This Broken Road

The Hubbs and I started off week 28 by taking the Preparing for Parenthood class at St. Vincents. The class was pretty informative but it did NOT make child birth look like fun. Due to some prior medical issues my OB is letting me decide between a natural delivery or a c-section. The class almost convinced me to go for the c-section! The c-section video was way less disturbing than the natural birth videos. Natural birth just looks so UNnatural!

The work week this week was pretty boring, but on Thursday The Hubbs left on a business trip to North Carolina.  I hate staying home alone so I invited a friend over to stay for a night and then I went home over the weekend to visit my parents. Sunday was our 6th anniversary and I hate that The Hubbs wasn’t around to celebrate with, especially since it will be our last anniversary without having to worry about a babysitter and such.

I had my 29 week OB appointment this Thursday. Everything went well. After waiting for almost two hours I was only with the doctor for about 5 minutes. Those 5 minutes are important though, so I guess it’s ok. During the appointment everything went well. Emma was measuring about a week behind, but the Dr. was not concerned about it at this point. Her heart rate was good at 136 and everything is going well.

I have been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. My hips hurt so bad when I lay down that i can’t sleep. The crazy things is that they don’t hurt when I am sitting or standing… just laying. Hopefully it won’t last too long since I have only slept 3-4 hours each night for the past few nights.

Next week we have our 4D ultrasound! I am super excited!

I can’t believe that I have made it to the third trimester! Emma will be here in approximately 13 weeks! That is exciting and scary at the same time. There are still so many things that we need before we bring a baby home. There are also so many things that we need to DO before Emma is born! It’s a little overwhelming if I think about it, so I am trying not to do that. Never in my life have I felt less like doing anything but had so much stuff to do. Where is my nesting urge? When does that happen? I need to nest! Every time I think about something I need to do I just put it off.

The contractions have continued this week. They actually got pretty bad on Monday night. I was having 3ish an hour so I called the on call nurse (who I have been scared to call). The nurse on call last night was actually super nice. Whew. She recommended taking a warm shower and laying down. Thankfully after three hours of having contractions this helped and they quit. Having contractions so early is scary! Emma is not ready to be born yet! She is too little. The thought of having a teeny tiny baby in the NICU is super scary. I can’t even imagine my baby having to spend the first few months of their lives living in a hospital. I would be so worried, scared and sad the entire time. Not to mention to logistics of how I would go back to work with such a tiny baby who can’t be around germs. I don’t think we could afford for me to stay at home all the time. Hopefully Emma will stay inside for 13ish more weeks and none of this will be an issue. Being pregnant is stressful! I’m sure it is just preparing me for the stress of being a mom though.

Over Easter weekend my cousin gave me a huge bin of hand-me-down baby clothes for Emma. There are so many clothes in there! Emma’s closet is almost full and I have only bought two items of clothing and haven’t even had my showers yet. I have no idea where all of her things are going to go once we have them!! Baby’s have so much stuff!

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. This coming Saturday we have our parents class at St. Vincents – that should be interesting…

During week 22 The Hubbs and I went to get massages. I got a prenatal massage and once I got past the thought of a stranger touching me, it was wonderful. It always takes me a little bit to relax during a massage because I am a little weirded out by strange people touching me. On Monday we drove a few hours south to visit The Hubbs’ family. His grandfather passed away, so we were in town for the funeral. While we were there I had a small amount of bleeding, which completely freaked me out. I was able to get an appointment to see my OB for the day we were getting back in town. Everything was fine, Emma looked great, and she wasn’t sure why I had been bleeding. By the time I got to her office it had stopped. During the appointment they did an ultrasound to check everything out and I got to see and feel Emma kicking me at the same time. It was pretty neat to see what she is doing in there when I can feel her moving around.

Week 23 has been fairly uneventful. The Hubbs and I (well, really just The Hubbs) planted rose bushes out in our front yard. Our house desperately needs landscaping so we are slowly adding things here and there. We have great ideas and plans, but little time, money or motivation to get it all done in a timely manner. It was a fairly uneventful week.

This has been a pretty fun week around here. On Thursday The Hubbs and I went back to my OB for the follow up anatomy scan. Everything looked great and the tech confirmed that Emma is still a girl!! She is such a cutie already. Here she is…

My baby girl @ 21 weeks 5 Days!

The Hubbs and I took Thursday off work and went to register for baby things. That was fun, but a little overwhelming! Babies have so much stuff, and I don’t know what I really need and what is extra. Hopefully we registered for all of the things we need and didn’t waste our time with the pointless things. Then Thursday night we drove to a nearby city and went to a baby consignment sale at my cousin’s church. The Hubbs and I had never been to a consignment sale, so it was pretty interesting. We got a jump-a-roo, pink baby bath tub, baby bjourn carrier, a few dresses and a bag of hair bows all for $50.00! We were very impressed. Everything was perfectly clean and looked like it was new. We will be sure to go back in the Fall when they have their winter sale. I wanted to buy more clothes, but was unsure of sizes, so I just bought a few things.

