get a donkey. I have no idea why. We don’t even have anywhere to keep one!!

Garrett (Lauren’s husband), Kelly (their mom) and Lindsey feeding the donkey.

The next day was actually Thanksgiving and we went to my aunt and uncle’s house in Tuscaloosa to celebrate with my dad’s side of the family:

Soon to be parents…kind of a scary thought.

My amazingly fabulous grandfather. Love him.

All the young boys! Walt, John, Anderson and Cayden

My grandparents with 2 of the grandkids…Paw Paw isn’t great at looking at the camera on 3.

Lydia wanted to give Carter a kiss….she is going to be such a sweet cousin!!

Immediately after lunch at my aunt and uncle’s we packed up and headed to Chelsea for Thanksgiving dinner with my mom’s side of the family (this is what happens when your parents get divorced – holidays become hell). I was so exhausted at that point that I ended up not taking any pictures at mom’s house.

On Friday, Justin took the men on my mom’s side of the family hiking in Oak Mountain and I went back to my mom’s house and spent the morning and afternoon with my mom, Lydia and Lindsey. Lydia wanted to watch Tangled so we put it on in my mom’s room and she wanted to brush my hair while watching it.

How cute is she in her “boots with the fur”!!!

Love that little girl!!

And that was our crazy Thanksgiving. We didn’t do anything with Justin’s family because they were in Russia. Our church sponsors an orphanage there and a few of the church members go out there every year around Thanksgiving. Gordon and Debbie go every year to check on all of our orphans. Justin and I sponsor one and so does his sister and her husband. It was almost a blessing because had they actually been here, Thanksgiving would have been that much more difficult!! Eventually we’re going to have to just start picking families to visit and dropping one a year because I will NOT be doing that kind of travel again with an 11 month old!

My Big Fat Belly - 37 Weeks

2011-12-06T15:43:00.001-06:00

I’m officially full term today. YAAAAY!!!! And to celebrate this long awaited for mile mark, Carter decided to start making me contract today. This morning when I went in to work, I started having some intense contractions that were very close together. Some were 5 minutes apart, and others were 2 or 3 minutes apart. Some of the girls I work with were in my office with me when it was all happening. One of them even kept her hand on my lower abdomen and felt the contractions happening and she was the one that told me I needed to call the nurse. After about an hour, I finally called the and they told me to come in and get checked. My 37 week appointment was on Thursday, but since I was already having contractions, they told me to go ahead and head up there and they’d make this appointment my weekly appointment.

Blood pressure is great. The nurse even commented that I have had great blood pressure the entire pregnancy. The highest it got was 120/80 or something like that. I usually have a low blood pressure anyway. Belly is still measuring on track and I have FINALLY started progressing!!! I’m 50% effaced and 1cm dilated. Doc said it could be as soon as tonight or as long as two weeks from now (which really isn’t that long), but that I shouldn’t be afraid to call next time. I know people that have stayed 1cm for weeks and I also know people who were only 1cm for a couple of days before their little ones came. It’s just such a toss up and depends on when Carter is ready. I’m having issues gaining weight though. I’ve only gained a pound since week 35, which honestly is ok with me, I just want to make sure he’s growing how he needs to, which he is. I know he’s already “dropped” because I can FINALLY breathe again and I have also gained my appetite back, but the downside is that instead of him crushing my lungs and stomach, he’s now laying all 7 pounds of himself on my bladder, which makes me have to pee at least every 30 minutes. Also several people have told me they think he’s dropped because I’m carrying much lower than I used to.

I asked the doc if it would be okay for me to walk the Jingle Bell Run this weekend. My firm has had the largest team every year for several years in a row at the 5k. There’s always a ton of us that do it and Justin and I have done it every single year since I’ve been there. I was never going to run it, but I did want to walk the 3 miles. Doc said that wouldn’t be a good idea though, so looks like I’ll be at the finish line taking pictures of all of my fellow employees finishing instead. I still plan to take walks around our neighborhood with Justin and the Giz several times a week, but that’s only a mile and a half so it’s not as bad. I want to keep the progression going!!

I look like crap in this picture…Justin took it right after we got home from the doctor. But this is me and Carter at 37 weeks!!

I also had to take a picture of this. I just got our family stockings monogrammed and this is Carter’s. It’s in the middle of the fireplace of course. Justin’s and mine look the same, except Justin’s is Santa Clause and mine is a snowman. I love them!!

Well hopefully I’ll keep progressing and have this baby in the next week or two! Say some prayers for us please!!!

Labor Poll

2011-12-04T18:39:00.001-06:00

I put a poll on the right side of my blog again for all the mommas out there. I want to know when you went into labor and gave birth to your child/children. I could only put four answers, so if you went into labor prior to 37 weeks, leave me a comment. I made it to where you can answer twice as well, in case you have multiple children. I’m so curious about this because I feel like most people I know went into labor and had their babies close to 40 weeks or even past that and I’m kind of hoping others may have gone into labor sooner than that….for my sanity!!!

36 Week Appointment

2011-12-02T08:56:00.001-06:00

I had my 36 week appointment on Wednesday. Doc didn’t check me because I wasn’t dilated or effaced at all at my 35 week appointment and because I hadn’t been feeling anything at all yet. I got my Strep B test results back and passed. YAY for no antibiotics for Carter! Blood pressure is excellent, weight gain is good and my belly is measuring literally to the day. My next appointment for 37 weeks is next Thursday, December 8th. He will check me at that appointment and I have a feeling that by then I may be at least a little dilated. Yesterday I started feeling a lot of pressure that I’m beginning to think is Carter starting to drop. A few people told me yesterday at work that he looked like he was dropping because I’m carrying a little lower than I have been. And the pressure hasn’t really gone away since then. I feel it probably every couple of hours. So on Tuesday, I will be FULL TERM!!! This means that Carter can be born on Tuesday and NOT be considered pre-mature. However, it’s much more likely that he’ll be born in two weeks-ish. I’m still feeling he’ll come sometime between December 17-December 22nd. At those dates, I’ll be between my 38th and 39th week. I still feel him move ALL THE TIME. Last night was awful. I went to sleep at 11pm and of course woke up probably twice to pee, but at 3am I woke up for good and couldn’t go back to sleep. Literally fell back asleep at 6:15am and my alarm went off at 6:30. I got maybe 4 hours of sleep last night. I’m exhausted today. So there’s my 36 week update. No major change in symptoms since the 35 week post and my look hasn’t changed either, so no picture is necessary. Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!!!

My Big Fat Belly - 35 Weeks

2011-11-29T20:46:00.001-06:00

I’m technically 36 weeks now but never did my 35 week post when I said I would after I had my first weekly appointment so I’ll start with 35 weeks and then later in the week I’ll post on how my 36 week appointment went. So, at 35 weeks:

I’m not too miserable, but definitely getting there.
I’ve found that when I sleep, my joints get VERY sore. When I wake up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I can barely close my hand around the door knob to the bathroom without it hurting my knuckles and wrist. It feels like arthritis. I get the same joint pain in my hips, shoulders and elbows when I sleep too.
I don’t think Carter has dropped yet. They say that when the baby drops, the pressure will be off my lungs so I will be able to breathe much better, but he’ll be on top of my bladder and my pee frequency will spike. This hasn’t happened to me yet, so I’m assuming he hasn’t dropped.
Back pain is still an issue. Now it’s upper and lower back pain though. It was just upper back pain, but now the weight of my belly is getting the best of me.
I’ve gained 31 pounds now and am officially worried I may go over 35, but honestly, I don’t think I have control over it at this point. I can barely eat because my stomach is being crushed by Carter so I get really full really fast and by day’s end, I haven’t eaten near what I used to eat. So I’m not sure where the weight gain is coming from at this point.
I had my 35 week appointment last Wednesday and the doc checked me for the first time. Unfortunately I’m zero centimeters dilated and 0% effaced. He said this is what he expected at 35 weeks, although deep down, I was hoping to be at least somewhat dilated. I know so many people that were 1cm or 2cm for weeks before their babies finally started to make their debut. Given that I’m 36 weeks today (even though this post is for 35 weeks, I am 36 as I’m writing this) I hope that won’t be the case for me because I really wanted to have Carter before Christmas. I know that some people aren’t dilated at all and it will all happen in one day and the baby will come quickly, so maybe that will happen to me. Who knows. On the bright side, blood pressure is good, iron levels are good, weight gain is good and the belly is measuring on track.
My 36 week appointment is tomorrow (November 30th). My doc said he wasn’t going to check me because I wasn’t dilated at all at the 35 week appointment. I’ll start getting checked again when I’m full term at 37 weeks. In the meantime, I’ve picked back up on my nightly walking routine with Justin and the Giz in hopes of getting things moving down there. I’ve read that walking and hot baths help labor progress (the hot baths loosen ligaments apparently). I now do both of those nightly if possible.
I have gotten yelled at by almost everyone I know because I have STILL not packed my hospital bag. I promise I plan to do that this weekend. We also still need to get our car seats installed in our cars.
Carter’s room is almost ready! When Justin got back from his travel schedule for good, he was SO helpful. While I was working, he opened and put together all of Carter’s things (the pack n’ play, the co-sleeper, the high chair, the strollers, etc). So everything in his room is ready with exception to his letters that my sister is in the process of painting and the organic bloom frames that will hold his newborn photos. So the walls look pretty bare, but everything else is ready. I’ve even washed ALL of his newborn-3 months clothes so they are ready to wear!

This was taken at 35 1/2 weeks. It’s starting to get cold in Birmingham so the sweaters are starting to come out, which is actually kind of unfortunate, because I feel like sweaters make me look even bigger than I already am. Maybe it’s just me though.

That’s all for 35 weeks. Check back later in the week for 36!

Maternity Pictures

2011-11-20T09:03:00.001-06:00

Back in October, my sister, Lindsey, came into town and Justin and I headed to the trails at Ross Bridge to take our maternity pictures. I was 30 weeks pregnant at the time. My sister is so fabulous....I'll just let the pictures below speak for themselves. If you ever want to use Lindsey for any pictures, just let me know or go to her website for Lindsey Smith Photography.

Next post...35 weeks!!! My first weekly appointment where they check me for progression will be on Wednesday so I'll blog after that. Well, it may be Thursday before I blog. Justin and I are going to the farm to spend the day with two of my best friends and their family, which is kind of my second family because I've known them so long. So excited for Thanksgiving!!!

Baby Shower #4….Sort Of.

2011-11-16T11:20:00.001-06:00

We did have a fourth baby shower….sort of. I guess you can count anything as a shower if it involves people coming over to one central location and providing gifts for the baby. Justin’s buddies threw him a diaper shower last weekend while he was in town. It was hosted by two of his really good friends, Trevor and Yarbrough. All the guys came over to our house to watch the Auburn/Georgia game and brought diapers for Carter. I wasn’t at the house, so it was an all guys day. My breastfeeding class was that day at Saint Vincent’s satellite location on Hwy 119. Justin was supposed to go with me but it was the only day they could do the diaper shower, so I had Tiffany go with me instead. Not that Justin would have been helpful in any way for that class, I just really wanted someone to go with me so that I wasn’t by myself. It was actually more beneficial and made more sense for Tiffany to be there with me instead of Justin since she has boobs too.

The class was supposed to be from 9am-12:30, but it was actually over early at 11:30, so we headed back to my house to pick up some items I’ve gotten duplicates of at my showers to take back to Buy Buy Baby. I also had several gift cards that I got at my showers that I went ahead and used to purchase a few of the things that were still on my registry that I really wanted. We got back to my house before the man shower was actually over so we just went upstairs in the nursery and unpacked/arranged some things.

We racked up on the diapers and wipes though!!!! I really hope Carter stays in size 1’s for a while…

And while Trevor and Yarbrough were at Publix buying things for the shower, Yarbrough told Trevor “you know, we should get a cake. Chicks have cakes at showers don’t they?”

Not like cakes chicks have, but I was still thoroughly impressed that they thought to get a cake. And it was FRIGGIN DELICIOUS!!!

I had my 33 week appointment the day before this shower and it went well. I saw one of the docs that I actually hadn’t seen yet, so as of now I’ve seen everyone except for one doctor and from what I understand from others, that doctor doesn’t do deliveries anymore. So I think I’ve met everyone that would have a chance at delivering Carter. I have my top 3 of course. I’m hoping that one of those 3 will be around the day Carter comes. I told the doc about my extreme headaches and dizziness that I was experiencing and she said that if it happens again to go home and lay in bed and take 2 extra strength Tylenol and if it doesn’t go away to call. Luckily, I haven’t had it happen since Halloween.

I asked when I would be at the point where I wouldn’t be allowed to leave town. She said that I can go anywhere in the continental US up until 37 weeks and then I need to stay put. We were asking because Justin is doing a race in Georgia the first weekend of December and it’s right next to Calloway Gardens where they do a HUGE Christmas lights spectacular that I REALLY want to go to since he’s running right next to it. However, that race is a mere 3 days before I turn 37 weeks. I told Justin that I would schedule my 36 appointment for the Friday that we’d leave to head up there and see what my progression is like before making the decision to go or not. Chances are, if I’m dilated at all I won’t go. It just makes me nervous. I still may not go, even if I’m not progressing yet, depending on how I’m feeling. As of now I’m feeling TONS of cramps and Braxton hicks contractions that just make me uncomfortable so I may just stay at home in bed.

My appointments are now weekly so my next one is next Wednesday (day before Thanksgiving) at 10:15am. This is when they will “check me” the first time. I’m kind of nervous about it. Mainly because I think what other people have been telling me is true and that I’m doing way too much and haven’t been resting enough. I’m afraid that I may be too progressed for 35 weeks and that the doc will put me on limited or even full bed rest. We’ll just see how it goes I guess. Justin is on his last week of travels this week and when he get home tomorrow, he’ll be home for good. THANKFULLY. I am about to utilize his services in opening all the gifts that are still in boxes and putting them together (things like the pack n play, co-sleeper, diaper holder, etc). Hopefully we’ll be ready for this baby before he’s ready to be with us. I’ll be full term in LESS THAN THREE WEEKS!!! I am in such shock at that statement.

