33 Weeks!

Today is 33 weeks! 5 weeks left!  And I'm so over this now...

Thats me today, wow I feel huge..and since I have 5 weeks left, here's me 5 weeks ago..

That was me at 28 weeks.  Ugh I feel huge! :)
So Micah now weighs over 4 pounds, so I can blame a good bit of weight on him now :)  He's about as heavy as a pineapple and is over 17 inches long now.  So I guess there's a good reason why all of a sudden I'm feeling so massive.  My pregnancy app says that he's losing the wrinkled alien look which I think you can tell in his ultrasound picture this week.  He's looking like a real baby in there now, with cute chubby cheeks and everything.  It says that his skelton is hardening up, except his skull which stays soft so he can get out easier.  He's going to grow to be about 17.75 inches long this week, or about the size of an average cantaloupe, and will weigh in at about 4.75 pounds.  And his lungs are still working on maturing, thats all he really has left to do before he can come out.
As you could tell from my last post, I have been feeling quite miserable lately.  Only 5 weeks left, so I can do this.  I just choose not to walk very much!  I really need to work on my hospital bag..I keep saying that but I still haven't done it.  It's only 2 weeks until we move too! yay!
Only 35 days until Micah is here! How crazy is that?!?

36 more days....

I'm so ready for these 36 days to be over with.  Tuesday after my busy day of shopping and doctor appointment, I started getting really bad pains whenever I walk.  I'm ok if I'm sitting or laying down, but walking I am miserable.  And doing the stairs is pretty much the worst thing ever.  I don't like this!  I have cabin fever, I'm sick of being home and knowing I'm going to be home for a long long time in the future, but it hurts to bad to do much.  So pretty much, I'm over this now :) And of course, he's been so much more active these past few days, and since he's running out of room, it hurts when he moves certain places.  That's my complaining of the day..I know I'm lucky in that I'm not swelling yet at least!  And I'm so happy I'm pregnant in the winter, not the summer.  I've started sweating a lot lately (lovely I know) and I can't imagine how I'd be feeling in the middle of the summer in El Paso!
The other lovely things that Brandon just thinks is so funny is that my belly button is trying so hard to become an outie :(.  He's convinced it's going to pop out soon, and thinks it's funny that I'm so distraught by that idea and determined for it to stay in.  And my awesome stretch marks..I only had them on one side of my belly button, and then they come on the other side..and now they're trying to connect and make themselves into a circle around my belly button.  At least they are no where else, like hips, thighs, bum or boobs..and hopefully they'll go away..or not look so bad, right? :)

32 Week Doctor Appointment

So today was my 32 week doctor's appointment.  It was quite weird when I walked in, normally the waiting room is packed and it was completely empty today, so I actually got in and out pretty quickly.  The doctor said my weight is perfect, my blood pressure is perfect, so that was good to hear.  And the nurse did my ultrasound this time, so cute picture of face instead of picture of a brain again. :)

He's getting so big!  Brandon thinks he has my face but his jaw..I have no idea what I think yet, but I think he's looking super cute! He's starting to get the chubby little cheeks!  The doctor said his heart rate was really good, it was 130 beats, and everything was looking great.  And the reason its been feeling like he's been moving around like crazy is because he was! The little guy flipped, he's head down now.  And today he's definately found my hip bone, it feels like he's trying to push it out.  I asked some questions about the c-section, he said I should be there probably 2 nights and that the spinal won't be an issue even with my allergy to morphine, that they have options they can use instead.  My next appointment is in 2 weeks, on January 9th, and then after that they should start being every week.  It hit me today that I probably only have about 4 more appointments until Micah is here!
After the doctor appointment, I went shopping to check out the after Christmas sales, and Target had so many good deals!  I was so tempted to buy like crazy, but I was good and only got a few things.

I got him a mattress pad, I probably still need to get one more, but that's the one thing I got that wasn't on sale, so I'm going to wait a bit before buying another one.  I'm trying to slowly buy the last few things on my list, pick up a few things everytime I go to the store.  I got him washcloths which were on my list too, and I found these on clearance! yay!  And then I realized my poor little boy only has one rattle and then one turtle toy that his Auntie Shannon got him..he needed more toys to interact with!  And since these were on clearance for like $2 each..I decided to go ahead and get them.  The ball with the catepillar has another ball inside that makes noises.  That was my shopping adventure of the day..and I'm glad I got a few more things off the list.
Only 38 more days until Micah is here!!

Christmas!

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas!  We had a really relaxed one, didn't do much at all, we figured it would be our last low key Christmas for a long time.  We opened presents in the morning, the puppies loved their presents!  And my present is pretty awesome too...

I wanted a small purse that I could easily put in a diaper bag, so I wouldn't have to carry around 2 bags at the same time.  This one has a little wristlet part to it, so I can actually even put my purse on the diaper bag strap or stroller if I wanted.  The inside has the credit card holder things, so I don't even need a wallet in it.  I love it so much, it's so cute and perfect!  After presents, Brandon made waffles for us and then we went off to church.  I got kind of sick at church, was feeling really dizzy and weird, so after we came home I laid down for a little while.  Then we got up, had an awesome Christmas lunch at McDonalds :) and went and saw Mission Impossible: Ghost Recon..it was good but Tom Cruise is definately getting old.  Then we came home, had taco salad for our Christmas dinner and watched football!  Definately not the normal Christmas, but it worked for us. 
Now that Christmas is done, I'm realizing how fast this next 5 and half weeks are going to go!  Saturday is New Years Eve! And then a week and 2 days later is the National Championship game! Roll Tide! And then 4 or 5 days later, we move into our new apartment! AH! And exactly a week later is Brandon and my anniversary.  And then a week and half later my parents and little sister come to awesome El Paso, and 2 days later, Micah is here!  How insanely crazy is that?
We (well Brandon) started packing some this weekend and its so weird...we(once again actually Brandon) took apart Micah's crib as well :(  We figured, even if he does make an early arrival before we move..well first off he would be quite early and probably in the NICU for awhile..and then even if he came home before we moved, he'd be sleeping in the rock n play in our room at first...it's just sad to see the nursery I worked so hard on slowly dismantled.  But his new one will be even better, and bigger, so we'll have more room for all the things we want to be able to give him.
I really need to start packing the hospital bag before Brandon packs everything up that I want in the bag..but I'm struggling to figure out what I need in the bag..
Tomorrow is another doctor appointment! YAY!  Sadly Brandon can't go to it, one of his soldiers decided to be stupid this weekend so he has to be at work tomorrow morning to deal with the issues and paperwork.  So today I need to come up with all my questions to ask tomorrow, because I know I am quite clueless on a c-section.
I weighed myself this morning..I need to stay away from McDonalds!  We have been eating out way to often lately.  I'm still below pre-pregnancy, but only 5 pounds below..it's creeping up on me!  Plus I'm starting to get worried about swelling.  I haven't had any swelling yet, but other women on my pregnancy forum that are due in Feb too, they've started swelling.  So less eating out, and more water drinking for me!
And guess what! We are in the 30's now! YAY! Only 39 more days until Micah is here!

