A couple weeks ago, a friend tried to set me up with her other friend who is any-day-now pregnant.  She was given two crib mattresses and was looking to sell one and maybe some other stuff too.  I finally remembered to contact her yesterday and today we got together.  Just in the nick of time too since she’s on labor-watch and will be induced Thursday if she doesn’t go earlier.  We got a brand new crib mattress for $15 (I looked it up online and it’s a $60 mattress so I was super stoked about that).  we ended up sitting and talking with them for about an hour which was nice because not only is she a few months ahead of me but this is her second so she’s been there before and we were able to compare and get advice and all that jazz.  Before we left, she hurried out of the room and came back with a little device for listening to the heartbeat.  She said they’re done after this one so she doesn’t need it anymore and gave it to me.  I liked her family a lot and look forward to having another little boy close in age.  When we got home, we immediately headed to the couch where we each donned a set of headphones and went to searching for the turkey’s heart.  He was moving around a lot so we heard a bunch of knocking on the walls but we finally found the heart and enjoyed the soothing washing-machine-like sound for several minutes.  I’m going to have a lot of fun being able to hear my bouncing bundle of belly any time I want!

09 May 2014

the heartburn is back with a vengeance and I assume it’s probably here to stay.  also, the sacroiliac on my right side keeps slipping out of joint and I cannot for the life of me figure out a stretch or movement that pops it back in place.  when it’s out, there is much discomfort and I can’t bend over at all.  like, not even to pick something up from the couch.  when it magically puts itself back in alignment, I have no trouble at all.  it’s not slowing me down though… I’m still doing a lot of walking.  somewhere between sixteen and twenty-three miles a week, depending on weather and motivation.  all else is good.  he is active and getting stronger all the time.  hubby can not only feel his movements without effort but can also see them a lot of the time.  no obvious feet pressing out at us but big rolls of belly motion that are unnatural and creepy in a this-is-so-cool-I-love-my-baby kind of way.  when we were down in Orlando the week before last, my dad was laughing about me playing music on my belly.  I told him the turkey likes music.  he jumps around when they’re playing at church.  and when I play him music or sing to him, he likes to roll around.  hubby has been talking more to him lately too.  he likes to lay his head on my belly and dare him to kick daddy in the face.  he gets his wish about half the time.  around the house, we’re trying to de-clutter some more.  we’ve got ads up to try to sell some stuff and we’re gathering boxes to take to ‘bama for storage or giveaway.  hubby has also been doing a phenomenal job of keeping the house clean since we’ve been back from Orlando.

hubby has been doing a much better job of nesting than I have. he worked like a mad man to get all of the home improvement projects that we already had supplies for finished up before my sissy came to visit back in march. he put up all the crown molding throughout the entire house and finished the shoe molding around the baseboards in the closets and laundry room. he framed out the mirrors in the bathrooms so that they don’t look quite so much like giant, ugly mirrors pasted to the walls.

framed mirror and crown in master bath

he put up some accent tile around the top of the guest bath.

framed mirror and tiled accent around the top of the guest bath

he tiled the backsplash in the kitchen. I can’t say enough how much I love this tile. it is gorgeous. we’re debating doing something with the space above the cabinets… the light color up there just seems to draw my eye and I don’t like it. we’re trying to decide if we want to continue the backsplash tile up there or if we should just paint it gray. thoughts?

fabulous backsplash in kitchen

in the main living area and the master bedroom, I had him do extended crown to dress those areas up more. I think it looks fantastic. he also got my 53-pounds-of-glass photos hung back up over our bed.

extened crown and my custom artwork in master

he says he’s just going through his honey-do list. I say he’s man-nesting. and if all that work wasn’t enough, he’s now in hyper-organizational mode. he finally went through and shredded/tossed boxes of papers he’s been holding onto since before me (15+ years). he’s also buying all kinds of storage and organizational stuff to help put things in order. maybe one of these days we really will be able to start making a nursery out of the guest room which is stuffed to the gills with stuff.  I’ve been doing what I can to help with all of this but I certainly don’t feel like I’ve been able to get into nesting mode nearly to the extent he has.  maybe once the guest room is empty and it’s time to start building the nursery, maybe then it will hit me.

at our appointment today, we got to listen to our turkey’s heartbeat again. it registered an average of 150 bpm which seemed a little low considering that it was 163 on last month’s ultrasound.  considering that he was moving all over the place and the nurse kept having to chase after him to keep up with the heart, I think he’s doing just fine.  the nurse and doctor both seemed to be happy with our progress and that’s good enough for me.

click to listen

in other news, we had a $10 coupon x2 for diapers at the kids store so we headed there after our appointment because we certainly couldn’t pass up $10 savings.  we ended up buying two packs of size ones in two different brands so that we can see what works/fits best for our turkey.  hubby looked at the 440 diapers in the cart and announced how pleased he was because that would last us a good, long time.  when I told him that was only 5-6 weeks worth of diapers, I thought he was going to have a heart attack.  he couldn’t believe that a baby could possibly go through so many diapers in a day.  he’s in for some serious eye-opening 🙂