Baby Shower #3

2011-11-13T06:56:00.001-06:00

So baby shower number 3 happened on 11.10.11. It was a shower thrown by 8 of my closest friends at work. I have to start this by saying how truly blessed I am to have the job I have at the firm I work for. Our shareholders allow wedding and baby showers that are usually really big showers! It’s not just getting a gift here or a gift there….the firm will spend hundreds on your shower not to mention the 40+ people at work that usually chip in for your gifts. We racked up at this shower and I am so grateful for my job and the shareholders I am working for.

I should preface this by saying that the 8 people that hosted my shower know me better than a lot of people and one of the things they have ALWAYS made fun of me for is the fact that I listen to Christmas music starting in September. Seriously. I will listen to it on my computer on pandora until it finally comes on 96.5 in November. The day of my shower I was told not to go near the training room (where the showers are held). When it was time for the shower to start, they came and got me and Justin from my office and wanted me to enter the room first. This is what I saw:

On top of the fact that the entire room was decorated for Christmas, there was also Christmas music playing in the background. To see that they took so much time to make this shower so specifically for me absolutely made my month. When I opened the door to the room I just stared in awe and my friend, and host, Ashley said “are you going to cry?”. My response was “I might”.

These are four of some of my favorite people at work, three of which were hosts. Meredith, Julie, Marlene and Mindy (yes, we have TONS of M names at our job).

I got my Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper, which was something I intended to buy if no one else had bought it. It’s what Carter will sleep in when he’s in our room the first several weeks.

I also got my changing pad and a blue cover to go with it. Another thing I was going to have to buy.

Justin’s a lot like me, he doesn’t really like opening presents in front of a lot of people. It’s just awkward. But he knew he’d have to do that at this shower.

Dryer for washed bottles

LOVE THIS!!! Another one of my favorite people at work, Emily, hosted, but instead of putting money in for the host gift, she gave me something on her own. How stinkin ADORABLE is this?!?!

Cute little Christmas bib

I was extremely shocked and very thankful that I got this. It’s the breathable monitor by AngelCare movement. I hadn’t originally registered for this. A couple of months ago, two of our good friends, Joe and Katy, lost their 9 week old son to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). It’s when babies die from just rolling over onto something on accident and not being able to roll back and they suffocate. I’d heard of it of course, but until then, it had never happened to anyone I knew. Walt’s funeral was the most emotional event I’ve ever been to and I honestly cried for days for the Bridges family and also out of fear of if that could happen to Carter. I immediately registered for this afterwards. It’s a monitor pad that goes under the crib mattress that detects movements so small, like breathing. If the baby is sleeping in his crib and stops breathing for 20 seconds, the handheld alarm (which will be in our room) will go off indicating we need to run faster than ever upstairs to help him.

Another big thing we got was Carter’s play mat

And another big item I wasn’t expecting was the ExerSaucer. They literally bought all the big things on my registry that was left with exception to one. On top of all the gifts, the shareholders gave me a very generous amount of money to complete any items off my registry that we hadn’t gotten yet. Have I mentioned that I love my job and coworkers??

My Big Fat Belly - 33 Weeks

2011-11-08T08:18:00.001-06:00

I can’t believe it….I’m 33 weeks pregnant now. WOW. Time has flown by and there is still so much I have left to do before little man makes his debut!! The nursery isn’t done, I haven’t unpacked/put together ANYTHING we’ve gotten from our showers, I still need to clean the entire house…the list is never ending. But as hard as it is to believe, Carter will be here sometime in the next 4-6 weeks. I say this because in 4 weeks, I’ll be full term and the docs won’t stop it if he tries to come on his own then. 6 weeks is my 39 week mark and St. Vincent’s will induce starting at 39 weeks if I am showing some progression (in terms of dilation and effacement). If I am dilated at 39 weeks (December 20th) then I will ask to be induced because I truly want Carter to wake up in his home for his first Christmas. Not to mention we’ll have loads of family and friends in town right at that time and they’ll be gone if we wait until his actual due date.

So what’s been going on with me in the past 3 weeks since I last did a belly post? Well, I’m exhausted all the time and yet, somehow, Mr. Sandman has completely forgotten I exist. I sleep VERY little through the night which obviously leaves me incredibly worthless when I come to work the next day. I used to only wake up a couple of times in the night. Now, even with the assistance of my friend Mr. Unisom, I am still waking up every single hour. I usually am up at 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, and finally at 6 when I can’t put myself back to sleep. I’m not having to pee at all these times, I just wake myself up and can’t go back to sleep. I hear this is nature’s way of preparing me for what’s ahead. Could someone send nature the memo that I only have a few weeks of sleep left and instead of KILLING me, she should be giving me what I need!?!?!

I still have no stretch marks (praise baby and adult Jesus), the belly button hasn’t popped, and I’m assuming it probably won’t, I’m weighing in at a total gain between 26-27 pounds, my upper back is on fire, and Braxton Hicks contractions are kicking my butt. I am no longer doing my normal walks because every time I walk I feel what I think is BH contractions, so I feel like it’s best if I take it easy because as excited as I am to meet my son, I want him to stay in for at least 4 more weeks. Hot baths have become a nightly ritual for me. Each night before bed, I take a 30 minute hot bath and read a chapter in the Happiest Baby on the Block book. It’s taken me months for some reason, but I’m only shy a few chapters from finishing this bad boy. As soon as I’m done with it, I need to get a move on and start reading Baby Wise. Both are books my sister that recently gave birth to their son recommended to me and both of them I’d already heard of. Happiest Baby on the Block is all about calming a crying child and Baby Wise is about getting a baby on a sleep schedule and sticking to it.

Swelling has taken over my fingers and feet. I can’t wear my wedding ring anymore. Actually I had to stop wearing my wedding band a few weeks ago because my wedding band is smaller than my engagement ring (not really sure why). I just now had to stop wearing my engagement ring. Fingers and feet are usually fine first thing in the morning, but in the early afternoon they start swelling, especially my feet because my desk at work won’t allow them to be propped up. My ring finger in particular will become uncomfortable when it feels restricted by a ring, so I just stopped wearing it a few days ago.

Some of my family members, including my husband, has been kind of freaking out lately wanting me to call the doctor because I’ve been experiencing some crazy headaches that never go away and have gotten dizzy and nauseous. Justin tried numerous times to get me to go to Walgreens to take my blood pressure, but I wouldn’t. When my sister came in town from Tampa and I went over to my mom’s to hang out with her, they forced me to take my blood pressure which was higher than what mine normally is, but still in the normal range. So I didn’t call the doc. But it’s been happening a few times since then and I still haven’t called. It hasn’t happened in the past few days and I promised Justin and family that if it happens again I will call the nurse. In the meantime, the guy whose office is next door to me at work has a blood pressure machine so if I feel bad, I’ll go check the pressure and make sure I’m good. I don’t want to run into preeclampsia issues.

I have no 33 week belly pic, so one from my shower will have to suffice. My 33 week appointment is on Friday so I’ll blog after that and let everyone know if any major things happen. And I plan to mention my headaches and dizziness issues to him on Friday, I was just trying to not call the nurse before then unless I really needed to.

Baby Shower #2

2011-11-07T15:25:00.001-06:00

Back to back baby showers?? YES PLEASE!!! And we’re not even done yet! I have another one from my co-workers this Thursday and then the boys are having a diaper shower for Justin this Saturday at our house. We’re racking up!!

The second baby shower was hosted by three of my very best friends in the world, Lindsey Owens, Tiffany Lobdell and Carina Sanchez. It was held at Lindsey’s house in Homewood and we mainly invited my close family and friends. There ended up being about 20 people there so it was a great turnout! See below for pictures!!!

This is my friend Shelly. Shelly just got a new job and is working with my mom!!! My mom LOVES Shelly. I think she was more excited when Shelly got the job because it meant she’d see her everyday than she is about Carter being born. Seriously.

I recruited Lydia and Anderson to help me open presents. The big fat belly has gotten in the way of me being able to bend over to pick things up.

Allison Williamson got me the cutest monkey outfit that came with mittens and socks and a super sweet little hat!!! Can’t wait for Carter to wear it! I don’t know why, but I am LOVING outfits with things on the butt!!

This came on the present that Debbie and Gordon gave us. Love it!

How super cute is this cross that Tiffany made for him?? It’s going in his nursery somewhere, just haven’t decided whether it will be on the door to his room or on the wall above the changing table.

Definitely blog-worthy to mention that my sweet friend Melanie (the one I used to work with that Justin and I hooked up with one of his best friends, Wade, and the two got married this July) got Carter the cutest and softest elephant stuffed animal!! I hope Carter loves it and I hope daddy doesn’t “accidentally lose it” at some point.

This is me utilizing my assistants…

Again, LOVE outfits with something on the butt!!! So cute!!!

One of my other long time friends, Ashley, got Carter this onesie called “babybook”. It’s like facebook, but for babies. It’s actually hilarious when you read it. It says things like “email: up@allhours.com” and “position: sitting up”. But the best was “status: wondering when someone will change my diaper”

Our friend Bonnie’s mom was able to come to the shower (Bonnie is the one that lives in Houston and goes on a lot of our hiking trips with us). She gave us this umbrella stroller and a few other things as well.

My sister-in-law got us his Tummy Time mat.

My sister Lindsey got him a cute polar bear outfit complete with the cutest ever polar bear hat!

And Tiff got a ton of his bath accessories. I promise I’m more excited about the bath accessories than I look in this picture!

My sweet niece and nephew

Me and Melanie

Aflac!!! (Her name is Ashley Matherson…we’ve been calling her “Aflac” for what seems like forever…not really sure why that started though.

Mom and Lindsey

The lovely hostesses!!

And of course the baby daddy! I made him come over to help me load up all the gifts we got because they wouldn’t all fit in my car. Also, check out the sweet diaper cake that Tiffany did in the background. I wish I had gotten a picture of just that, but once I reassemble it in the nursery I’ll take a picture.

Incredible shower overall and again, I am so blessed and grateful for everyone that came to shower Carter with gifts!! He’ll be here soooooooo soon!!! I can’t wait!

Baby Shower #1

2011-11-03T11:16:00.001-05:00

Am I on a blogging roll or what?!?! I’ve done three blogs in one week!!! GO ME!! This past Sunday was my very first baby shower and it was hosted by some fabulous ladies at our church. We attend St. Mark United Methodist in Vestavia and Justin and his family have been members at this church since Justin was a one year old, so his family is very close to many people there. These women gave me probably one of my best wedding showers due to the attendance and they didn’t disappoint in Carter’s baby shower either. Here’s some pics from the shower.

This is me with my grandmother and my step-mother. I was so glad they were able to come up from Moundville for the shower!

Nanny with all of her granddaughters

Can’t even express how friggin AMAZING these things were!!!

I am so blessed that so many people bought gifts for Carter. It took me a while to open them…I even had to take a bathroom break before I could finish!!

Justin’s grandparents got us Carter’s pack and play. It’s still in the box in the man room in our house, but Justin is going to put it together when he gets home from his traveling schedule.

Everyone mingling!!

My present opening audience. I really don’t love opening presents in front of people…it makes me nervous!

I was opening the gift from my momma. She got us the Mama-Roo…something I have heard is an absolute MUST!

This is a sound machine that attaches to his crib. I’ve also heard wonders about this thing and how it puts babies to sleep very quickly!!

This is the most true statement that can be made…..for BOTH of his grandmothers!

How stinking cute is my nephew!?!?!

Loving the ducks and cars outfits I got!!

We had a great shower! Several of the church members read my blog so I want to say thank you SO much to those of you that were able to come and that bought Carter gifts. I am so very appreciative! Also, thanks so both of my sisters and my mom for helping me unload all of these gifts into my house. It took three cars to get it all and that would have been an awful three trips to the church had I not had their help! My next shower is this Sunday at my friend Lindsey’s house. That shower is more for friends and family and is hosted by Lindsey, Tiffany and Carina.

The Pumpkin Patch

2011-11-02T11:04:00.001-05:00

This past weekend was an incredible weekend!! My sweet sister, Jennifer, came in town from Tampa with her husband Jeff and their new three month old baby. My nephew, Cooper, was born in July and this was the first time I had the chance to meet the little guy. He is definitely the cutest most adorable thing ever. He absolutely loved his Auntie M for some reason. He was constantly laughing at me. I went to my mom’s house to spend time with just mom, Jen and Cooper and Jen said that she’s never heard him laugh like that before. Of course that made me feel good!

Also, I think that Coop thinks that either I’m Jennifer, or that there’s some weird twin around. He looks at me all the time and I swear I think he just thinks I’m Jennifer since we look a lot alike. Anyway, Friday we all hung around my moms house watching Hocus Pocus and Casper together. I went home after a few hours because I wasn’t feeling well, but came back the next morning when the whole family (minus Justin) went to the Pumpkin Patch in Childersburg. Justin is training for a 50k trail run this coming weekend in Texas so last weekend he had a long run that morning that he had to do to stay on his training schedule to get ready for the race, so he was MIA, but everyone else was there and we had so much fun!!!

Isn’t he just so adorable?!?!?! And yes, I know that I look gigantic from this view point….you don’t have to tell me. This pic also makes my face look uber swollen, which I swear it isn’t just yet. I know it’s coming, but I really think this one was just the way the pic was taken. I’m 31 weeks and 5 days in these pics by the way, so I guess this could also serve as my belly pic for week 31.

My mom with both of my sisters, Lindsey and Jennifer. And yes, Jennifer has a swaddle blanket wrapped around her neck that is serving as a scarf. It was friggin cold and VERY windy that day.

The kids wanted to go horseback riding. Anderson did it like a pro!!

Lydia wanted to do it because Anderson did it, but when it came time for her to get one, she got scared and didn’t want to. We eventually got her to hop on and she rocked it! She was having a blast!

Sisters!!! Love em!

This melts my heart. I can’t imagine what will happen when Carter gets to smiling and laughing. I’m going to be a sobbing mess….I can just see it coming.