Back to the Library...

So as I said before, I finally got my post library card, which means I'm back to reading my way through a library again.  I know some liked my old blog talking about the books I've read, so I thought I would add those into here, plus help me remember what I've read :).
The first book in my new library was one called Collision by Jeff Abbott

I've read quiet of a few of his books, and they are pretty good.  They are definately action type books, and sometimes they can get a little intense for me.  Especially if I'm reading them late at night and Brandon isn't home.  This one I really liked though, I thought I had it all figured out, and then at the very end it suprised me in some parts.  It's about a regular guy who gets suspected of terrorist activities because someone set him up, and also a guy that is part of a secret CIA group is set up, and they have to work together to clear their names.  It's probably one of my favorite Jeff Abbott books so far.
Anyway, Merry Christmas! I hope ya'll are having a fabulous Christmas Eve!  We have just been watching football all day and Brandon has been packing boxes of things we don't really need for the next 3 weeks. 20 days until we move! AH! And only 41 days until Micah is here! Crazy!

32 Weeks!!

So we're at 32 weeks now! How crazy is that? This week picture..

We only have 6 more weeks to go until our scheduled c-section!  This is how I looked 6 weeks ago at 26 weeks..

I think the belly is lower and pointer now..lol if a belly can be pointer!
So this week, Micah now weighs about 3.75 pounds, and is about 16.7 inches long.  He weighs about as much as a jicama, which I still haven't figured out exactly what that is.  My pregnancy app says that I am going to start gaining about a pound a week, and about half that pound every week goes to Micah.  It says he's going to gain 1/3 to half of his body weight between now and when he's born!  So crazy!  He has toenails, fingernails and hair now!  How cute!
This week he's going to grow to be 17 inches long, or about the length of a pineapple!  That seems massive! And he'll weigh about 4.25 pounds.  He feels so big in my stomach now, I can't imagine how much bigger he'll feel next week!  His movement hurts me at times, it feels like he's poking out.  And my hips are really starting to hurt, I can't walk very far without my hips feeling like they are completely separating.
On more random notes..our move got approved, so we are moving January 13th!  Now hopefully when we move out, they won't find a massive list of things wrong and charge us tons.  But thats a worry for another day.  We are going to start packing this weekend, Brandon has a 4 day weekend so we can start packing things like our DVDS and xbox games, and extra cups and things like that.  We can live off the bare necessities for 3 weeks.  I'm trying not to think about crazy it is that we are moving in 3 weeks, and then 3 weeks after that Micah is being born.  It'll all work out somehow!
And today we woke up to it snowing!!  So we got up and went and played in it with the puppies for a little bit, they really love the snow.

Thats my pretty winter wonderland this morning.  It started melting some around 9:30-10ish, but it's snowing again now, so we will see.  There's still a lot of snow on the cars and ground, but the parking lot and sidewalk it's melted a lot.  There's tons and tons of water on the parking long though, which means it will be turning to snow most likely later..oh yay.  After playing in the snow for a little while, the puppies came back and crashed. 

My cute little puppies got blankets from their Auntie Shannon for Christmas, so when they got back from playing in the snow, Mia got hers out of the toy basket, so we helped them wrap up in them and they've been laying snuggled up since then.  They obviously love their Christmas presents from Auntie Shannon!
Tuesday is another doctor appointment, because my doctor's office is closed on Mondays.  So on Tuesday I should have another picture of Micah, hopefully something cuter to look at then his brain.
Only 42 more days! AH! Probably should get started on that hospital bag...

Randomness..

So the apartment people came today to look at our apartment to decide if they were going to ok our move.  They brought a black light to look at the carpets with, and found 2 small spots by the bathroom.  I'm quite annoyed by this, because they definately didn't walk around with us with a blacklight before we moved in, and I know without a doubt there is no way my dogs did those 2 spots.  It has to be leftover from whoever lived in this apartment before us, because my dogs are never left unsupervised in that area.  If there'd been a spot in the bedroom, ok maybe that happened while we were sleeping, but not outside the bedroom!  The maintance guy said it should get cleaned up with just the carpet enzyme cleaning thing?  But I do know if they approve our move, they will be walking around that new apartment with a black light with us before we take it!  And I'm really hoping they aren't going to hit us with a bunch of annoying fees and cleaning fees....and breathing deeply..not going to stress about the move or the money involved in moving..

Other news, I got my Army Library card yesterday! I wasn't impressed with the El Paso Libraries around me, so I had stopped going to the library and reading.  However, they have a library on post, and I've been wanting to check it out, but to rent out a book I needed my sponser (Brandon) to fill out a form and authorize me to check out books.  So I convinced him to do that yesterday!  And now I once again have library books.  The library isn't as great as the one I had in Tuscaloosa, but it will work!

Yesterday, I decided to look on Etsy for my wall decal that I have in Micah's room, because its not something thats reuseable, and much to my sadness, the lady closed her etsy shop!  So we are punting on that...I'll let you know what happens..

Brandon and I think that my belly looks different, it almost looks smaller lately..but we'll find out when I take my weekly picture on Friday!  And I'm on pregnancy forums a lot, and there was a post about how tall the women are, what their pre-pregnancy weight was and what their current weight is.  All the women posting are due in Feb, and it made me feel so good about my weight.  There were quite a few women around my height, and they were pre-pregnancy where my goal weight is, and they now weigh as much as I do.  It made me feel really good on how I've done with weight so far this pregnancy.  Now we will see if I stay being good on my weight or if I pack it on in these last 6 weeks! :)  Only 44 days left!