18 Apr 2014

i sure wish the belly would get to that nice, pregnant, basketball look… I know it’s coming and I shouldn’t want to rush things but right now, I just look fat. it’s just that awkward stage where people don’t say anything because they don’t know if you’re putting on weight or baking a bun.

this week has been a bit rough for some reason. all of a sudden, there has been a re-emergence of the night-nausea and heart palpitations (golly, did I ever even mention those in the first tri? seriously scary heart jumping out of your chest and skipping beats… who the heck decided that was a necessary part of pregnancy?). the “morning sickness” nausea was a little kinder because it made me so queasy that I wasn’t even hungry. this week, I’ve been plenty hungry but everything I eat makes me want to puke and/or gives me crazy heartburn. how the heck does a bowl of bland cereal or a smoothie give a person heartburn? it makes no sense. no worries though, this too shall pass.

the silver lining of this week has been that hubby now has no trouble at all with feeling our little turkey moving around. when he has his hand on my belly, he can feel almost every movement that I feel (he’s spared from the jump kicks to the bladder that send me racing to the bathroom). it makes me so happy to be able to share that with him now. he asked me the other day if I was ready for him to be born so that I can finally play with him.  I told him I can already play with him (he kicks me, I poke him back or he squirms around and I rub him to soothe him) and I can talk to him but I can also take him everywhere I go, guilt-free, and don’t have to worry about feeding or changing or baby sitters so this is really the perfect parenting time!

11 Apr 2014

I have no clue how but I lost a pound this week. I’ve been trying to eat like I should but I must be doing something wrong.  all the books say i’m supposed to be at a 10-15 pound weight gain by now.  I had finally started gaining about a pound a week over the last five weeks and last week I had finally gained back to my pre-pregnancy weight but this week i’m just below it again.  I’m trying not to worry too much since the ultrasound two weeks ago showed that baby boy was weighing a little ahead of schedule so he must be doing okay.  Surely the weight will start picking up soon enough.  i’m trying my best to eat often and fairly healthy so I don’t know that there’s a lot more I can do to get it going.

this afternoon, I had my computer sitting on my belly (no worries, my computer weighs pretty much nothing) when an email came in.  for some reason, the volume was turned all the way up so it let out a pretty loud notification noise and the speakers are on the bottom of the computer so all those decibels were directed straight at the belly.  baby boy jumped so high, my computer actually tipped up.  to test that it wasn’t just a coincidental movement, I forced another loud bing out of the computer and got another jump.  and then a third, just for good measure… and then I laughed hysterically.  i’m such a bad mommy.

Hubby finally felt our little turkey last night.  He thought he might have felt something when he reached over to pat my belly while driving but he wasn’t sure and I didn’t really feel any movement at the time.  But last night, after getting to Wedowee and visiting with the parents a bit, we laid down for bed with a stethoscope to see if we could hear the heartbeat.  They say you should be able to by now but I couldn’t really hear much of anything… I don’t know if there are grades of stethoscope but I could barely hear my own heartbeat with theirs and I’m fairly certain that I am alive so maybe I just need to try a better instrument.  Anyhow, all the pressing around must have gotten baby boy agitated because he soon started pushing back and hubby caught one of the pushes beyond a doubt.  I was so excited for him to finally feel a tiny piece of the contact I’ve gotten to experience.  The gratitude I feel for my little family is beyond words!

bring on the cheerleaders, it’s half-time!!!

4 Apr 2014

today was our “20 week” ultrasound appointment, which happened to fall at 19 weeks. even better is that it happened to fall over my nephews’/niece’s spring break so we got to have some family in town for the excitement. we invited my sissy and niece to come with us so we could share the magic of the ultrasound.

the first one was awesome because it was it was our first time seeing the turkey and because of the shock of finding out it was four weeks older than we thought.  this one was incredible because there was just so much more to see, I got to feel the movement while seeing it, and the technology was incredible.  the technician was great.  she walked us through all the parts we were looking at.  she spent a lot of time trying to get us good, clear shots of the turkey’s face, which wasn’t easy because the turkey was praying the whole time with it’s hands folded in front of its face.

look at our precious little turkey!

and then she started showing us 3d images, which I wasn’t expecting at all.  look at that beautiful face!!!  you can see the one hand holding the other arm right in front of the face.

3d imaging... how cool is that?

she showed us the four chambers of the heart, which were all beating very healthily.  she then explained how they estimate the weight by taking cross-section views of the head and abdomen to get their diameters and then the length of the femur and they plug those measurements into some algorithm that comes up with a fetal weight… our turkey weighs about 9 oz or just over half a pound.  the books all say about 7 oz by now so hubby’s concerns about my weight seem to be unfounded.  the turkey is healthy and growing great.  all of the measurements, including amniotic fluid and such, led them to the conclusion that everything is well on track.  praise God!

the most exciting thing, though, was that the turkey was not shy… the rest of the rant… »

28 Mar 2014

finally starting to see a bit of a baby bump. mostly, though, it’s just that awkward point at which I just look like i’m getting fat.