Mike on the hayride with Anderson and Lydia

Jen and Coop with Anderson and Lydia on the hayride

We told the kids when we got home that they could watch Hocus Pocus, but we didn’t realize we would have a shot at catching the end of the Georgia/Florida game…so Hocus Pocus got the boot! Aren’t they all so cute lined up in a row?!?!

It was a great weekend and I was sad to see Jennifer and Cooper leave. They’ll be back for a full week at Christmas and I should have had Carter by then (hopefully) so I’ll get to see them everyday and work won’t get in the way. I’m so looking forward to it!!!

For the Hospital

2011-10-31T11:50:00.001-05:00

I know there’s a lot of currently pregnant, previously pregnant or at the very least future pregnant mommas that read my blog that can help me out with this. My third trimester is flying by and I just realized that I could be anywhere from 5-8 weeks from having Carter. A few people have asked me if I’ve gotten my hospital packing list together, which I have to admit, I haven’t even thought about it. So I’m attempting to think about it now and trying to put together a list of things I’ll need to have packed and ready to go for labor and delivery day. I used a couple of websites to make the below list but I really wanted to get some mommas out there to look at it and tell me if I’m including something I really don’t need or if I’m missing something absolutely crucial. ADVICE TOTALLY NEEDED HERE!!!

For Me:

Picture ID, insurance card, and short term disability forms for doc to sign to give back to my work for my maternity leave
Bathrobe, nightgowns, socks, slippers (I’ll probably bring my comfy crocks since I don’t own “slippers”)
Leave the hospital outfit for me, probably a pair of my maternity jeans since I will still have a bit of a belly when I leave, and a sweater or something since it’ll be cold outside
A few changes of clothes for the hospital stay
Makeup, shampoo/conditioner, body wash/loofa, hairdryer, straightener, ponytail holders
Toothbrush/toothpaste, deodorant, brush, face wash, eye makeup remover, lotion
Baby book and pen and notepad
Nursing bras (haven’t even bought these yet…advice in this area is also helpful) and several pairs of underpants (I’ve heard I should buy some specifically for the hospital because I may throw them away)
My own pillow, Ipod, Computer, camera, batteries, video camera (if we have one by then), memory cards, phone, phone charger
Snacks
Baby Wise and Happiest Baby on the Block books…if I haven’t finished reading them by then, which at my current pace, is humanly impossible
Bathing suit (I’ve read to bring this to take a shower in just in case I need help from someone in the case of a c-section)
Cash for vending/parking
Phone tree list and phone numbers
Breast pump accessories (I’ve read to not worry about bringing your own pump)
Flip flops for shower

For Carter:

His going home outfit/booties/socks/hat
Installed car seat
Swaddle blankets
Family Receiving blanket (I plan to bring Carter home wrapped in a receiving blanket that has been in my family for over 65 years. He will be the 11th Rogers baby to come home in it)
I’ve read to not even bring diapers because the hospital gives you so many so that’s not on the list for him

I’m not adding anything for Justin because he can always drive back home and get whatever he needs for himself or anything I may have forgotten for me or Carter. Sooooo…what am I missing?!?! Any advice would be incredibly helpful!! A side note because I know different hospitals provide different things, but I’ll be delivering at St. Vincent’s, so if any of you have delivered there and can tell me what they will provide, that would also be helpful!

4D Ultrasound

2011-10-24T21:00:00.001-05:00

Last Friday was my 30 week appointment, but more importantly, my 4D ultrasound. I’ve been waiting for this since week 18 so that I could see Carter again and the tech herself didn’t disappoint. She gave me a whopping 34 pictures! I’ve never gotten that many!! At our first ultrasound we got 4 pictures, at the second (when we found out it was a boy) we got closer to 12, but 34 is INSANE!! Carter was not working with us to begin with. He is a very shy little boy and his hands were covering his face for most of the ultrasound. This isn’t the first time he has done this either. During the 2nd ultrasound his hands were crossed directly in front of his face as if to say “I don’t want you to look at me, I’m not ready yet!!”. Well he pretty much did it again this time.

See. I won’t put up all 34 pictures, I’m just going to put up some of my favorites.

His arm in front of his face again

The reason my right rib and lung have been killing me. He’s kicking the wall of my uterus on the right side and this explains why I am constantly out of breath and uncomfortable on the right side of my body.

His arm is propping up his head. I love this picture!

I don’t know much about ultrasound pictures, but I gotten several comments and messages that this picture is the best 4d picture some people have ever seen. I’m guessing it’s because you can so clearly see his sweet little face but I’m not really sure, because like I said, I don’t know much about these kinds of pictures. He has my nose and he has my sisters lips. Maybe at some point he’ll start looking like his daddy!!

This is how cramped he is. Where it says “face” you can see the nose and lips (not really sure what the thing right under his face is…looks like a bubble of some sort or just part of the uterus. His arm is right under his face and you can clearly see his foot. It amazes me how cramped babies get and they find it completely natural, soothing even!

After the ultrasound we went to my normal 30 week appointment. My iron is low again so I was told to keep taking my iron supplement. I was told to take this before, around week 12-ish, but then my iron levels picked back up so I stopped taking the pills. Apparently that wasn’t smart. So I’m taking my pills daily now in hopes to bring my levels up. Everything checked out great at the appointment. My next appointment is in 3 weeks on November 11th. Two weeks later I’ll have my 35 week appointment and that’s when they’ll start checking for dilation and thinning out. I had the conversation with my doc about having Carter before Christmas.

I told him that I really really wanted him here by Christmas and that I didn’t want to be in the hospital. He was actually on board for this plan (inducing early) as long as I’m progressing. He said he won’t induce if I’m not dilated, Carter hasn’t dropped, or if I’m not thinned out enough because if we did induce, we’d be skipping the vaginal delivery and hopping straight on the c-section train. I’m ok with this plan because I REALLY don’t want to do a c-section unless I absolutely have to. Not that I’m against a c-section. I’m definitely not one of those women that are so against something that I become a difficult patient. If Dr. H tells me I need a c-section, your momma’s gonna say “let’s do this, numb me up”. I trust my doctors and will absolutely do what I’m told is need to be done. But at the same time, I just wanted him to know that, if at all possible, I really want Carter in his home on Christmas day.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I’ll be 31 weeks pregnant and 31 weeks marks the beginning of month 8. I can’t believe I’m that far. I’m down to single digit number of weeks until he’s here. Wow! I have so much still left that needs to be done….

But for now, I’ll watch re-runs of The Vampire Diaries and eat my Reese’s ice cream :)

My Big Fat Belly - 30 Weeks

2011-10-16T12:27:00.001-05:00

I can’t believe I’m 30 weeks pregnant…well, I’m actually a couple of days away from 30 weeks but I know I won’t have time to do a post during the week this week so it was today or never :)

I’m a mere 10 weeks away from having our son. Possibly even less. That is unbelievable to me. It really feels like I just got pregnant yesterday!! So much is about to start happening. Our 4D ultrasound is on Friday. I can’t even vocalize how excited I am about it. I haven’t seen Carter since we found out he was a boy at 18 weeks. I’m dying to know so many things! Is he really 3lbs. like he should be? Or is he measuring bigger still? Is he still in the breech position or has he turned head down (I think he’s turned, but this is my first rodeo so I have no idea)? Is he around 16 inches like he should be? What does his sweet face look like? So many questions…

And then my maternity pictures are Sunday with my sister. She’s coming up to Birmingham and we’re doing them on the trails in Ross Bridge. It’s so gorgeous back there and every time I’ve gone, it’s been swarmed with photographers doing photos for families, engagements, maternity, etc. I’m a little upset that Justin won’t be in them, but as long as he’s present for the newborn photos, I’m good. Since this is his busy season it was too difficult to nail down a date that both Lindsey was available (this is also her busy season because everyone is taking family photos for Christmas cards now) and that he was available since he usually comes in town on Friday and leaves on Sundays. So we had to just pick a date and hope for the best, but unfortunately Justin is flying out before our pictures on Sunday, so he can’t be in them.

So now for changes I’ve noticed….

HELLO AGAIN FREQUENT URINATION…it’s been a while. Mother of all that is holy, I pee every hour. Momma ain’t getting any sleep these days because I’m up to pee at least 4 to 5 times. Not to mention the last couple of weeks I’ve been waking up way earlier than normal and haven’t been able to go back to sleep for some reason. I used to be able to make it through the night and not even have to pee and if I did, it was only once. Bye bye to those days….because apparently this is my body’s way of preparing me for the lack of sleep that I will soon be experiencing.

Belly button is still tucked away and I actually had dinner with several girls that live on my street (have I mentioned how much I LOVE living in our new neighborhood?) and most of them said their belly buttons never popped at all. Maybe mine won’t. We’ll see. The belly has definitely grown as you can see in the pic below. I’m still having trouble eating full meals. My eyes are ALWAYS bigger than my stomach. Back pain isn’t too bad, but breathing is. There were times before where Carter would position himself on my right lung and it would take the breath out of me when he was in that position. Now, however, he’s so big that I am permanently out of breath.

I’m still exercising, but I wonder if I’m going to have to start going to a gym to walk on the treadmill instead of walking outside. I hate that because it’s starting to get cooler outside and I LOVE being in the cold. But now that he’s so big, anytime I even walk, he’s bouncing up and down on my bladder and I have to pee even more than I normally do. It’s difficult to walk outside when there’s not a bathroom every half mile :)

I finally got my hair cut and highlighted by the way. It was in desperate need! Also, I’m up to 22 pounds now. I’ve said it before, but I knew I wouldn’t gain just 25. I’m more or less expecting between 30-35, but we’ll see how it goes. As long as I’m not gaining any weight any where else on my body I’m fine, and I don’t think I have. To me, my face and arms and legs still look the same, but maybe I’m bias. I know certain areas will get swollen as I get closer to D-Day, but swelling goes down after the baby is born, it’s not actual “weight” I’ll have to lose.

Hope everyone has a fabulous week!!!

My Big Fat Belly - 28 Weeks

2011-10-05T09:35:00.001-05:00

Bye bye second trimester, hello THIRD!!! I’m in the final leg of this journey and so ready for it to be over!! Not too much has changed since week 27. My back has started to hurt a little more, but it’s nothing that a sweet little heating pad or hot bubble bath can’t fix. No swelling yet, thankfully. Belly button is still tucked in and I am obviously not good at estimating when it will start poking out so I won’t even try. Sleep is still pretty good and it’s awesome that it’s as good as it is UNMEDICATED. For a while I was having to take Tylenol PM to be able to sleep through back pain and sometimes I would just take Unisom (no pain reliever in it, just a sleep aid) on nights that I couldn’t sleep. But in the last probably month or so, I’ve been able to sleep just fine without anything. I know that won’t last so I’m soaking it in while I can.

It’s starting to get difficult to eat full meals. I get full pretty quickly because I’m running out of room. I can snack on foods with the best of em’, but I can rarely sit down and eat a whole dinner. I’m still keeping up my exercise routine, though I haven’t done as much this week as the past several. Weekends are the best days for me to exercise because I can do it in the morning. I’ve been so busy with work that I’m not getting home until 6pm or later and by then I’m starving and have to eat and after I eat, I’m so full and too tired to do anything. So I’ve been slacking a little this week, but that’s not because of pregnancy, it’s just because I’m busy. I still plan to walk about 10 miles before Sunday.

Justin gets a kick out of watching my stomach move when Carter kicks. He’ll just stare at it and say “BAM” every time he sees it move. It’s quite hilarious. The other night, while he was “BAM”-ing, he looked straight at me as if he’d seen a ghost and said “Babe…have you seen your stomach lately?” Immediately I wanted to laugh at him…yes thank you, I see it every second of every day because it’s gigantic. Anyway, he said “oh my gosh there’s a huge line going down the center of it!!!” He hadn’t seen the line yet and had never even heard of it and the surprise and shock in his voice made me laugh. I explained what the line was to him and he said “well….I love you and all, but will that go away when he’s born?”. Gotta love my husband.

And Carter is kicking all the time now. He’s running out of room just like I am and now I can feel most of his movements instead of just the ones that happened to be hitting the uterine wall. He’s gotten big enough where I can feel most anything now. My strapping young lad is about 2 1/2 pounds and can open and close his eyes (which are sporting eyelashes apparently). Because he can now open his eyes, they say he is sensitive to light. Some moms shine a flashlight on their stomachs to get the baby to move because the light will cause the baby to move away from it out of reflex. For some reason this little test just seems kind of morbid to me and I just want him to be comfy, so I haven’t done the whole “shine a flashlight on your belly and watch him move” thing yet. Not to say I won’t later, I just can’t get over the thought that it seems kind of mean right now. But I’m sure if there’s ever a day where I haven’t felt him move at all and I get worried, I’ll be whipping out a flashlight like it’s no one’s business making sure he’s okay.

For my 28 weeks picture….(and in case you’re curious, the TV in the picture isn’t the main TV in the living room and it doesn’t normally go there. We brought in two extra TV’s into the living room for football season so that we could keep up with all the SEC games since most of them are on at the same time).

The invitations for my first shower went out this week. I haven’t actually gotten mine yet because they forgot our address changed, so I’ll probably get it today. But my sister got hers and sent me a picture of it. It’s so cute!!!

LOVE IT!!! The ladies hosting the shower for me are so awesome and crafty. I know I’m going to have a blast at this shower and I’m really glad it’s my first one! I think this will be the shower where I get most of my gifts because of the number of people invited to it.

I’m so ready to do more in his room, but honestly, a lot of the decorative things I want to do can’t be done until after he’s born. There’s going to be a collage of organic bloom frames with his newborn pictures in them above his crib, but obviously he has to get here first for us to do that. Also, my sister is going to paint a canvas to hang above his dresser that will have his full name, birth date, weight, height, etc. Again, kind of need him here to be able to know those things. I’m sure his room will look more full once we start getting gifts and putting them in his room though.

That’s about it for now. Until next week….or maybe the next week….

My Big Fat Belly-27 Weeks

2011-09-26T09:15:00.001-05:00

This one is a day early, but I’m going to be pretty slammed this week with a few things so I thought I’d go ahead and post it…that, and I haven’t posted on pregnancy in almost a month. Bad blogger…I know.