Glider!!

So I was really wanting a glider, because I knew it would be useful after Micah came, especially while breastfeeding.  However, it just wasn't in the budget, it wasn't one of the absolute necessary items, instead on the want list.  We celebrated Christmas with my family on Saturday over the xbox kinect, and guess what I got! Yup! A glider from my parents! YAY!  We didn't unpack it right away because we were trying to figure out the whole moving thing, but on Sunday we had pretty much decided what we were going to do, we just needed to convince our apartment complex.  So Brandon put together our glider, and oh my goodness I'm in love.  Pregnant ladies should definately have these for the 3rd trimester.  It feels so good on my back, I barely ever sit on the couch anymore. 

Sorry its such a scary picture of me..I told Brandon he needed to take a picture of me last night, and then my stomach started not feeling so great so we lost the cute clothes.  And the water bottle is one I always have with me, I love our camelbaks!  We have like 5, so we can always have new ones in the fridge for when I finish one off.  Never been a water drinker until I got these, and now it's just so easy!  Anyway, my glider fits perfectly in that corner, however in the new apartment we'll have more room around it because we are moving our big brown chair into Micah's room.  Anyway gliders are so worth the money, they are amazing and I'm so happy I got one for Christmas!  And only 45 more days until Micah is here!

Oh the craziness...

So this dining room that I've tried making into an adorable nursery will no longer be where we bring home our baby boy.

You can see how it really is a dining room..that's my fridge right next to our crib :) I think I did a pretty good job making it into a nursery though..

But this won't be his first home because we seem to be moving! AHHH!  This craziness all started the end of last week when we were offered on post housing.  The idea of not having stairs anymore, a backyard for the puppies and all that seemed amazing.  However, we are in a year lease and we can't exactly break it just to move on post.  Around the same time, the new BAH rates for 2012 came out, and our BAH went up!!  With the new BAH rate, we can afford a 2 bedroom in our apartment complex! Techincally, we aren't able to transfer apartments until we've lived in our apartment for 6 months. However, our 6 months happens Feb 1, and my c-section is scheduled for Feb 3.  So after begging, I convinced my apartment complex that like 2 weeks isn't going to be that much of a big deal.  So maintance is going to come look at our apartment (I'm guessing to make sure we have destroyed it) and after they give their ok, we are good to move into a 2 bedroom on January 13!  I'm pretty excited!  We will have a 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment on the first floor!  And with our new BAH rate, we will be equal with where we are now!  If we stayed in our one bedroom, we could have been making money off this new BAH rate, but I think it's worth it to have more room!  And Micah will actually have his own room.  Brandon has assured me that I won't have to do anything with the move, no stress for me, that he will take care of everything.  So yes its crazy that we will be moving when I'm 35 weeks pregnant, but at least we will have 3 weeks to prepare the new apartment how we want it when we bring Micah home.  My job is to get the things we still need before Micah arrives, like bed sheets, mattress pads, bathing stuff, his rock n play...and now we will have room for things like a swing or bouncer, so we need to decide if we want to save and get some of those things too.  And now our laundry area doesn't have to be storage, and we can actually get a washer and dryer!  So I'm just going to breathe deeply, hope I don't go into labor prematurely, and let Brandon handle the move!

31 Weeks!

Today is already 31 weeks! Craziness!  I realized the other day..I started this blog a few days before 24 weeks, so just over 7 weeks ago now.  And now I only have 7 weeks left!  These past 7 weeks have flown by, and thats all that is left until Micah is here!
Todays picture..

Yup we're back to bathroom pictures..I keep forgetting to get Brandon to take a picture of me.  The shape looks different to me..but who knows, might just be the shirt.  My stomach gets really hard now, and it makes me wonder, where did all my belly fat go? Lol because it feels like rock hard.  I'm sure it'll all show back up after he's born.  Oh and my belly does all kind of weird shapes now when he moves around, like enough that Brandon can see it from the other side of the couch.  He says its like sci-fi Alien looking :)
According to my pregnancy apps, Micah is now 16 inches long!! That seems so huge, especially when you think he'll be around 20 when he's born! It's so close!  He weighs about 3.3 pounds, or the weight of 4 navel oranges.  It says he's about to have a major growth spurt in weight, so I guess here comes my weight gain!  He can turn his head now and he's working on getting chubbier.
This week he's going to be mainly working on growing.  By the end of this week, he'll be about 16.7 inches long! So another .7 inches in a week!! I feel more stretch marks coming!  It says he'll be about the size of a large jicama, no idea what that is! Online it says its a root vegetable, like a turnip.  And he'll be weighing about 3.75 pounds. 
He was really lethargic this week, which had me worried.  He was still moving, just not as much.  But when I started getting better from my cold, his hyperactiveness returned.  So I guess my cold made him lazy too.
Only 7 more weeks!! 49 more days!! We have less then 50 days now!

Insomnia

So people keep saying make sure you sleep a lot now so you can store it up for after the baby is born.  First off, can you store sleep?  I could see where you sleep a lot a day before you know you won't be able to sleep, but weeks in advance?  I don't think it works like that.  And second off...just how in the world am I supposed to be getting lots of sleep?  I miss sleep!  The multiple bathroom trips in the middle of the night really disrupt a deep sleep, but now I'm having problems falling asleep, and I keep waking up in the middle of the night wide awake!  And I look at my clock, convinced it must have been hours and hours since I last looked..and no its only been a hour and half. Its so frustrating.  My stomach is so uncomfortable all the time, and I wake up with my hips absolutely aching!  I always flip sides when I wake up, but it doesn't seem to help my hips at all.  And I do sleep with my pregnancy pillow, and it use to help, but now it doesn't.  I mean it's better then if I sleep without it, but I'm still miserable.  SOOOO any suggestions?  50 days left! But I can't really be counting down, excited about being able to sleep again, because pretty sure we all know that isn't going to get better after he's born.