Friday I didn’t have to go in to work because we had a severe weather day. The weather men had been predicting pretty bad tornadoes all week, and after last April everyone was being really cautious. There were a few tornadoes in the state, but thankfully none close to our house. Friday morning the weather here was actually beautiful (before the storms got here) so I went shopping and to finish registering at one store. While at the store I noticed that a rug I wanted for the nursery was on clearance so I went ahead and picked that up. Now Emma has a fluffy pink rug for her room! It looks so cute in there!

Saturday The Hubbs and I went to pick up our new Lazy Boy recliner-rocker that we got to go in Emma’s room. It is fluffy brown material and will look so cute with her crib bedding that my mom is making. It is also super comfortable, so we temporarily have it in the living room to enjoy until she gets here and we need it in her room. I love it and may start sleeping in it soon as the bed is getting quite uncomfy.

Today (Sunday), I bit the bullet and went shopping for some maternity clothes other than just jeans. I can still fit into some of my regular shirts, but they are starting to look a little stretched out. Maternity clothes aren’t that much fun to shop for. Mostly they aren’t cute and they are expensive. I don’t want to spend money on something that I am only going to wear for a few months, especially if it isn’t even that cute! Luckily I was able to find a few things to get me through for now.

I haven’t posted too much since the big gender reveal. The Hubbs went to China on a business trip and I went to visit family for a few days. Since he returned we have been a bit busy. Weeks 18 & 19 were great, other than missing The Hubbs. I really don’t like it when he is gone, especially so far away. Luckily a friend of mine came to visit for a few days while he was gone so that helped the pass the time.

Pregnancy wise everything seems to be going well. The second trimester has been wonderfully uneventful so far. I hope it continues. Boring means that everything is going as it should. We go back to the OB next Thursday for the second anatomy scan. Hopefully this time they will be able to get all of the measurements that they need. I am also hoping that we will get a little peek to confirm that Emma is actually still a girl! I keep imagining that we are going to go and they are going to tell me that she is actually a boy. Since finding out that she is a girl I have been calling her Emma and really getting excited about having a girl. I think if she were to be a boy now it would require a little adjustment in my mindset (not that I wouldn’t love a boy just as much). I just feel like I have gotten to know her a little more since then. She kicks more, has a name, has baby clothes and things in her room and pink things on our registry.

I am starting to look more pregnant now!

Wow! What a week this was!

To begin with, I started to feel the baby kicking, at first it was only once or twice a day but towards the end of the week I started feeling baby move a few times a day! I am so happy to feel movement and know that all is well in there.

We had our anatomy scan on Friday! I had been advised to drink a small amount of caffeine prior to the ultrasound so that baby would be awake and moving so we would have a better chance of getting the much anticipated shot. I drank half of a coke on my way to the doctor. It definitely made me jittery! I have not had any caffeine in over 9 months! While I was sitting in the lab waiting on bloodwork I could feel the baby moving around, over and over and over. I had never felt this much movement! I began thinking to myself that I might have overdone it with the caffeine. It took a while to do the labwork and then to wait in the ultrasound waiting area so by the time I got in the room for the scan the baby had a little time to calm down… or so I thought. The ultrasound tech had a hard time getting a lot of the measurements she wanted because  the baby was moving so much. After what seemed like forever the tech finally went in for the money shot…. and we are having a GIRL!!!!! I am SO thrilled! I have always wanted a baby girl. There is about to be a pink explosion in my house. Poor Hubbs. Since the baby was moving so much and the tech couldn’t get all the shots she wanted we get to have another anatomy scan next time we go in. I am excited to have confirmation that she is in fact a girl. As far as measurements for downs syndrome and other birth defects, everything looked great! Here she is!!

Friday night The Hubbs and I decided to invite some friends over for dinner and announce our big news. We didn’t make a big deal out of it and get a gender reveal cake or anything but we did decorate the kitchen in pink and hang up a few pink baby items. It was fun to tell everyone and then hang out! I took some pictures, but then accidentally deleted everything from my sim card, so I don’t have any pictures to show off

Saturday (actually the first day of week 18)  a friend of mine took gender reveal photos for us. It was a lot of fun! We put pink balloons in a box and then took a few photos opening the box when them flying out. We also took photos of The Hubbs and I with a bunch of pink balloons. We are sending out an announcement with the gender reveal photos for Valentines Day cards. We are also announcing her name on the card. We have decided on Emma Louise. I also got a few of the best photos blown up to 11×14 and I am going to put them on canvas to hang in the nursery and one in our bedroom. My friend, Kim, who took the photos is so talented! I know you want to see!

On Sunday my cousin brought over some of her nursery furniture that she is graciously letting me have since her babies are all growing up. I can’t believe that I have a ‘nursery’ in my house! We got a baby bed, changing table, cradle, pack n play and some sheets, burp rags and things. Having the baby bed up really makes all this seem real! Eeeek!!! Look how cute it is!!

Whew, just writing about this busy weekend has worn me out all over again! I can’t wait to start shopping and registering now that we know that our little one is going to be a girl! I am so ready to get everything ready and for her to be here!

Here is a very blurry and slightly cropped (to remove our names) gender reveal Valentines Day card. At the bottom where I had to crop it, it says  Emma Louise ***    Coming July 2012