I’m changing up my preggo posts. I’m tired of doing the different categories that everyone does because they take so long to fill out and some of them don’t even apply so instead I’m just going to write about whatever I want and what’s going on with me.

This time I’ll start with my 27 weeks pic…photographer out of town again, apologies.

The picture is awful, I’m sorry. But it’s all I can do for now. Yes, this is the new bathroom. I’ll post pics on the new house hopefully this week or this weekend. I’ve been meaning to do it for a while since we’ve finally gotten almost everything set up, I just haven’t had time.

So what’s going on now? Well, I went to my 26 week appointment on Friday and finally got to see my actual doctor. I’ve been passed around the practice the past 6 months because they want me to see all the doctors that could possibly deliver Carter, which I greatly appreciate. I haven’t seen Hudson since the first appointment at week 5 so I was glad to see him and his nurse again. Everything is great. Weight, belly growth, and baby are all on track. That appointment was also my glucose screening. I had to get there earlier than normal, a 7:45am appointment. I wasn’t allowed to eat anything up until then, which is comparable to the apocalypse for a pregnant woman.

When I got there, I had to drink 5 oz. of the infamous orange drink. I honestly don’t know why so many women have complained about this drink. The after taste isn’t wonderful of course, but it sort of tasted and smelled like Sunkist, one of my personal favorite soft drinks. And 5 oz. is barely anything at all, almost like a really big shot. The way I’ve heard horror stories of this test made me think I had to drink a liter of this stuff, so I was pleasantly surprised it was only 5 oz.

After drinking the fun juice, we had to go to my normal doctor appointment. This took longer than normal for some reason. The waiting room was jam-packed so tight that people were standing outside because there wasn’t a seat. The receptionists all looked frazzled so it looked like they forgot a bunch of patients had appointments that day. I finally got called back to do a finger stick and then they put me in my room to wait to see my doctor. By the way, since it’s really only females that read this, I don’t mind being blunt….it’s really difficult to pee in a cup when you can no longer see your va-jay-jay. Just some fun FYI. Sorry if it produced a mental picture.

It seemed like an eternity that we had to wait on my doctor to show up. Of course this is probably because I had been awake for 3 hours with no food and 30 seconds seemed like 20 minutes to me. Nurse finally came in and took my blood pressure and we heard the heart beat, both of which were fine. The doctor finally came in after her and measured my belly. I talked to him briefly about an issue I’ve noticed lately. In the middle of my stomach, I keep getting this stiffness that really hurts when I touch it. I’ve had friends say that it could be Carter’s butt since their butts tend to be the hardest body part. However, doc said it was probably his heel jabbing my stomach. Not that he was kicking, but he would stick his heel in this one position and leave it there all day, leaving me quite uncomfortable. I’m ok with this though, because if this is true, it means that Carter has started to turn out of the breech position and into the head down position.

We scheduled my next appointment which is at 30 weeks and is on October 21st. This is the appointment where we will have the 4D ultrasound. I CAN’T WAIT!!!! I haven’t seen Carter since I was 18 weeks pregnant and it’ll be another 4 weeks before I get to see him again, so I am very ready to see how much bigger he’s gotten, and to see him in 4D so that I can make out his facial features better. 27 weeks marks the beginning of month 7 and at 28 weeks, I will officially be 2/3 of the way done with this little thing called pregnancy. I’ll finally be in trimester number 3. I can’t believe this is all flying by so fast. So anyway, after leaving my normal doctor appointment, I went back to the lab to give blood so they could do the sugar test. My husband, God bless him, can’t be in hospitals or even look at needles or he’ll pass out. I’m starting to wonder if he’ll be able to make it through the labor to see our son or if he’ll be face down on the floor when he finally comes out. Only time will tell. Justin couldn’t watch them take my blood so he had to wait outside. The nurse said that if I don’t hear anything by Monday (today) that I passed the test and don’t have gestational diabetes. I’m praying that I don’t get a phone call today.

As far as how I’m doing….I’m pretty good. Carter kicks pretty frequently, but unfortunately, he doesn’t do it when I’m trying to get other people to feel it. Justin is the only person that has been able to feel him kick and he’s only felt it a handful of times. Anytime I try to get anyone else to feel it, he stops. It’s like he doesn’t want anyone but his momma to experience it….and I’m ok with that! The linea nigra has started to form, but I was apparently way off on the time line of when my belly button would pop out, because she’s still nicely tucked away in there.

Still no cravings of any kind really, I’m ok with all the same foods I was ok with before pregnancy. My working out schedule rocks. I usually walk the Giz around the neighborhood (2 miles) about 3 times a week and then do a pregnancy toning dvd afterwards. Those 3 times are usually during the week. On the weekends, I like long walks by myself, completing about 4 miles on both Saturday and Sunday either on the Mountain Brook trail or the trail that goes from James Hill into Ross Bridge. Last week alone I burned 2,044 calories. I’m not real sure I’m supposed to be burning that much though…maybe I should ask if that’s ok. But it hasn’t affected us yet, so I figure it’s good for me and for Carter.

While driving home the other day Justin said “I wonder if Giz will try to take Carter’s toys”. Ummmm…holy crap. Didn’t even think of that. Anyone else have a dog that tried to play with the kids toys?? How do we keep her away from Carter’s things? That may be a trial and error type thing to figure out. Carter’s bedding came in and so did most of the furniture, so his room is close to being set up, but we’re still waiting on some things. The glider hasn’t been delivered yet and we also still need to get a night stand along with a few décor related items. Because of this, I probably won’t put up pictures of the nursery when I make the post on the new house, because I really want a lot more to be done first.

Lots of dates are coming up quickly. On October 4th, I’ll be in my third trimester. October 21st is the 30 week appointment and 4D ultrasound (this also marks the last appointment in a 4 week series…after this appointment, all appointments will be every two weeks and eventually every week until he’s here). October 23rd are my maternity pictures that my sister Lindsey is doing on the Ross Bridge trails. October 30th is my first baby shower, hosted by some fabulous ladies at our church. The very next weekend is my second baby shower, hosted by three of my best friends, Lindsey Owens, Tiffany Lobdell and Carina Sanchez. The week after that, November 10th, is my third shower from my co-workers. Also some time in November, Justin’s friends are throwing him a baby shower. I have NEVER heard of this before, but apparently, some guys throw “Beer for Diapers” showers. Trevor Lobdell and Justin Yarbrough are hosting and inviting all of Justin’s good friends and everyone has to bring diapers and the hosts will provide beer. Genius.

So we’re about to get REALLY busy. I’m hoping it won’t be another 3 weeks before my next belly post, but honestly there’s just no telling. Oh and the worst part of it all….I was waiting on someone at the doctors office to tell me to sign up for classes. When I called and asked about it, they said the information was in the packet they gave me when they confirmed my pregnancy (literally haven’t looked at this packet since that day). Turns out, I was supposed to sign up for childbirth and breastfeeding classes no later than month 5. I’m in month 7 now. Oops.

BMSS Needs Employees!!

2011-09-14T15:52:00.001-05:00

I rarely ever write about my job on this blog, but I think I’ll make an exception. My firm is looking for a few people to hire. We’re looking for someone that has 3+ years in audit or someone who has the same experience level that does reviews/audit/tax. I know changing jobs is a hassle, especially if you left public accounting to go into the industry already. But PLEASE hear me out!!

BMSS is not like other accounting firms, TRUST ME! I worked at an international accounting firm for two years before joining the BMSS family and I am so incredibly happy I made that decision. BMSS is a family, not a workplace. We have 100+ employees, of which 45 are CPA’s. We are a public accounting firm, however there is NO firm that gives you what we give our employees. I’ll list out some of the benefits for you:

Limit on hours in busy season to 60 hours. This is huge if you work for other public accounting firms. You know that busy season is the hardest time of the year and there are always such LONG hours. When I was working at my other firm, I would work a little closer to 80 hours on any given week. So even though 60 seems like a lot, it’s much less than other firms. Not to mention our hours are ONLY during busy season. No required overtime for any other deadline!!! Let me explain how the hours works. Busy season is broken down into weeks. We get emails on Fridays for how many hours we’re required to work the next week. We start January out with 40, then 45, then 50, then 55, and finally 60. Most years, we don’t even hit 60 hour weeks until mid-February. You also will not work a Saturday until the hours are 55 or 60. Two busy seasons ago, our productivity and efficiency was so great that we never had a 60 hour week and even on our 55 hour weeks, we weren’t required to work a Saturday. It was my first busy season to not work on a weekend!! When a Saturday is required, the only time you are required to be there is from 10am-12pm. If you got 58 hours in Mon-Fri, you literally only have to stay for those two hours on Saturday and that’s it. This is usually what most people do, but sometimes something comes up where you need to leave at 5 on a Tuesday, so you just make it up by working longer on Saturday. Your schedule is YOUR schedule. You set it how you want as long as it’s working well with the project.
There are Chick-fil-A chicken biscuits and chicken minis provided for breakfast every Saturday that is required.
Also during busy season, our firm brings in massage therapists and everyone signs up to get a free 30 minute massage once a month during busy season in the office. Usually we give them a small conference room or unoccupied office and they give massages all day to firm members. No, you don’t take your clothes off, you keep them on, but they have the music going and everything. Exactly what you need for a long work week.
Another busy season perk – dinners. BMSS provides weekly dinners to the firm (these dinners vary each week. We like to use Zoe’s, Tazikis, Johnny Rockets, Zaxby’s, Jason's Deli, McAlister's, etc). These are paid for by the firm and are really a way to help employees not have to leave the office to grab dinner if they need to work late.
Towards the end of busy season, BMSS sends out an email to take a vote on everyone’s favorite flavor of dippin’ dots. We choose the four that get the highest votes and provide dippin’ dots in one of the kitchens. We get NUMEROUS bags of each of the four kinds, so the dippin’ dots cooler is usually full for a good week or two.
Something that makes busy season easier (and even the rest of the year too) is our valet. BMSS hired a person that runs any errand you need her to run during the entire year (not just busy season). If you’re slammed and don’t have time to get your dry cleaning or take back that blockbuster movie or buy a wedding or baby shower gift or even take your car to get the gas tank topped off, you fill out a valet request form and the valet will email you back and tell you if she’s able to do it that day or if it may be something she has to do the next day, but she will do it for you so that you don’t have to leave.
Ready for the best busy season perk of all???? Get ready, because no other firm I have ever known of has done this….YOUR OVERTIME IS PAID!!! That’s right. You read that correctly. All those 60 hour weeks that keep you from your family…yeah that’s not built into your salary like it is at most public firms. You get a busy season bonus every May that pays you for those hours. You don’t get time and a half overtime pay, but BMSS has a compensation method that is very fair and it all boils down to how much overtime you had that was billable.
3 weeks paid time off unless you’re a senior manager or have 5 years experience with BMSS, then you get 4 weeks.
Paid one month sabbatical once you’ve reached 10 years with BMSS.
In addition to the 3 weeks (or 4) of PTO, you get an additional 3 days that can be used for volunteer work. BMSS works with Habitat for Humanity every year in the fall and build a house. It takes a month or so and our employees usually break up into groups and have 10-12 go each week to assist. This counts as one of the volunteer days. You can use the other volunteer days as you wish. Lots of people used them this year for the 4.27.11 tornado clean up efforts. These can also be used for mission trips for churches.
Flexible work schedule options. BMSS has had numerous employees in the past start out as full time but ended up going flex time or part time for whatever reason. You have to get this approved by management, however.
Now for my favorite perk – Every other Friday off. From April 15th all the way through labor day in September, our firm gives every employee every other Friday off. The firm is broken up into two groups, Group A and Group B and those groups rotate Fridays. Group A will be here one Friday and then Group B will be here the next. This is incredible for planning long weekend trips in the summer during our downtime and can help you take less PTO for vacations when they’re planned on your EOFO.
And finally, overall flexibility is a huge thing at this firm. For example, as long as you get your 40 hours in a given week, it doesn’t matter how you work them. Just last week, Justin’s grandmother died and the funeral was in Pensacola, FL on a Wednesday. I am trying to save my PTO for when our little one comes and don’t want to take that much PTO, so I took only 4 hours of PTO on that Wednesday, worked through lunch two other days and then I chose to work 2 hours on Saturday that week from home. It’s a relief to know that if Carter is sick and needs to go to the doctor, that I can take him and just make up the time later and not have to constantly use PTO for it. The flexibility at this firm can’t be beat. Bottom line.

If you’re in the job market or like what you hear, email me! Even if you’re happy where you are at, but wouldn’t mind getting together to have lunch to let me explain why BMSS is a better place to work, email me!!!

mmorris@bmss.com

10 Years Ago Today…

2011-09-11T12:14:00.001-05:00

…I was walking to my 8am Spanish class at the University of Alabama. I remember that day very clearly. When I was walking from my dorm at Tutwiler to my Spanish class behind the Quad, I noticed how beautiful that day was. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the temperature was amazing. It was that fall weather with a slight breeze that made you want to close your eyes and jump into a pile of leaves. The kind of weather that we SHOULD be having now, but for some reason it’s still in the 80’s and 90’s.

In the middle of my class was when the first tower was hit. My teacher dismissed the class and I ran back to my dorm so that I could watch the coverage on TV. A terrorist attack hadn’t crossed my mind yet. I just wanted to see the footage. By the time I got to my dorm, the second tower had been hit and I knew it was on purpose. I watched both of the towers collapse in my dorm room at Tutwiler. I was watching with several people and our thoughts turned from “Oh my God I can’t believe this is happening” to “What does this mean? Will we go to war?”.

Flights were grounded. Cell phones were down. The country was in panic. The lines at gas stations were unreal. I remember seeing the footage of people jumping out of the building. I was speechless. I didn’t understand what our country did to deserve being attacked and suffering such a loss of life. I am blessed that I did not personally know anyone that lost a family member or loved one that day, but the television and radio was full of interviews of widows and children that lost their parents. Lots and lots of emotional songs began being played on the radio with inserts of people talking when no lyrics were being sung. The inserts were from interviews of family trying to find their loved ones, 911 calls from people on the planes or in the towers, speeches from George Bush and Rudy Giuliani. It was hard to even listen to the radio and not cry for several weeks after that day.