30 Week Doctor Appointment

So today was my 30 week appointment, and Brandon got to go with me!  And my appointment went amazingly fast, no hours long wait in the waiting room this time!  I was really happy about that because I have a horribly cold and just feel miserable.  My weight was good, I gained a pound and half since my last appointment, but I'm blaming that on the fact I was wearing tennis shoes and I'm so congested :).  My doctor said he's very happy with my weight, with my lab work and all that.  Unfortunately my doctor did my ultrasound today, if he does it I don't get cute pictures, he just looks at brain and heart.  If the nurse does them, she looks at all that but then gets us really cute pictures...so here is todays picture..

Yup, thats his brain.  No cute profile picture, just a picture of his brain.  Oh well, at least I get pictures every appointment so this isn't like the one picture I have of him.  The doctor said his head is up by my ribs, with his bottom down.  But luckily, that doesn't matter to us!  Because I'm having a c-section, so he can hang out any way he likes!  I completely forgot to ask about all the questions I had, all I was focused on was my cold and can I do anything for it.  After I got that answer, I was good to go.  And I completely forgot one of my water bottles there :(.  Luckily we have lots of them, but of course it had to be my pink one that I lost.  Oh well!  7 and half more weeks until Micah is here! Or 53 more days!

30 Weeks!

YAY finally 30 weeks!  I'm out of the twenties!! And that means only 8 more weeks until I'll be holding Micah!
So this was me at 13 weeks..

And I was shocked how how much my stomach was out there..
And then at 24 weeks..

And today at 30 weeks!

Most shocking part of this whole thing to me is..I weight right around the same weight today as I did at 13 weeks!
I've felt a lot of changes this week, I don't know if it was a major growth spurt or if he just moved and spread out more in my stomach, but wow I feel him like constantly!  And its quite painful!  He likes to poke body parts out, so I'll get random bumps in my stomach.  I never can really tell what the body parts are, I don't know how people tell the difference between heels, elbows and knees or between the butt and head.  Even though it sometimes takes my breath away when he moves, I still love it!
According to my pregnancy apps, he is now the size of a head of cabbage, weighing in right around 3 pounds and he's about 15.7 inches long.  So I can blame at least 3 pounds of my weight on him now! yes!  His eyesight is developing and will continue to even after he's born.  Hopefully his little eyes develop perfectly and he doesn't have my horrible vision.  This week he'll be busy growing to be 16.25 inches long and 3.3 pounds, about the size of 4 navel oranges.  Week 15 he was the size of one navel orange, so in about 15 weeks, he has gotten 4 times bigger.  He's going to keep gaining that baby fat this week and his skin color is changing from red to pink.  His irises will also start being able to dilate and respond to changes in light.
I have a doctor appointment on Monday, so a new baby picture hopefully!
Only 56 more days!!
Oh and amazingly we still have snow hanging around from earlier this week..

It's more like frozen icy snow..but still I get to keep seeing some white!

Picking a Pediatrician..

So in our baby class on Saturday, they talked some about how important it is to have a pediatrician set up before your baby is born.  That the pediatrician will come to the hospital and check on baby, do the circumsion and all that.  They also had a pediatrician come and talk to us for a little while about what to expect from our doctor and future appointments and all that.  So now I'm trying to pick a doctor for Micah..but I feel so clueless!  How in the world do I pick one for him?  There are so many choices!  The doctor that came to our class seems pretty nice, and his office has a night clinic in case anything happens at night.  We can set up an appointment with him for free to check out his office and talk to him, so we can decide if he is the one we want.  He seemed to obviously have a good relationship with the hospital, since they call him in to talk to baby class.  I'm also thinking that I should ask my ob/gyn if he has anyone he suggests, he gave me a good heart doctor.  So that will give me like 2 options instead of 8 million..which seems better to me! Hopefully, fingers crossed, we won't be here that long after Micah is born, so they won't be the doctor forever, but I still want a good one in case Micah has any issues.  And then what kind of questions do I ask the doctor?  I know I'm going to have to talk to them about Ehlers-Danlos and all the issues that are associated with it.  I don't care if they don't know a lot about Ehlers-Danlos, because most don't, but I do want a doctor that will be interested in it and research the subject a lot so they will be well prepared to care for my baby.  Ugh so much to figure out..
But on another subject, we had a winter wonderland last night!!  It was so exciting, I wasn't expecting much in the way of snow since we do live in a desert.  I waited until Brandon got home before I went out in it with him and the dogs.  I had to walk really carefully because there was ice on the sidewalks too.  Chester loves the snow so much!  He was running around in it, rolling around and throwing snow up in the air.

There's Brandon and Mia hanging out in the snow..

More of our pretty snow!  We didn't walk around and play in it as much as we normally do on snowy days, because we were worried about me slipping and falling.  Oh well, next year maybe I'll get to build snowmen and have snowball fights :)  This morning was great, because post didn't open until 10am, so Brandon got to hang around the house this morning with us.  He got up and took the dogs out while I watched out the window.

Sorry the picture isn't the greatest, the screen gets in the way, but oh well!  See how white our mountains are in the background? So pretty!  It was nice to look out the window and see it all, but not have to go out in it.  It was 18 degrees but felt like 7 from the wind when Brandon took the dogs out.  BRRR!  And then Brandon made us waffles on his waffle maker we got about a month ago, I was quite spoiled this morning! The temperature isn't supposed to get above 32 today, so they are saying the ice will be around all day.  Brandon left a little bit ago for work, and I'm worried about him.  The news has been full of accidents today, a ton of roads are closed down so he has to drive 3 times as far to get to work, and the news is saying there's black ice on the roads.  I have faith in his ability to drive in it, its all the other people I worry about!  Tonight was also supposed to be our breastfeeding class at the hospital, but I don't think we are going to go.  They taught us some on breastfeeding in our baby class, and it's not worth driving on icy roads to me to go tonight.
Only 59 more days to go! AHH we're in the 50's now! :)

Wintery day in the desert!

So today has been a really cold day, and then about a hour ago, I looked out my window and saw this!

Yup! That's some icy snow gathering on the roof outside my window!  It's not sticking to the ground yet, but it's been going for well over a hour now, so we will see what happens tonight!  Thinking Brandon might have some icy roads on his way home!  I love seeing this even though we live in a desert!  Definately can tell I grew up in Florida, slushie snow makes me really happy!
On other news....I fell asleep this afternoon, and woke up to a new message from my doctor's office with my gestational diabetes test results...drumroll.....I PASSED! YAY no gestational diabetes here! Wahohoooo! and no 3 hour horrid test!
60 more days!