If anything came from this day, it was unity. A unification of our country and an indescribable amount of reliance on prayer. I truly had never seen or heard people on TV and radio talk about God more than they did that day. Our country used prayer to get through that day. George Bush declared September 14th a day of prayer, a rather risky thing to do in a country where our children are no longer allowed to pray in schools.

I know that in 10-15 years, Carter is going to come home from school with homework to do a history report on this day. And he’ll have to interview his family members that experienced it. How do I explain to him the impact of this day? Will he ever truly understand just how much our country has changed since then? Will he care since he didn’t live through it?

The world stopped on September 11, 2001. And even though the rest of us have moved on, the world of the families of those that lost their lives have never recovered. We’ve all made such a huge deal out of this 10th anniversary, but the widows and children and parents of the fallen have dealt with this every single day for the past 10 years. There are children who were in the womb 10 years ago that have never met their daddies. The thought of that puts me in tears. I’m 6 months pregnant and if I lost Justin right now, my world would never recover. How do you a raise a child that will never truly understand how wonderful their dad was and the things he did to save other people on that day, especially the fire fighters? I can’t imagine. The fact that Justin flies as much as he does scares me. It didn’t start scaring me today, it’s scared me since we started dating almost 4 years ago. Even though I know the odds are that nothing will ever happen to him, it doesn’t take fear away. Every single time Justin flies, I pray for his safety. I make him text me the second he gets on a plane and the second he lands so that I always know where he’s at. I’ve forced him to start praying when he gets on a plane that he will get to his destination safely, for my sake. My heart literally aches so bad that I can’t breath when I think that Justin could be on a plane if this were to happen again.

We are all so blessed to still be here and to not have had to experience this first hand. Others are certainly not so lucky. We discussed 9/11 this morning in Sunday School and read the following verses, and they’re good ones to keep in mind when thinking of such suffering and devastation as this:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”. – Matthew 28:18-20
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” – John 16:33

My Big Fat Belly - 24 Weeks

2011-09-05T21:28:00.001-05:00

How far along: 24 Weeks

Symptoms: Still the same as last time. The back pain, loss of breath at certain times, hurts to bend over, etc.

Maternity Clothes: Love em’. But allow me to say that I would NEVER buy maternity jeans from A Pea in a Pod. I’ve actually gotten a few work clothes from there because they are super cute, but still slightly overpriced, so I haven’t gotten much. The other day I went to look at jeans….$195. for jeans. that I will only wear for 3 months. Who do you think you are Pea in a Pod???

Weight Gain: At 24 weeks I’m up to 15 pounds. I had a doctor’s appointment at 22 weeks and 4 days and it was the first time they measured my belly from the outside. She felt where the top of the uterus was on me (it was a little above my belly button) and measured all the way down. She said I was right at 22 1/2 weeks in my measurements and that weight gain is right on track.

Baby Size: This is where it gets difficult, so momma’s out there, let me know what your thoughts are on this issue. It seems like every single website I go to tells me that I’m in a different month. The Bump website says that at 24 weeks, I’m still in month 5, but BabyCenter website says it’s the 6th month. It’s not as simple as multiplying because the first 2 weeks of your 40 week pregnancy, you’re not technically pregnant…so I don’t know. I also went to random other websites and so many of them say either 5 or 6. I have a book that breaks out the weeks and it says 6, but for some reason, I’m thinking I’m in my last week of the 5th month. Either way, here’s the size pic for 6 months because if I’m not in it now, I’m pretty sure I will be next week.

Movement: Still haven’t picked up on a pattern just yet, but his kicks are getting more frequent and more forceful. I still love it though. Justin can still feel him and just last night he was kicking like crazy and both of us could actually see my stomach move. Not like seeing a noticeable body part jump out, but just a slight jump in the skin when he would kick. It’s so fun to see and feel it!!!

What I’m Looking Forward To: Getting his room set up!! The crib is in, but still in boxes. We’re waiting to set it up until his bedding comes in so that we can put the whole crib together. The bedding should be in this week. The rest of the furniture from his room won’t come in until mid-October though.

Last Doctor’s Visit: My last doctor’s visit was at 22 weeks and 4 days. Like I said above, it was the first time they measured the stomach and said I was right on track at 22 1/2 weeks and was doing great with weight gain. Before the doctor came in, the nurse tried to find the heartbeat. Let’s just say Carter is S-T-U-B-B-O-R-N. It took her a while to find his heartbeat and then as soon as she found it, he moved. This happened four times in a row. She said she’s never seen a baby move that fast and assumes he doesn’t like to be poked and prodded. Apparently she mentioned it to the doc because when she came in, the first thing she said was “I hear we have a fast little mover on our hands”. Everything went great at the doctor, I scheduled my next appointment for September 23rd at which time I will be 26 weeks and that will be my appointment where I take my glucose test. My next appointment will be four weeks after that, which will be the 4D ultrasound and then after that the appointments are every two weeks and then finally every week until Carter is here. TIME IS FLYING!!

Bump Pic for the Week:

#46, #74, #93, and #98 - CHECK!

2011-08-30T14:40:00.001-05:00

I think it’s time I check these off now. So number 46 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to get a new coffee table and end tables for our living room. We actually bought these in the past few weeks and had them at our old house but since we recently moved, I figured I wait until we had them in the new house to cross off the list. We bought them at the Mazer’s Furniture close-out sale. We also bought the couches from there that you see in the picture below. We racked up on that sale!!!

Number 74 on the list was to purchase a new dining room table and chairs. Again this is something we bought from Mazer’s and bought it before we moved in, but waited until we moved to put it together. Props to my girl Tiffany Lobdell for manually putting together each of the chairs in the dining room. She’s my hero.

Notice how the rug and wall painting pretty much match exactly??? Total coincidence. We got the rug from Lowe’s and the painting I actually purchased after returning a few unneeded items from our wedding registry back in 2009. We still have some décor to put on the dining room table but the house isn’t finished yet, so don’t judge yet please!

Number 93 on the list was to get hardwood floors for the living room. We never did this in the old house but we picked out the hardwoods for this new house. See the two pictures above for hardwoods color.

Finally, number 98 was to watch every episode of Andy Griffith. Mission accomplished. I rented my final season on Netflix and finished it last week. Classic series.

We’re still unpacking and adjusting…moving sucks and takes forever! We had tremendous help from our friends the Lobdell’s as well as Wade Trimm, Justin Yarbrough and Aeron Gault. We couldn’t have gotten so much done without their help! Once things are set up and in order, I’ll take pics of the whole house and post them on here, but that may take some time. I move slow pregnant.

Speaking of pregnant, a friend of mine asked in a comment on an earlier post if I had registered yet. Yes, I am registered at both Buy Buy Baby and Babies R’ Us. My sister, Lindsey, came to Birmingham a while back and went with me because I truly had no idea what I needed and what I didn’t. It took 6 hours for us to have lunch and register at both of these places. It was exhausting! But I know a lot about raising babies now…I think…

We also had a fun little experience last night. I’m 23 weeks pregnant today. I just started feeling kicks a couple of weeks ago because the placenta was in front of my uterus and when Carter kicked, he was kicking the placenta, therefore I couldn’t feel it for a while. It was cool to be able to feel it, but I knew Justin couldn’t so I never had him put his hand on my stomach to see if he could feel it. Last night we were sitting on our back porch and Carter was going CRAZY. So I said to Justin “I wonder if you’d be able to feel this yet”. He put his hand on my stomach and Carter made a pretty big kick and Justin said “I felt that!” and then Carter kicked again and Justin said “and that!”. I never told him it was a kick, he felt it on his own and said it, no prompting needed. I couldn't stop smiling…I was so glad Justin was finally able to feel him. I know it’s hard to understand, but Justin feeling him was one of those milestones that to me, made this pregnancy more real than it already was. It was so awesome!

So now I officially only have 29 things left on my 101 list. I’m certain that most of them will roll into a new 101 list, but hopefully I can check some more off before the deadline in February 2012.

My Big Fat Belly - 22 Weeks

2011-08-24T08:32:00.001-05:00

How far along: 22 Weeks, 1 Day

Symptoms: Allow me to count them out for you:

My back is killing me. I bought a full length maternity pillow that helps, but doesn’t cure it. I still wake up with pain in my mid-upper back, which is unusual because most back pain in pregnancy comes from the lower back from the weight of the belly. So I honestly have no idea what’s wrong with me. In an attempt to mitigate, I bought that maternity pillow along with a back pillow for my desk chair at work. I’ve started using a heating pad frequently as well as taking hot baths.
I’m out of breath all the time. I went online to figure this out and found that around 20 weeks, the uterus has gotten so big that it literally rearranged my organs, and it’s very common that the baby lays on the lungs, causing mom to feel out of breath all the time. That explains it then. I literally wake up in the middle of the night out of breath and stay that way most of the day. It’s miserable.
I’m getting very lightheaded these days. If I stand up too quickly or just turn too quickly to one side, I will get this feeling. I’m not sure what this means. I’ve read that it’s common, I just don’t know what I can do to help it. I could be getting anemic, but my doc put me on iron pills almost two months ago because my iron was already dropping (iron deficiencies run in my family when it comes to pregnancy) but at my 18 week appointment she said it actually went up some. So confused.
I can’t bend over anymore without feeling like I’m 105 years old and it takes much longer than it should to get in and out of my car.
Overall unhappiness. Please don’t take this the wrong way. I am VERY excited about having a sweet little baby soon, but between all the items listed above topped by the fact that every time I look in the mirror I see that I have grown to the equivalent of an average size refrigerator, it’s upsetting. I don’t see how some women LOVE being pregnant. I’m not a fan. But I do count my blessings. I know lots of women would go through all this and never have a frown on their face about it because they want to be pregnant that badly and for whatever reason, can’t be. I am blessed and trust me, I thank God for Carter everyday.

Maternity Clothes: They’re my best friend. I have decided that as far as pants go, the half panel sucks. I want full panel. The only pair of maternity pants I have for work are all half panel and that stupid elastic band going through the middle of my belly is annoying. Next time I have to buy full panel. However I am still able to wear some pre-maternity work pants with the belly band still, they’re just not my first choice because they’re not as comfy. Also, the belly button is on its way out. I’m the only one that I would assume could tell a difference right now but there’s definitely a difference. Babycenter says this week is when some women’s belly button start to pop out. I’m giving mine another 2-3 weeks before that happens, but it’s definitely on the way.

Weight Gain: At 20 weeks I was up to 11 pounds. At 21 weeks I gained almost a pound, but then lost it that same week. I was a little shocked by that. I’ve been told by almost all pregnant people I know that the 2nd trimester is where the weight packs on big-time because it’s the baby’s biggest growth spurt period. I thought I was doing great because between week 14 and week 21, I was averaging at a little less than a pound a week (doc told me to gain a pound a week). Then came week 22. I literally gained a pound and a half this week. I have no idea how that happened. It’s not the eating….on average, a pregnant women should take in the normal calorie intake (2,000 a day) plus a small amount for the baby (150-200). Not even kidding, I’ve been lucky to get 1,900 a day. For real. I feel like my stomach is so big that even when I eat a relatively small meal, I’m full because there’s just not much room anymore (and yes, I know I have a ways to go and my stomach is only going to get bigger). So how on earth did I gain a pound and a half when I can barely eat 2,000 calories?!?!? So confused. At 22 weeks, I’m up to 12 1/2 pounds. Luckily, numerous people have told me that it’s all belly and that I haven’t gained weight anywhere else. I hope they’re right and not just being nice…

Baby Size: At the beginning of week 22, Carter is the size of a papaya! Even though the picture says 12.7-20.8 oz. for weight, Carter is most likely towards the higher end of that range if he’s still measuring big like he was at my 18 week appointment.

Movement: ALL THE TIME. I finally was able to feel Carter’s kicks towards the beginning of week 21. My doc told me that since my placenta was in the front, it would be a while before I was able to feel him kick. Most women can feel kicks anywhere between 16-18 weeks. I was unfortunate to not be able to feel it until much later than that, but I am loving it now. I’m still trying to figure out a pattern though. At first, he usually was most active between 8-9am and then again right before I go to bed, but just when I thought that was the pattern, he threw me off and stopped doing it then and started doing it mid-day. The downside of feeling kicks is that you get worried when you don’t feel them. I have to remind myself that he sleeps about 17-20 hours a day and I won’t feel him most of the day and that it’s completely normal. Still hard to take in though.

What I’m Looking Forward To: My 22 week doctor appointment is on Friday (I like to make my appointments at the end of the week that it’s for instead of the beginning) and I plan to ask about all of my symptoms to see if there’s any relief that I haven’t thought of yet. We’re also moving into our house this weekend. No worries, I won’t be doing any lifting at all. A lot of our friends are coming by at different times throughout the weekend to help so I pretty much will just be unpacking some boxes and moving clothes and other light things. I’m really looking forward to doing his nursery now that we’re moving in and he has a room!! Nursery updates to come soon!

Bump Pic for the Week:

See?!?!? Average size refrigerator….

The Twins Are Here!!!

2011-08-14T19:19:00.001-05:00

The twins have finally arrived! Long story short, my sister-in-law, Jennifer, was admitted to the hospital on Thursday because her urine was showing too much protein and her blood pressure was getting too high. They decided to keep her at the hospital until the babies were born. Jen is only 34 weeks right now, but for twins, that’s a good time to be born. She thought she’d have to be in the hospital for a little over two weeks because as of Thursday, babies were showing no sign of coming anytime soon. The doctors said that they would take the babies on August 30th if they hadn’t come before then.

But then this morning, Jen’s blood pressure skyrocketed so they decided to take the babies today. Justin had to wake up around 5:30 because he was traveling to Bend, Oregon today with his dad for work. Justin and Gordon had both gone through security at the airport when they got the call that the babies were coming today. They ended up leaving the airport and Gordon headed straight to the hospital while Justin came back to our house to get me. I was still asleep at this time. I was woken up by our house phone ringing three times in a row. I figured something was up. I missed it the third time but then saw my cell phone and had 4 missed calls and two voicemails, all before 7am. So I kinda knew babies were coming and got up and immediately got ready. I’ve never gotten ready that fast. Ever. This is the SECOND time I have woken up to news of babies. Cooper started coming in the middle of the night too and I had even more missed calls/voicemails/texts then.

It’s been a long day, Justin and I got to the hospital around 8am and just got home around 5pm. I am SO exhausted. Babies were born at UAB and boy are they secure about their babies. We had to take a picture and wear a badge based on what wing Jenn was in. First she was in the pre-labor rooms, then she went to labor and delivery, then to recovery then to her final post-partum room. That’s a lot of moving! The annoying part was that since they kept moving Jenn, we had to get new badges before we could see her after the surgery. There was literally 10 of us that had to go all the way back to the lobby to get a new badge before we could see Jenn or the babies. So annoying. But I guess I understand. Ok now for the good stuff….the pictures :)

This is everyone in Jenn’s room waiting on her to come back from recovery. She had a C-Section and couldn’t leave the recovery room until she was able to move both of her legs, so we were just waiting on her arrival to greet the new momma! This is Debbie and Gordon (the new grandparents), JoAnne and Russell (the great grandparents) and our pastor at St. Mark, Steve West.

This is me and Stacey, Jenn’s bff.

Sweet little Cynthia Ann….born first at 4lbs, 14oz, 17 3/4 inches

Auntie M holding little Cynthia. We figured out that Cynthia only gets upset when she’s being moved. She cried when Aeron picked her up from the table, but then was fine. She cried when I took her from Aeron, but then she was fine, and then she cried again when the nurse took her from me to put back on the table. I can’t wait till I feel like she’s a little less fragile!!

Daddy holding Celia Grace, 3lbs, 7oz, born second, 14 1/4 inches. Y’all, no pictures can explain this. Her body is TINY. Her sweet little head is no bigger than my palm, maybe even smaller. But little girl had her eyes wide open looking at her surroundings and everyone that was holding her. She never cried either. Sweet sweet little girl.

Celia sucking her thumb

Cynthia

Uncle Justin is holding a 4x6 picture next to Cynthia to give you an idea of how little bitty she is

That’s one happy Nana!!

Nana holding Celia and Auntie M holding Cynthia.

You may have noticed both of their names start with “C”. I absolutely love this. That means we’ll have three C’s when Carter comes. I am so excited about pictures that are captioned with “Celia, Cynthia and Carter”. LOVE IT! Prayers for Jenn and the babies though. Jenn will probably be in the hospital until Wednesday or Thursday. The babies have to be 5lbs before they’re able to leave, so poor Celia has a bit to go, but Cynthia’s close. Both babies have shown interest in sucking on things so hopefully that means they’ll take food easily. The more food they eat the quicker they put on weight and the quicker they’ll leave the NICU.

Update on House Progress

2011-08-11T21:33:00.001-05:00

So basically, our house is pretty much done. We have an “orientation” walkthrough on the 19th when they’ll show us how to use all the electronics and sprinkler system and other things as well as us telling them anything we notice that needs fixing. On the morning of the 26th we’ll have the final walkthrough (and by we I mean Justin because I’ll be at my 22 week doctor appointment). As long as everything looks good that morning, we’ll close at noon on the 26th and start moving that night. That’s only two weeks from tomorrow. TWO…WEEKS. I gotta start packing…

Foyer in front entrance

They finally put the mantle into the fireplace, but it still has to be sanded down and painted. It should be close to the color of the floors when finished.

Master bath

I am SOOOOOOOOOOO in love with our shower!!

Also in love with the size of our closet too!!!

They painted Carter’s room today!! This is only one coat though. His nursery colors are a light pastel blue, green, yellow and orange, and since it’s light colors, I didn’t want a dark wall.

Upstairs bathroom. They finally got the cabinets in!!

The backyard extends behind the garage. It doesn’t look like it, but this yard is bigger than what we have now.

Garage

My Big Fat Belly - 20 Weeks

2011-08-08T15:21:00.001-05:00

I know I know…I’m a day early. I don’t turn 20 weeks until tomorrow. I figure it’s okay since I was half a week late on week 18 and didn’t even post on week 19. So here’s what’s going on at 20 weeks:

How far along: 20 Weeks - HALFWAY PEOPLE!!!

Symptoms: Sleep is beginning to become an issue as well as headaches. I’m getting headaches more and more frequently now and usually they’re cured by popping some Tylenol, but every now and again, a really ugly one rears it’s head and causes me to be out of commission for the day. As far as sleep goes…it’s hit and miss. Most days, I’ve gotten to where my body seems to be requiring more sleep than I have time to provide. This is rather unusual for this time in pregnancy, I’m supposed to have a good amount of energy during the second trimester, which I did, but it’s dwindling down quickly. I had to call in to work on Friday, and I never do that, because I just couldn’t function. I woke up at 7am to email people at work to let them know that I wasn’t coming in and then went back to sleep. I didn’t wake up until 11:30 that afternoon. I NEVER do that. In the past several weeks, I’ve gotten to where if I don’t get a good 9+ hours, I really can barely get up. My sister told me to talk to my doctor because that’s really not normal and she’s afraid I may be getting anemic. I’ll probably call if it doesn’t get better this week.

Maternity Clothes: I’m almost to where I can’t even wear my pre-preggo pants with the belly band because my belly is increasing in size the buttons/zippers/clips on my pants dig into my stomach (since I can’t button/zip/clip them anymore) and it’s pretty painful at times. I’ve ordered a few pairs of maternity workpants from Old Navy and waiting on them to come in and will probably rotate those pants with a few dresses for the next 20 weeks. So if you see me where the same thing multiple times, think about how expensive it is to literally have to buy an entire new wardrobe when it will only be used for a short period of time.

Weight Gain: At 18 weeks, 4 days, I was at 10 pounds and at 20 weeks I’m up to 11. I’m doing pretty good on the gradual weight gain lately. I’m supposed to be gaining a pound a week and I’ve gained 3 1/2 in the past 4 weeks, so on average a little less than a pound a week, which is fine by me. Even though the goal is 25-35 pounds, I’d really like to not gain more than 30 during the whole pregnancy. I think my gradual gain is attributed to the fact that I’ve started running again. I don’t do it often, probably 3 times a week and 4 on special weeks, but it’s better than nothing. I usually run around our neighborhood towards the end of the day when it’s not as hot. It’s about a mile and a half all the way around and sometimes I’m able to run most of it and only walk once or twice, but other times I end up doing more walking than running because of Carter’s position in my stomach. The belly bounces up and down on my bladder and it’s hard to keep running when you feel like you’re about to pee your pants. I usually do a lot of walking on the days of the week that I don’t run.

Sleep: See above

Cravings/Aversions: Haven’t noticed any. Chocolate milk is still my saving grace on those nights that I can’t sleep and I wake up at 3am to pee.

Baby Size: At the beginning of week 20, sweet little Carter is the size of a cantaloupe! WOW!! Even though the picture says 10.6 oz for weight, Carter is weighing in at more than that. My appointment on July 29th measured him at weighing 11 oz, so he may be closer to 11.5 or even 12 now. We’ll see soon.

Gender: Baby Won Ton is a sweet baby boy!!! His name is Carter Gordon Morris, don’t know if I’ve put that on the blog yet or not, pretty sure I haven’t though. His middle name comes from Justin’s dad, Gordon. Justin’s dad is such an awesome person and a great father to Justin so we felt it appropriate to name our son after him. We also wanted to name him that because Gordon started his own company years and years ago and Justin works for that company now and maybe one day little Carter will work for the company as well.

What I’m Looking Forward To: Figuring out what’s going on with my sleep issues.

Bump Pic for the Week:

So my picture taker, my sweet and patient husband, is out of town and can’t take my picture, therefore I will probably take the next several on my phone if I don’t have time to take it when he’s here on the weekend. So excuse the fact that this picture is in a bathroom please.

The Big Reveal

2011-08-03T13:22:00.001-05:00

On Sunday, July 31st, we had a gender reveal party for our family and closest friends to reveal the sex of little Won Ton. They all thought we found out the sex at our appointment on Friday, we were the only ones, other than the baker, that knew we didn’t find out. I wanted to wait until the party to share this information because I thought it would be funny to see the looks on people’s faces. Debbie’s was PRICELESS (MIL). Right when we were about to cut the cake, Justin whispered over to her “you ready for the surprise?”. She immediately went into over-thinking mode, assuming it could have been twins and we didn’t tell anyone. Actually, when we announced that we had a surprise twist, that’s pretty much what everyone thought. I had to quickly say that twins was NOT the surprise twist to calm everyone’s nerves, particularly our families. I think my in-laws were relieved, since Justin’s sister is currently pregnant with twin girls due in September. I think going from zero babies in the family to four in less than six months might be a little much for us to handle ;)

Our gender neutral cake! My friend from high school, Jackie Marchant, was the baker. Look her up on facebook if you need a cake made! She lives in Trussville so we went to her house to pick up the cake before the party and it was REALLY hard not to poke a finger in it to see what the color of the inside was!

Mom and Dad…wow…that’s weird to say.

Our parents. Justin’s parents on the left and my mom and step-dad on the right

For some reason, I was SO nervous to cut into the cake! I knew it was a boy for 19 weeks now and was so scared that it may be a girl, not because I don’t want one, I do, especially after the boy so I can have one of both, but more because I had the gut feeling the entire pregnancy that it was a boy, even though everyone else thought it was a girl. I would have hated to see my own motherly instinct not be right!

I loved seeing everyone’s faces when I cut into the cake and saw that it was a boy. Everyone seemed so happy, even though most of them thought it was a girl ;)

BOY!

We were so excited! Justin thought it was a girl the entire pregnancy up until Friday. When he was looking at the screen at the ultrasound, he said he thought he saw a penis, but wasn’t sure. So by Sunday, he was expecting it to be a boy. I also thought I saw a penis at the ultrasound, but I wasn’t shocked because I thought it was a boy all along!

Anderson and Lydia. You can tell what each of them thought it was by looking at their clothing. I was afraid Lydia would be upset it was a boy because she has told her momma numerous times that it was a girl and has even got pretty defensive of her assumption.

We finally got to look at the ultrasound pictures too! When we gave the baker the sealed envelope that the tech wrote “BOY” on, we also gave her a second sealed envelope with the ultrasound pictures and dvd so that we wouldn’t be tempted to cheat between Friday and Sunday.

My other sister, Jennifer, lives in Tampa, but we were able to skype with her so she could see that she was going to have another nephew!! Jen actually had my nephew, Cooper, just a couple of weeks ago.

The picture on the left is of the frame that our friend Jackie, the baker, gave us. She found a “boy” picture frame and framed the paper that the tech wrote “boy” on. Such a cute idea. This will go in his nursery for sure! The picture on the right is of a bib and cloth that my MIL bought for me. She didn’t know it was a boy, so she bought a boy and girl present. She ended up giving the girl present to Jen since she’s having twin girls. Another one of my friends, Shelly, was so sure it was a girl that she bought some girl clothes. She also gave those to my sister-in-law :) Thanks for the thought though Shelly! Only jeeps and Tonka trucks from now on :)

This is the sister-in-law that is having twins that I keep referring to. I also went to high school with Jen and we were both on Hoover High’s dance team, but never at the same time. She was graduating when I was a sophomore (Sophomore was the first year you could be on the Varsity team).

I must say though, this may have been my favorite part of the party. This is Justin’s dad and he’s giving me a hug because we told him that our little boy’s middle name will be Gordon, which is his name. He was totally not expecting it. Justin and I decided that our boy’s middle name would be Gordon LONG before we ever got pregnant, but we never told him that. I wanted it to be a surprise. He was so happy!

If you’d like to see the big moment yourself, check out the video below. A HUGE thanks to my friend Lindsey for uploading this to youtube. I had no idea she even took a video!! My brother-in-law also took one, but we haven’t been able to figure out software issues so hopefully I’ll have that one too.

Ultrasound Photos and Video

2011-08-01T18:59:00.001-05:00

On Friday, July 29th, we had the BIG ultrasound. Our appointment was at 10am and we were even a few minutes late, but we waited in the waiting room for what seemed like forever! One of the techs finally came and got us and brought us into the room and I told her immediately that we didn’t want to find out. Even though our family and friends all thought we were finding out the sex, we decided not to. First she showed us the screen of the baby and showed us all the body parts and told us everything looked great. The heart rate was 145bpm and we got to hear that as well. She eventually started trying to find the sex organs and our little guy gave her a hard time. She kept shaking my belly pretty hard with the ultrasound wand trying to get him to move and he really just wouldn’t move. He is in the breech position right now and at the time, the umbilical cord was between his legs, hiding the man goods so she couldn’t tell if it was a boy or girl for a good 15 minutes. She made me turn on my side in hopes of making him drop in the uterus and thereby moving the cord, but that didn’t work either. Thankfully, he eventually moved on his own and she was able to see the goods.

Like I said though, she didn’t tell us at the appointment what the sex was. I had her write it on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope. She printed out all the ultrasound pictures and put those along with the DVD of the ultrasound in a separate envelope and sealed that one as well. After the appointment, Justin and I went to lunch with my friend from high school who also baked our gender reveal cake and we handed her the envelopes. So basically, our friend was the only person that knew the sex for two days. That was so hard!!! Anyway, after the ultrasound we went to our normal doctor appointment. The doc shared with us that the baby was measuring ahead of schedule and the estimated due date is now December 20th. They decided that since it’s only a seven day difference that they wouldn’t change the due date yet, but that if the baby was still measuring big later, they’d make the decision to change it. Right now, the baby should have been between six and seven ounces and our baby was measuring at about eleven ounces, almost twice as much as he should weigh!! Head and femur sizes are normal though. So we may just have a big baby!

Here’s a few of the ultrasound pictures:

My son’s sweet face. This is my favorite!

His arms are crossed and they’re covering his face. He didn’t want us to see him…very modest.

His face from the front

A sweet kissable little foot

BOY!!