Baby Class!

Today was our baby class at the hospital, so we woke up nice and early and got ready to go.  Brandon decided to put the carseat in the car, and I looked over and this is what I saw.

Brandon decided that the carseat shouldn't be empty so Joshua the teddy bear got to go on a car ride! So we all got packed into the car, Joshua and all, and headed off to the hospital.  I looked over at the mountains and saw this!

That's snow on top of my mountain!  I guess thats where all the wintery mix the news has been talking nonstop went to!  We got to the hospital (and were horrible parents and left Joshua in his carseat in the car) and went inside and asked the front desk where the baby class was.  The guy didn't know, so he called the teacher to find out and then he was like umm she wants to talk to you.  So I get on the phone and she says did you sign up for this class?  Yes after a month of waiting for a return call, I did schedule it, and she was like I have a class next Saturday but not one today, but let me see if anyone else was told today too.  I was like great...got told the wrong date, and the printed calender has it wrong..but then like 10 minutes later, she comes downstairs and 2 more couples walk into the front reception area..so we got to have class!  There ended up being 4 couples in the class.  This was our book for the class..

It was an interesting class, it didn't focus to much on labor and delivery, which was my worry since I'll be having Micah by a c-section, I didn't care to go to a class telling me how to breathe.  We watched a video on labor, and it scared Brandon at times.  He was quite grossed out about the placenta!  And then I told him how some people eat it..and that blew him away even more!  But it was nice that they had a video on a c-section birth too.  We learned about what to expect at the hospital and some basics on baby care and breastfeeding.  It was a pretty interesting class, but long.  They provided lunch to us, which I thought their lunch choice was weird.  Doctors say pregnant women shouldn't eat cold cut deli meat, that it needs to be heated to kill off listeria, and so the hospital provided us with Subway sandwiches with cold deli meat.  So I chose not to eat lunch and just waited until class ended a little while later.  We got a hospital tour, but of course the post-partum rooms were full, so I didn't get to see where I would be.  We saw the labor and delivery rooms, and they were really nice, so hopefully they were similiar.
After the class we went by Target, and then headed over to post to pick up my new glasses!! Hope  you like them!...Don't mind the messy hair.

29 Weeks!

So today I get home from grocery shopping, and Brandon says wow you're really pregnant.  Umm thanks? You kind of see me everyday..but he says that the side view is becoming like really out there.  Yesterday I got a really sharp pain very low, and now my stomach just feels different.  I don't think he's dropped, from looking at myself in the mirror and in pics, but he's definately done something.  Today, putting on a shirt I've worn this whole time without problems, its now a problem!  It's really tight around my stomach.
Me at 24 weeks...

Me today at 29 weeks...

Hmm...it doesn't seem that much larger in 5 weeks, but it sure does feel like it!!..And yes, those are my Skittles on the ottoman, they sounded amazing last night when I was at the gas station.
So 29 weeks means that I can blame at least 2.5 pounds of my weight on Micah now, because he's that heavy and about 15 inches long, about the size of a butternut squash.  His muscles and lungs are still maturing and his head is grwoing to make room for his developing brain.  Hopefully he doesn't get my massive head though!  My app says he's also really soaking in the calcium right now, so I have to make sure to drink lots and lots of milk!  This week he'll grow to be 15.7 inches long and about 2.75 pounds, or the size of a cabbage.  He's going to continue to breathe, and get the hiccups, which I have felt quite a bit of this week!  According to my app, it says that most women gain about a pound a week from now until the end, which would be fine with me.  I only have 9 more weeks, which would be 9 pounds..which would put me right around prepregnancy weight..yup!  I'm perfectly fine with that idea!  I don't like however how much my stomach hurts all the time now, just since yesterday afternoon, its so uncomfortable and feels more in the way then it did before.  I feel like when I walk, I need to help hold my belly up because it hurts.  I'm starting to think it might be time for one of those support belts my doctor told me about.  I'm also thinking I should start planning out soon what is going in my hospital bag, not pack it yet because I'm always a last minute packer...but at least start gathering what I want.
Only 63 more days!

Random Thoughts..

So I've got a bunch of random things going on in my head..none are enough for their own posts, so here ya go!
My pregnancy app said the other day that most women gain 11 pounds from that day until baby is born, which got me thinking again about my weight.  I haven't really paid attention much to it lately, I've gotten over the whole weekly weigh in idea.  On Monday, I weighed in at my doctor's office and I was negative 9 pounds from prepregnancy, so that means I gained some weight back in the past couple of months but not a lot.  Normally my scale and my doctors scale are within tenths of a pound of each other, when I weigh myself on the same day.  So I was thinking about this whole weight thing today, so I weighed myself before getting in the shower, and my scale says I'm 3.5 pounds lighter then I was at the doctors office on Monday.  It was approximately the same time of day, only about a half hour earlier, so it made me wonder..how much do you figure in for weight of clothes?  Did my clothes on Monday really weigh 3.5 pounds? 
I've also had really random dreams throughout my entire pregnancy, such as the other night when it seemed perfectly normal that Leroy Jethro Gibbs from NCIS was part of our daily life, a family friend.  However, last nights dream was super weird to me, I kept dreaming that I went into labor and had Micah.  The weird part, I had him at home and was in labor for only 4 hours.  Normally when I get up to go the bathroom and fall back asleep, I dream of something totally different, but not last night!  Every dream was about this 4 hour labor experience.  Makes me wonder what my stomach was doing last night! I woke up with a really sore stomach, it feels like it went through an intense workout!
So my other baby boy, Chester, seems quite convinced that the pregnancy pillow is actually his and he lets me borrow it at night.  Every day I bring it out to the couch because I like to lay down with it sometimes, and he jumps right on it and groans at me when I try to get him to move.