My favorite thing wasn’t even the pictures though. It is seriously the coolest thing to see your baby move on the screen, especially at this time in the pregnancy when they move a lot. So our doctors allow parents to bring in a blank DVD and they record the ultrasound. So my favorite part is below:

I love my son more than words can express already :)

Won Ton Is…

2011-08-01T12:13:00.001-05:00

If you’re on facebook and friends with me or Justin, you already know what our sweet little angel is, but just in case…

He’s a HE!!! Just like momma thought!! It’s interesting that the blog poll showed that everyone thought it was a boy because all of our family and friends thought it was a girl, including Justin, well he actually changed his mind on Friday at the ultrasound, I’ll go into detail on that in a different post when I have more time. But for now, this is all I have time to share. Our little Won Ton is a baby boy!!!

My Big Fat Belly - 18 Weeks

2011-07-29T18:59:00.001-05:00

How far along: 18 weeks, 4 days

Symptoms: Frequent trips to the bathroom have become more and more prevalent. I also recently began running again. Not as intensely as I was, I’m slowly getting back into it, running no more than two miles with walking in those miles. The frequent urination rears its ugly head EVERY SINGLE TIME I run. I’ll usually have to walk after a few minutes of running because I usually always have to pee. I guess the baby is just jumping up and down on my bladder when I’m running.

Maternity Clothes: I’ve started wearing maternity clothes now. I’m slowly buying them because they are certainly not cheap, but I wear a mix of maternity and non-maternity. I can still wear a few work pants as long as I’m wearing the belly band and can still wear a lot of my pre-pregnancy shirts, but at this point, maternity is just a lot more comfortable. This preggo ain’t never met a dress she didn’t love. Dresses are where it’s at!!!

Weight Gain: I was 7 1/2 pounds at week 16 and at 18 weeks, 4 days, I’m up to 10 pounds. I asked the doc if it was too much and she said it was perfect (yes, I know I’m crazy obsessive with the weight gain coming with pregnancy…I’ve tried to stop, but it’s just hard to get used to gaining that much weight, even if it’s for pregnancy). Something attributing to it may be the fact that the baby is apparently measuring a week ahead of schedule. At 18 weeks, baby should be around 6-7 ounces, but it’s measuring 11 ounces. And no, this isn’t because I’m eating too much and making my baby big, it’s because the due date was a big fat estimate at the very beginning and they’re thinking that maybe I’m actually 19 weeks instead of 18. My due date is still the 27th for now, but if baby is still measuring big next time, they may consider changing the due date to the 20th, which is when the due date was measured to be this time.

Sleep: Sleep is pretty good right now. No complaints from me!

Cravings/Aversions: Haven’t noticed any.

Baby Size: At the beginning of week 18, Won Ton was the size of a sweet potato! I’m not a huge fan of this picture…it’s kind of creepy to me.

Gender: Our gender ultrasound was TODAY!!! But we’re having a gender reveal party for family and close friends on Sunday afternoon, so we’re keeping the sex to ourselves until then. Can I just say though that seeing Won Ton on the screen again for the first time since week 8 was incredible. Baby is SO much bigger now and has legs and arms and a nose and a mouth…all of which were visible to us! I love it!!! The doc went over all the major organs and limbs. She showed us the spine which was perfectly straight (YAY) and the heart rate was 145 which she said was good and strong. Baby was being very shy and stubborn though. It took about 15 minutes of poking and repositioning my body to get the baby to show the sex organs. This was mainly because right now the baby is breech and the umbilical cord was running between the legs and the tech couldn’t see behind the cord so we were trying to get the baby to move to another position so we could see better. This was the most surreal thing I’ve ever experienced. I saw my child’s nose and eyelids, I saw it’s internal organs and bones and watched it move. It’s a complete miracle! How anyone carries a child for nine months and doesn’t believe in God is beyond me. I’ll put up the ultrasound pictures and the video (we got a video!!!) after the reveal party.

What I’m Looking Forward To: TELLING EVERYONE!!!

Bump Pic for the Week:

For real, I didn’t take a picture at 17 weeks or at 18 weeks specifically for the blog, but we did take this picture while we were on our trip to Key West. I think that I was about 17 weeks 5 days here.

Key West - 2nd Anniversary

2011-07-29T18:19:00.001-05:00

Justin and I celebrated our 2nd year of marriage on July 25. We decided when we got married to take a got married to celebrate as many anniversaries as possible by taking trips. Our first one was our honeymoon to Hawaii, the first actual anniversary we went to New York City and this time we went to Key West, Florida. This time, however, we didn’t go just us, we actually went with 3 other couples. We were joined by our friends Shelly and Sam, Carina and Justin and Derek and Crissy. Interesting side note, Justin and I have never really hung out with Derek and Crissy before because they’re really Sam and Shelly’s friends, but come to find out, they live about three houses down from us in our new neighborhood. Funny!! We had a blast for sure. I’m sure everyone else probably had a little more fun than me since I literally couldn’t do ANYTHING. I got turned down for parasailing, jet ski rental, kayaking, and renting a scooter all because I was pregnant. No one wanted to risk a preggo doing any kind of sports. So laying on the beach was about all I did the whole time, but that was definitely enjoyable. Here’s a few pictures:

We rented a boat for half a day but that didn’t turn out the way we thought it would because….

Derek was driving the boat and drove over a very shallow area with seaweed and sand and we got stuck for a while. The boys had to get out of the boat to push it out of the shallow spot. It was quite hilarious though!

Naturally, I wanted to go by Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West. Though we never saw the popular six toed cat.

All the girls after eating dinner at a pretty popular place called nine one five. It was SOOOO good!!

Me and my bay

We all went on a sunset cruise, another thing that didn’t exactly turn out the way we thought it would. Mainly because when we got out into the water, it started pouring.

Love him :)

More House Progress

2011-07-27T12:32:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the lack of blogging. Justin and I went on vacation this past weekend with 3 other couples and just got back in town. I know I’m slacking on the pregnancy updates, but that’ll have to hold off for now. After we flew back into Birmingham yesterday, Justin and I went by the house and all I can say is O-M-G. They have done SOOOOOOOOOOO much since we saw it just last week. We now have landscaping, grass, electricity, hardwood floors, a brick fireplace, countertops, backsplash in the kitchen, and even appliances! See pictures below:

CHECK IT OUT!!! We also have a mailbox with our street number on it. We officially have an address :)

The kitchen might be my favorite room in the house!

This is the extra bathroom downstairs. Props to my husband. He picked out the countertop/cabinet/tile color combo :)

Laundry Room

Master bath sinks and vanity area. There will big a big mirror going across the entire wall, they just haven’t put it in yet.

LOVE LOVE our shower!!

And this is the view from the front door. The floors are covered because they had just put in the hardwoods that afternoon. I still can’t believe it’s gotten this far!! As of now, our closing is schedule for the morning of August 30th, and Justin will do the bulk of the moving that week. Our goal is to have it all moved by the first gameday that Saturday so that we don’t have to move and unpack, but instead just watch some football :)

Pregnancy Faux Pas

2011-07-19T13:52:00.001-05:00

I saw this on an email I got today and had to share because they are SO TRUE!!!

FAUX PAS #1: “LET ME TOUCH YOUR BELLY!”
We’re all guilty of the belly rub… it’s hard to resist. But hold back unless you ask the mom first. Not only is it scary and weird for her when someone, whether it’s a stranger or even a relative, touches her bump, but a woman’s belly is private and she may not want you reaching for it.

FAUX PAS #2: “I WAS IN LABOR FOR 36 HOURS AND I TORE LIKE YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE!”
Imagine hearing your own mother-in-law describing in detail how she gave birth to your husband. Are you squirming yet? It’s only natural to want to share your own personal experiences and think that it may offer some helpful advice. But just because you were in labor for 36 hours doesn’t mean she wants to hear all the gory details. You’ll only scare her (and the baby) with your stories.

FAUX PAS #3: “WOW, YOU’RE HUGE! ARE YOU HAVING TWINS?”
First of all, pregnant or not, no one ever likes to be reminded of their weight gain. Whether you genuinely are wondering if she’s having twins or it’s your way of saying she’s going to have a big healthy baby, keep any comments related to weight gain to yourself. After all, we all know this could sound like an evil way of saying “Wow, you’re one big heifer.”

FAUX PAS #4: “OHHH, I KNEW A (INSERT NAME). HE WAS THE BIGGEST GEEK IN HIGH SCHOOL.”
Ouch. Whether it’s a high school geek or horrid ex-boyfriend, we can’t help but connect a name to someone in our past. But it’s best to keep your opinions to yourself, or better yet, not even ask what they’re planning on naming the baby. “This is a seemingly harmless question and is one of the most hotly debated topics for parents-to-be,” says Carley Roney, our editor in chief. “Naming a child is one of the most personal things for parents and it’s hard enough to decide on a name without a committee chiming in. Plus, parents may want to keep the name a secret in case someone ‘steals’ the name.”

FAUX PAS #5: “COME ON, ONE DRINK WON’T HURT.”
No one likes a pusher. If your friend who normally drinks more than her share of Sauvignon switches to sparkling water, take it as a sign and don’t order a round of martinis. Your “in the baby zone” friend will become tired of saying that she’s “not feeling well” and be less apt to come out next time.

I would say I relate to number 5 the most, not necessarily because of drinking, but just having people not really understand why you don’t do things you used to do (although I’ve had my fair share of number 2 happening to me). I barely drank before pregnancy so that is obviously not an issue with me. I find the most judgment coming from why I go to bed early, why I don’t want to go out for long periods of time, why being around smoke bothers me, etc. Especially for women that have been pregnant before…just because you didn’t experience it in your pregnancy doesn’t mean I’m over exaggerating the amount of sleep I need or that I’m being “uptight”. I don’t want to go to a bar when I’m pregnant, even if I’m not drinking. PERIOD. I don’t want to be around smoke, even if the person smoking is not right next to me. PERIOD. I don’t care if you were able to rock out till midnight when you were pregnant, my bed time is usually between 10-11pm and it will remain that way, if not earlier. PERIOD. But even for the friends that aren’t pregnant and never have been, please be understanding of us fatties. Priorities change when you are the person that is 100% responsible for the safety of your unborn child. You all of a sudden become so protective and not willing to risk anything that even has a remote possibility of hurting your baby. This doesn’t make me a bad person or an uptight person. It makes me a mom.

#76 - CHECK

2011-07-18T21:16:00.001-05:00

Number 76 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to go to my high school reunion. Saturday night was my 10 year high school reunion and it was at Vulcan Park. Justin and I went up there around 8:45. It started at 8 and we were late because there was a wedding at our church and Justin usually gets asked to clean the church after the wedding for $150-$200. It was easy money so I told him to clean it and we would just be late. We met my amazing bff’s there, Lindsey and Lauren. Lindsey, Lauren and I were pretty much inseparable in high school and even middle school. We’ve been best friends for 17 years now. WOW. 17 years. That’s almost two decades!!

We had so much fun! There was a DJ and he played a mix of song from now and songs from 2001. Some favs of mine included The Thong Song, Back that A$$ Up, and various NSYNC songs. Such a blast from the past. We got there a little late and unfortunately had to leave early (by early I mean 11:30pm-which is SO not early for this preggo). Justin was going out of town the next day and had to be at the airport at 5am so he already wasn’t going to get much sleep and I didn’t feel the need to torture him. There was a slideshow going the entire time of pictures from back in the day and also pictures from now-a-days. I was blown away because there was several pictures of me that I did not submit and neither did the twins. Come to find out, the planners of the reunion kept the slideshow that was at our senior breakfast the day of our graduation and they came from that. So that was a ton of fun! I literally just stared at the slideshow for the longest time just looking at old pictures. I also didn’t take many pics at the reunion, a whopping two. I was having too much fun talking with everyone we went to high school with and wasn’t very focused on snapping pics.

My loves :) And yes, I am aware that the ta-ta’s are falling out of the dress. I can’t help it. Apparently it comes with pregnancy, or at least mine.

And of course my main love, my baby daddy.

My Big Fat Belly - 16 Weeks

2011-07-18T19:06:00.001-05:00

How far along: 16 weeks, 6 days

Symptoms: I’m a pretty happy girl these days :) No major symptoms other than the increasing large fatness I see when I look down.

Maternity Clothes: I think I will definitely make it to week 18 but probably not after that. I had to buy a maternity dress for my high school reunion this weekend, not really because I had to, but more because I wanted to. I have a lot of pretty dresses that are flowy and fit right now, but I wanted something new for the reunion so I just went ahead and got one from A Pea in a Pod. Most overpriced store I’ve ever seen by the way.

Weight Gain: Up to 7 1/2 pounds. Doc said my weight gain was great (we had our 16 week appointment Friday, July 15th), so that made me feel good. I’m so nervous that I’m gaining too much too fast but she says I’m doing it very gradually and exactly how I should be. And if you think about it, I’m only a few weeks away from being halfway through the pregnancy and have still gained less than 10 pounds when I’m supposed to gain 25-30. I hear most of the weight comes on during the 2nd trimester because during the 1st, the baby just isn’t big enough to gain weight and by the 3rd trimester, you’re all baby and there’s not enough room to eat large meals and you get full much quicker. Hopefully this is the case!

Sleep: I’m estimating that by week 20 I’ll have to buy the maternity sleeping pillow thingy (not real sure what it’s called). It’s so comfortable to have pillows when I have to sleep on my side and by the time the tummy gets bigger, I’m fairly certain it will be more of a necessity than something I just consider comfortable.

Cravings/Aversions: I have noticed something this week. I wouldn’t consider it an “aversion” but it’s very unlike me. Pre-pregnancy, I LOVED ice cream. LOVED LOVED LOVED. However, now, I don’t want it all the time. I still have it every now and again so that’s why I don’t consider it an “aversion”, but it is seriously very strange that I never really want ice cream anymore.

Baby Size: At the beginning of week 16, Won Ton was the size of an avocado. Limbs keep growing and now the neck is strong enough for the head to be upright instead of having his/her chin tucked into their chest. This week starts when some moms begin feeling movements. In my mind, there are two different types of movement. One is the undeniable kicks to the side that you never think is anything other than your child kicking you or giving you a massive high five. The other is little “flutters” that you get when the baby moves from side to side but isn’t really kicking. I feel the flutters. And they’re rare. It usually happens at night when I’m laying in bed and can feel it better because I’m sitting still. From what I understand, right now the baby’s legs and arms aren’t long enough to touch the outside of the uterine wall and that’s why I can’t feel undeniable kicks yet. Over the next few weeks as the baby’s legs and arms get longer, I will start to feel them. Most moms (according to baby websites) feel movement anywhere from 16-21 weeks.

Gender: Less than two weeks people!!! Our appointment is Friday, July 29th and our gender reveal party is July 31st. CANNOT WAIT!

What I’m Looking Forward To: Ummm…see above.

Bump Pic for the Week:

Not my favorite pic at all, but it’ll do. This was taken at 16 weeks, 5 days. As much as I love the flowy dresses and shirts, some of them (like the one above) actually make me look bigger than I am and it kind of bugs me. That’s why when I’m 18 weeks, I’ll probably go on a cute maternity clothes shopping spree :)

My Crazy Love Challenge

2011-07-17T12:50:00.001-05:00

So in our Sunday School class, we are reading the book “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan. This week we had to read chapter 4 and let me just tell you, chapter 4 hit me hard. After reading it, I immediately came up with a challenge for myself.

Chapter 4 is about lukewarm Christians. Francis gave numerous examples of what a lukewarm Christian does and they way a lukewarm Christian thinks. If you read all of these examples of the profile of the lukewarm and you honestly think you are not guilty of any of it, you should pray about it and see what God thinks. Because honestly, I don’t believe that any of us can escape each of these tests with flying colors and never second guess our own intentions. So my challenge for myself is to work on each of these definitions of a lukewarm Christian to make sure that I am consciously trying to be the person God intended me to be. Here’s Francis Chan’s definitions of a lukewarm profile (note that these are direct sayings from his book, I have not edited them at all):

Lukewarm people attend church fairly regularly. It is what is expected of them, what they believe “good Christians” do, so they go.
Lukewarm people give money to charity and to the church…as long as impinge on their standard of living. If they have a little extra and it’s easy and safe to give, they do so. After all, God loves a cheerful giver right?
Lukewarm people tend to choose what is popular over what is right when they are in conflict. They desire to fit in both at church and outside of church; they care more about what people think of their actions (like church attendance and giving) than what God thinks of their hearts and lives.
Lukewarm people don’t really want to be saved from their sin; they want only to be saved from the penalty of their sin. They don’t genuinely hate sin and aren’t truly sorry for it; they’re merely sorry because God is going to punish them. Lukewarm people don’t really believe that this new life Jesus offers is better than the old sinful one.
Lukewarm people are moved by stories of people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not act. They assume such action is for “extreme” Christians, not average ones. Lukewarm people call “radical” what Jesus expected of all His followers.
Lukewarm people rarely share their faith with their neighbors, coworkers, or friends. They do not want to be rejected, nor do they want to make people uncomfortable by talking about private issues like religion.
Lukewarm people gauge their morality or “goodness” by comparing themselves to the secular world. They feel satisfied that while they aren’t as hard-core for Jesus as so-and-so, they are nowhere as horrible as they guy down the street.
Lukewarm people say they love Jesus, and He is, Indeed a part of their lives. But only a part. They give Him a section of their time, their money, and their thoughts, but He isn’t allowed to control their lives.
Lukewarm people love God, but they do not love Him with all their hearts, soul and strength. They would be quick to assure you that they try to love God that much, but that sort of total devotion isn’t really possible for the average person; it’s only for the pastors and missionaries and radicals.
Lukewarm people love others but do not seek to love others as much as they love themselves. Their love of others is typically focused on those who love them in return, like family, friends, and other people they know and connect with. There is little love left over for those who cannot love them back, much less for those who intentionally slight them, whose kids are better athletes than theirs, or with whom conversations are awkward or uncomfortable. Their love is highly conditional and very selective, and generally comes with strings attached.
Lukewarm people will serve God and others, but there are limits to how far they will go or how much time, money, and energy they are willing to give.
Lukewarm people think about life on earth much more often than eternity in heaven. Daily life is mostly focused on today’s to-do list, this week’s schedule, and next month’s vacation. Rarely, if ever, do they intently consider the life to come. Regarding this, C.S. Lewis writes, “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”
Lukewarm people are thankful for their luxuries and comforts, and rarely consider trying to give as much as possible to the poor. They are quick to point out, “Jesus never said money is the root of all evil, only that the love of money is.” Untold numbers of lukewarm people feel “called” to minister to the rich; very few feel “called” to minister to the poor.
Lukewarm people do whatever is necessary to keep themselves from feeling too guilty. They want to do the bare minimum, to be “good enough” without it requiring too much of them.
Lukewarm people are continually concerned with playing it safe; they are slaves to the god of control. This focus on safe living keeps them from sacrificing and risking for God.
Lukewarm people feel secure because they attend church, made a profession of faith at age twelve, were baptized, come from a Christian family, vote Republican, or live in America. Just as the prophets in the Old Testament warned Israel that they were not safe just because they lived in the land of Israel, so we are not safe just because we wear the label “Christian” or because some people persist in calling us a “Christian nation”.
Lukewarm people do not live by faith; their lives are structured so they never have to. They don’t have to trust God if something unexpected happens-they have their savings account. They don’t need God to help them-they have their retirement plan in place. They don’t depend on God on a daily basis-their refrigerators are full and, for the most part, they are good in health. The truth is, their lives wouldn’t look much different i f they suddenly stopped believing in God.
Lukewarm people probably drink and swear less than the average, but besides that, they really aren’t very different from your typical unbeliever. They equate their partially sanitized lives with holiness, but they couldn’t be more wrong.

Seems like a lot doesn’t it? Did any of it apply to you? Chances are, it did. I challenge you, my incredibly awesome readers, to pick the one that you slack the most on, the one category in which you are truly lukewarm and pray about it. Fix it. Talk to God about it. Pray that He presents you with the opportunity to be more than lukewarm.

Cooper Francis Cowley

2011-07-13T16:53:00.001-05:00

Cooper is finally here!! I guess I shouldn’t say “finally”. Jen’s due date wasn’t until July 20th. But she’s been 3cm dilated and 80% effaced for over a week now so we were sure he was going to come early. When I woke up this morning at 6:30am, I had 7 missed calls and several texts. As soon as I saw my phone, I knew she’d gone into labor, I didn’t even have to look at who the calls were from. Apparently everyone in our family goes into labor in the middle of the night.

As soon as I woke up I called Jeff (by the way, for those of you that don’t know, Jennifer is my sister and Jeff is her husband, they live in Tampa, FL and this is their first child) and he said she was actually taking a break from pushing. So at 6:30 she was pushing already. When I hadn’t heard a peep from anyone at 10:30am, I started getting very nervous. Come to find out, she labored and pushed for FIVE HOURS but Cooper just wasn’t wanting to come out. His head was crooked in the canal and they couldn’t get him out after five hours of trying so they did a c-section and he arrived at 11:36am EST.

Can I just say…PROPS to my sister for laboring for five long hours (in which the epidural was not always working) and then having to have a c-section. She’s my hero. Cooper was 7 pounds, 15 ounces and 19 inches long when he was born. As you can see, he was born with a head FULL of black hair too :)

God has been so awesome to our family guys. For real. With Jennifer getting pregnant and having a healthy baby boy and my sister-in-law (also named Jennifer) pregnant with twin girls right now and due in September and my own little Won Ton due in December…the Lord is truly smiling upon our family and we are so grateful for his blessings. Please keep Jen in your prayers as she recovers from the surgery and also pray that her and Jeff remain patient with Cooper and with each other in this new transition into parenthood. We all know that newborns can be frustrating when they wake up 12 times a night and you can’t figure out why they’re crying. So just pray that they remain patient and always know how truly blessed they are.

I LOVE MY NEPHEW!!!

#9 and #101 - CHECK!

2011-07-10T12:52:00.001-05:00

I finally get to mark some more items off this list!!! YAY!! So, number 101 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to take Anderson to the Georgia Aquarium. My mom and I took both kids to the aquarium July 4th weekend. I had that Friday off work so I spent the night with my mom Thursday night and we all left relatively early Saturday morning. Here’s a few pics:

How you entertain kids on a two and a half hour road trip!

They were in such awe all day!

And number 9 on my list was to get promoted to supervisor at work. I found out at the beginning of June but promotions weren’t announced until the beginning of July so I was waiting until they announced it at a firm meeting to mark it off the list. Unfortunately, no picture goes with that one, sorry :)

My Big Fat Belly - 15 Weeks

2011-07-10T11:23:00.002-05:00

I’m starting to put a pattern together. Even though my weeks start on a Tuesday, I usually don’t post until Saturday or Sunday because that’s usually when Justin takes a picture. So when I write these posts, it’s usually whatever the weeks is plus 5 days.

How far along: 15 weeks, 5 days

Symptoms: Big fat check on the frequent urination. Like I said last week, pretty much anytime I stand up or walk, I feel like I have to pee. I don’t know if it’s because of the position of the baby on my bladder or what, but it’s quite annoying.

Maternity Clothes: Still rocking the belly band with stretchy dresses and skirts for now. Maybe I’ll be able to make it to 18 weeks without having to buy them after all!!

Weight Gain: Only gained half a pound this week. So the total is up to 6 1/2 pounds so far, which sounds odd when you see my belly pic this week. Belly has been growing insanely!

Sleep: I’ve gotten to where I can’t really sleep on my back anymore, at least not comfortably. The doctor told me that eventually the position of the uterus would make me feel like I can’t breathe if I’m laying flat, which it’s starting to do. Most of the time I start out sleeping on my back, but have to roll over onto my side in the middle of the night.

Cravings/Aversions: No crazy ones this week to note.

Baby Size: At the beginning of week 15, Won Ton was the size of an orange. A friggin orange people!!! That explains the belly size! Baby moves a lot these days because all four limbs are now completely functional. Though unfortunately, I can’t really feel the movements yet.

Gender: Only 3 weeks till we’ll know for sure!!

What I’m Looking Forward To: 16 week appointment on July 15th, even though I’ll be 16 1/2 weeks by then. Also looking forward to our gender reveal party on July 31st!!

Bump Pic for the Week:

Bump pic taken at Melanie and Wade’s wedding that was this weekend on her family’s farm in Blount County. 15 weeks, 5 days:

And let me just tell you, I was fitted for this dress before we knew we were pregnant….and it was SOOOOOOOOOOO tight the night of the wedding. I’m normally about a size 6 (depending on where I get my clothes, sometimes I’m an 8) but when I was fitted, I was fitted for a 6. At the time, we weren’t pregnant, but trying so I suggested to the fitters that I get a size larger, so I got an 8. I seriously could barely breathe in it. When I put it on at the bridesmaid’s luncheon at Mel’s house it was clear that it was way too tight. There was two problems with it. 1) The lady lumps have literally jumped a cup size so the top was definitely snug. 2) The blush sash is larger than it looks and was cutting off my circulation at the very top of the bump, so it was VERY uncomfortable.

So until we went down to the barn where the wedding took place, the girls suggested I just unzip my dress, but leave the hook at the top of the zipper hooked. Well, when I was sitting on the couch, I bent over to change my shoes and the hook broke. I was so embarrassed!! It looked fine just zipped without being hooked, but it was still so embarrassing! However, deep down inside, I was still pretty pumped that at almost 16 weeks pregnant, I was able to fit into this dress, even though I couldn’t breathe!

My Big Fat Belly - 14 Weeks

2011-07-03T14:38:00.002-05:00

How far along: 14 weeks

Symptoms: Week 14 started my first week in the second trimester. It is totally true that the second trimester feels so much better!! I’m not as tired as I was in the first trimester and not much at all makes me feel sick. I’m doing pretty good right now! The only thing I’ve noticed now is that when I’m standing up or walking around, I really have to pee every 5 seconds, but when I’m sitting down, I’m usually fine for hours. I find this strange.

Maternity Clothes: None yet!! Still using the belly band and wearing lots and lots of dresses and skirts. My goal is to make it to week 18 without having to take that first trip to Motherhood Maternity, but I doubt I’ll make it past 16. The belly grew A LOT in the last two weeks.

Weight Gain: Up to 6 pounds total, which means I gained the pound I was supposed to, plus a half a pound :) Also, on the exercise front, I’m loving swimming. Justin goes to the Y all the time to swim, but I went with him some this week and I love it.

Sleep: Same as usual…good, but interrupted frequently to pee.

Cravings/Aversions: No crazy ones this week to note.

Baby Size: At the beginning of week 14, Won Ton was the size of a lemon. The kidneys are producing urine that is being released back into the amniotic fluid, the same fluid he/she inhales. Gross. Won Ton can also squint and frown and make faces. They do this frequently which is good because he/she is exercising their facial muscles.

Gender: Counting down until we find out!! We’ll definitely know this month!!!

What I Miss: I still kind of miss my brain. My thoughts are one big jumbled mess and I can’t remember the things I tell people vs. things I think that I need to tell people but never actually do. Basically, I can’t be trusted to remember things these days.

What I’m Looking Forward To: 16 week appointment on July 15th.

Bump Pic for the Week:

Bump pic for this week taken at 14 weeks and 6 days (so basically, it’s really a 15 week picture…oh well). You can clearly tell the bump has grown. I’ve had multiple people put their hand out to touch my stomach, something that hadn’t happened before now because it just wasn’t noticeable enough. I try the best I can to cover it up with flowy dresses and bigger shirts, but I know it won’t last long. Eventually there’s gonna be no way to hide it…

Advice I Need: I don’t really have one specific question I’m looking for an answer to right now, but I would love comments from currently pregnant or previously pregnant women. Tell me anything that you wish you had done differently while pregnant, if you have any regrets like that, or anything that you didn’t know at the time but wish you would have. Basically any fun helpful advice, the kind no one tells you about because they don’t think it’s significant enough!