But he's just so cute on it, so I normally give up and let him use it all day.  The best part is at night time when he's my big helper.  I'll be in the bedroom getting ready for bed and realize that I left it in the other room, so I'll ask Chester to go get my pillow.  Brandon will be in the living room, and there's this little loop that can go around Chester's head, so he puts it on him and Chester will come bounding into the bedroom with it and bring it right to me.  I need to make a video of it because it's so funny, you can tell how proud Chester is to be a big helper.
Today Micah's carseat should be here!  I probably won't post pictures of that until the weekend, because it will be to heavy for me to carry up the stairs, so I have to wait for Brandon to get off work tonight to unpack it.
Only 64 more days until Micah is here!

Laundry Hamper

So I've been trying to figure out what we were going to do for Micah's laundry hamper, the one I really wanted and matches his bedroom decor is $45 on amazon.  That seemed like way to much money to spend on a laundry hamper, but look how cute it is!

I knew we wouldn't be getting it as a gift, because Babies R Us doesn't carry it, so I couldn't put it on our baby registry.  So I was trying to figure out what we were going to do for all his dirty clothes and I was really clueless.  I wanted more sailboat stuff in his room because we aren't getting the "bedroom set" with the comforter and bumper because neither of those we are using.  That's why I was really wanting this hamper instead of just a plain wicker one.  Well last Wednesday, I got an email from Nautica.com saying they were having a pre Thanksgiving sale!  With the coupon they sent me in my email, plus the online sale, I was able to get this hamper for only $22! With free shipping!  Still more then I normally would spend on laundry, but I decided it was going to help pull his room together and it was something I really wanted, so we bought it! And today it came in the mail!

I couldn't put it in his nursery where it's actually going because we have Christmas stuff stored there right now, so after Brandon gets home, we'll move all that into the shelf in the closet and put the hamper where it belongs, but I'm so excited!  Only things that are needed in his nursery now is the diaper genie and the mobile for his crib, we need mattress pads and crib sheets too...but we have one set of those already so once we get the mobile and diaper genie it will look like a complete nursery!  Which is good since we only have 65 more days until Micah is here!

Gestational Diabetes Test

So I finally had my test today, and I didn't like it!  First I had to fast since last night, which of course meant all night long I had dreams about food and woke up starving!  And then I had to go to the lab place, which of course took forever to get called back, while I'm starving.  Then they did pre bloodwork and gave me this nasty lemon lime drink that tasted like flat sprite.  I was incredibly motivated to drink it fast though, because as soon as I was done drinking my hour of waiting started.  Definately drank that the fastest I've ever drank anything!  And then Brandon and I got to sit in the waiting room for an entire hour.  Brandon had CQ yesterday, which means he works for 24 hours straight, so he gets to have today off.  So straight from working 24 hours, he got to come sit in a waiting room with me for a hour and keep me entertained :)  Drinking that nasty drink made my stomach feel gross because it was like pure sugar and I don't do much sugar anymore.  Finally after my hour was done, they called me back and I got my blood drawn again and then it was time to get home and eat!!  They said my doctor would have the results in 2-3 days, so I'm thinking I should know by Monday if I passed or if I have to do the 3 hour test, so fingers crossed!  66 more days until Micah is here!

28 Week Doc Appt

So today was my 28 week doctor appointment, which was I expecting the same thing as always, get weighed get ultrasound and doctor says everything looking good.  Well first off, my doctors office moved so I got to go to aother side of town and find his new office.  Then once I got there, they somehow lost my appointment! Luckily I had with me my appointment card to prove I wasn't crazy, that they did tell me it was today, but I got pushed all the way to the last appointment before lunch break.  Over a hour and half in the waiting room is always fun, but luckily I brought a book with me this time!  After I finally got into the room, the doctor came in looked at my chart, looked at his phone and said hmm you're 28 weeks...how about we schedule your c-section for 02/03/12 at am.  I was like what?!?!  He had told me previously that he couldn't schedule my c section until I hit 30 weeks, so I was planning on finding out at my next appointment on Dec 12, but he decided to do it early! YAY!  Which means I only have 9 and half more weeks until Micah is born!! Two whole weeks before my due date!  I can't believe we're already in single digit week countdown!  It's 67 days until he's born!  That sounds so close!! And I have so much left to do!  We're supposed to be ordering his carseat online today, which is really the last big item we have to have..but still! This seems so crazy to me right now!  Oh and Micah finally moved up higher in my stomach! I kept telling him that he had plenty of room in there, he didn't need to stay so low and finally he moved up! And of course, no doctor appointment is complete without a cute picture of Micah!

His cute little profile and thats his leg above his head, obviously quite flexible right now!  67 more days!!

YAY!

It's Sunday morning, and guess what? I'm at home!! We made it through a Saturday without going to the hospital!  We didn't do much yesterday, we decided to completely rearrange our furniture in our living room, so that took up most of the day.  We finally got rid of our computer desk that was falling apart, so we had to go to the PX to get some new stuff to hold everything and to get wires for everything to work, but I like it a lot better now.  We even have room for Micah toys!  Now we just need to get him some..
Oh and of course, Roll Tide!  Brandon didn't watch most of the Alabama/Auburn game because he was busy rearranging the living room for us, but I kept him up to date from the bedroom :)

28 Weeks!

Yay 28 weeks!  It means I'm officially 3rd trimester according to all pregnancy apps and books!  Only 12 weeks until my due date!  I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!  Ours was really good, we baked cookies in the morning and then went to friends house the rest of the day and ate lots of good food and watched football.  This whole week has been really low key as I've been getting over that stomach bug and fighting a cold.  Hopefully I'll be more productive this coming week!
What Micah has accomplished this week...he's about the size of a Chinese cabbage, weighing around 2 and 1/4 pounds and 14.8 inches long.  He can now blink his eyes and he has little eyelashes now.  He's developing billions of neurons in his brain and is still adding on more body fat.  He's going to be growing to 15.25 inches long and 2.5 pounds, or about the size of a butternut squash.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a lazy Saturday, and we'll skip this weekly visit to the hospital.  I have a doctor appointment on Monday, so I should have new cute pictures of Micah on Monday! And about two weeks until we get to pick a c-section date!  Only 84 more days until my due date!

Another fun Saturday..

So this post may contain TMI at times, so if you don't want to hear it all, definately skip this one!  But since this is family and friends that I write this blog for, well you get to hear most of the fun details..
Friday night was a pretty normal night, Brandon got home from work and we decided to go grocery shopping.  I was having problems walking very far, it was making my stomach feel weird, and so I was walking super slow.  So Brandon convinced me to get the little motorized shopping car, and we had so much fun as I was zooming around the commissary in it.  The best was when I started backing up, and it made a really loud "beep beep" noise, Brandon's eyes got so big, we were laughing so hard.
Well around 4am I woke up, and wow was I sick.  My body completely emptied itself out, I drank some water and crashed back into bed around 5:30.  At 7am, the dogs woke us up and I told Brandon I was sick, and if he would take the dogs out by himself, he could play video games all morning, so he got up and I joined him in the living room about 15 minutes later. I got some water to drink and I was laying on the couch when all of a sudden I felt really sick again, so I told Brandon to go get me a bag, he went running and brought me back one just in time....and of course this bag had a massive hole in it. So happy Brandon has a stronger stomach than me.  At this time I started worrying about being dehyrdated because of how sick I'd been from 4-5:30 and then again, and I was shaking so bad.  So I called and the nurse said if I couldn't keep gatorade down, then I needed to come in.  We then tried the gatorade about a hour later, and I failed that one too.  So we packed the dogs up and took them to our friends who are amazing and took care of them for us, and we headed off to the hospital.  Of course we didn't think to bring a bag in the car with us, so that means I definately got sick again in my car...so lovely.  We got to the hospital and they took us straight to the 3rd floor, which is where the hosptial bedrest pregnant women stay.  It's the same area we stayed in last weekend, so my hopes of just getting full of IVs and then being sent home that afternoon was crushed, I knew I'd be spending at least the night.  They had tons of problems getting my IV in because I was dehydrated, so my veins were harder to get.  They finally got it in, but they couldn't put the needle completely in, so it was only like halfway in.  It was painful! But after they got it all taped up, I didn't care anymore.  Then they started me on the fluids and anti nausea medicine, which is my friend!  Brandon went to the cafeteria at the hospital for lunch and discovered he's going to need to bring snacks with us in Feb and get people to bring food, because it was pretty bad choices.  The anti nausea medicine made me really sleepy, so I slept most of Saturday, except every 4 hours I'd wake up.  As soon as the medicine wore off, I was throwing up again.  It was miserable.  I also was running a fever, which was no fun.  Brandon got no sleep that night because he had to keep helping me get unhooked from the machines to go the bathroom, and he also had to keep running to get the nurses when I got sick.  Around midnight, he was getting really worried because it was weird colors, including red, and the nurse was like ahh no worries, that's nothing it's just her stomach lining.  Lol we were like umm that doesn't sound like something thats no big deal!!  But finally after midnight, I stopped.  Sunday morning they brought me breakfast, a yummy liquid diet of chicken broth and jello.  I only ate like 3 bites of the broth.  Then my doctor came by and said if I could eat lunch and keep it down I could go home, because it would have been over 12 hours since I'd been sick.  So for lunch I got the solid meal, we went from jello and broth to roast beef with gravy, scalloped potatoes, veggies, a roll, watermelon, and a big slice of chocolate cake.  It just looked so incredibly heavy.  I ate the roll, and Brandon ate the rest for me, there was no way I was going to stomach all that, I hadn't eaten since Friday evening!  Then I told Brandon they had to get this IV out of me!! My entire arm was killing me, it was so painful.  I could see where my veins ran because it was all red and hard all the way up my arm, thankfully they took it out right away, but my arm feels all bruised and really painful.  And finally around 1:30 or so, I got discharged.  I was so happy to go home!! Two weekends in a row at the hospital is too much!  As we were leaving, Brandon was like bye! see you next Saturday! Ugh I hope not!!  I'm doing better now, haven't gotten sick again but now my body just aches an ubelievable amount, which I know is normal after being that sick.  I'm taking it real easy, eating light foods like soup and hoping this feeling of being run over by a semi leaves me soon.  I look pretty beat up too, my right arm is all red and hard where my veins are from the IV and it is still really painful, and my left arm I have a nice bruise from where they drew blood.  But the good part is Micah is just fine!  He was never fazed the entire time, it's pretty incredibly how I can be so sick and even though he's inside me, he's so well protected that me having a stomach flu didn't bother him at all.  He was moving like crazy the whole time, just like normal.  Hopefully that is my last stay at the hospital until February!

27 weeks!

Yay I'm 27 weeks now!

Mia wanted to be in the picture too :)
So there seems to be controversy on when the 3rd trimester starts, 27 or 28 weeks.  I'm going to say 28 weeks, because I like 2nd trimester, and I'm dreading the 3rd.  So this is my last week of the 2nd trimester.  According to my pregnancy apps, Micah officially weighs 2 pounds (even though I was told by my doctors office almost 2 weeks ago that he was already 2 pounds) and he is about 14 1/2 inches long.  He's sleeping and waking up at regular intervals, and he opens and closes his little eyes now.  He also might even be sucking his fingers now.  Micah's brain is more active now, and even though his lungs are still immature, they could work if he was born now.  He would just need a lot of medical help.  He is also starting to get hiccups a lot. 
This week he will be growing to be 14.8 inches long and about 2.25 pounds, about the size of a chinese cabbage.  Is a chinese cabbage different then a regular cabbage?  This is making me learn my fruits and vegetables more!
I've started having a lot of hip and back pain lately, and I feel like I can barely walk around now.  If I walk more than like 5 minutes, I'm in pain.  I knew this was going to happen eventually, because your body makes a hormone called relaxin that spreads out your hips so you can give birth, but since my body is already stretched and doesn't hold together very well from Ehlers-Danlos, it makes it harder on my body.  That's why I'm not excited about the 3rd trimester.  But only 3 and half more weeks until we find out a date for the c-section! 
Only 91 more days until my due date!

Birth Plan?

So my pregnancy app says that today I should be working on my birth plan.  However, I'm having a c-section, so do I need a birth plan?  According to things I've read online, I do, but I'm really not picky.  I just want everything to go smoothly and Micah to be fine. I was looking at this website http://www.worry-free-c-section.com/c-section_birth_plan.html
and it has a list of things that I should think about when I'm making a c section birth plan.
-Epidural or Spinal- I'm really not picky! I just don't want to feel anything! And with my heart condition plus being allergic to morphine and percoset, I don't know what they are going to be able to give me.
-Catheter Insertion- Umm yah thats something I really didn't want to think about!  But according to this website, I'm supposed to make sure they give it to me after my spinal or epidural, which makes sense.
-Sutures or Staples- hmmm whatever my doctor puts in me?  I'd rather the ones that go away on their own because I don't want them ripped out of me later, owww!
-Follow up meds- Oh I will happily take whatever pain medications they offer me! I'm not superwoman!  This is a major surgery! After my other surgeries, I always took the pain meds, and this time will be no different!
-Rooming in- So I might seem a little crazy here, and I might change my mind after I see Micah's adorable face, but right now Brandon and I are thinking no to rooming-in.  My body needs to recover, which means I need to get the sleep while I can.  The nurses are very smart people and I'm sure they can take good care of him while I get some sleep so I can be a better mommy when we get home.
-Hospital gown or your own- Hmm well I'm thinking hospital gown at first for sure, because I don't want to ruin my own gowns.  Maybe towards the end of my stay I will want to be in my own clothes, if I can ever find nightgowns that are long enough!
-Who will be present at birth- Umm since it's a c-section, don't they only let you one person?  I only want Brandon in there anyway, don't need the whole world seeing my stomach cut open!  I really don't even want him looking over the curtain and seeing my stomach cut wide open.
-Hands free/unrestrained during procedure-  I don't think this is a big deal, whatever they need to do, do it! There is problem a reason behind restraining my hands, like so I don't move while they are cutting me so we don't have any oops moments!
-Do you want to view the birth- OH MY GOODNESS NO!  I threw up when my doctor only traced his finger along my arm where he was going to cut during my elbow surgery.  I certainly don't want to see my body cut open!
-Music played/your own music?-  I think that would be nice, it might help distract me from the idea that they are cutting my stomach open.  I actually have that on a list to ask when we go to a baby class at the hospital, because I'd like to bring our iPod with certain music. 
-Staff quiet, or chatter ok- They can talk as much as they want!  I want them to be communicating well with each other! And I want them to reassure me that everything is just fine.
-Touch/hold baby immediately after-  They can get him cleaned up and wrapped in the little blanket first, but I do want to see him before he goes off to the nursery!  Obviously, if something is wrong then I just want him to get to the NICU as quick as possible.
-Who stays with baby during post-op- Brandon already knows that he isn't to leave Micah's side until he can be brought to me.
-Breastfeed- yup, I plan on doing that
-Bottles, pacifiers, formula-  Well since I'm wanting to breastfeed, I don't want them to be giving him bottles or formula, right?  But I have no problem with pacifiers, I plan on using them!
-Circumsion- yes please
-Doctor give play by play of procedure- Umm no, just tell me everything is going great, that it's almost done and then here he is!  I don't need to know about every cut you make in my stomach. Ugh feeling lightheaded right now just thinking about it!
-Keep the Placenta- Ewww nooo!!! Please get rid of it!

See, I think most of my answers are the normal hospital procedures, aren't they?  I guess I should write down some of these things, and when I go to my 30 week appointment to schedule my c-section, ask my doctor about some stuff.

Saturday's shopping trip

Before all the drama happened on Saturday, we went to the outlet mall and found some super cute clothes for Micah.  Never being in El Paso for the winter, I have absolutely no idea how many warm clothes I should get him and how warm those clothes should be.  But we saw this on sale, and it's just so cute so we had to get it.  Plus we got it in newborn so hopefully he'll be able to use it right away.

Hehe, it has ears!  And it's super soft and snuggly!
Plus we had to get this also..

 In case you can't read it, it says Grandpa's Big Guy :)

Oh what a day!

So Saturday was quite an exciting day for us.  Brandon had to do guard duty Friday night from midnight to 5am, so I got up in the morning and left him sleeping while I went to the grocery store.  Then after I woke him up to unload groceries, we got ready to go together.  We decided to go on this scenic drive road in El Paso, and it was really pretty!

The far part of the picture is Mexico!  It's kind of hard to explain in that picture, but there is definately a line and then Mexico.  There's a bridge, that is barely able to be seen in this picture, and it's the border crossing. 

Of course we had to throw in a belly picture!

After that fun exploring, we went to the malls and bought a bunch of Christmas presents.  Then we came home, and watched some Alabama football!  But right about half time, I got super hungry for vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce.  Normally I talk myself out of my cravings, because I don't like the idea of running out at night for food.  But Brandon had to go to walgreens anyway for some medicine, so we decided to run to Burger King together as well. So we were heading out the door, and I went to go down the stairs in our apartment, and I slipped on the very first step.  I caught myself about the 4th step, and I didn't hit my stomach at all, so we were like umm wow that was scary! And we went and ran our errands.  Well after we got back home, and the adrenaline had worn off, my back was really hurting and my stomach kept getting super tight.  So after a little bit, I decided I didn't want to be stupid, and that I might as well run to the hospital and get everything checked out for our peace of mind.  Brandon asked if we should drop our puppies off at a friends house, and I was like nahh, they'll just check me out real quick and send me on home.  So we got to the hospital, and we were sent up to labor and delivery, and the nurse put me on monitors for like a hour, and said everything looks really good!  That she was going to call my doctor real quick to tell him and check in, and then I should be able to be sent home.  Well she called my doctor, and he said nope, he wanted me to spend the night and stay on the monitors because I'm high risk, he wanted to make sure everything stayed good.  So I got to check out my hospital for the night!  Found out the food is pretty good there, all the nurses were amazing, the room was really nice, but it was so hard for me to sleep!  I only got like 2 hours of sleep that night.  I'd start to fall asleep and the blood pressure cuff would start squeezing my arm like crazy, waking me back up.  Poor Brandon had to go back home and take care of the dogs, and then be back at the hospital with me just a couple hours later, so he got pretty much no sleep again.  But he did get to try out the husband bed in my room for a little bit, and he said it was incredibly uncomfortable.  He wants to bring a cot from work in February. :)
Micah was good all night though, except he kept trying to hide from the monitors, and kept kicking the nurses like crazy when they would move the monitor back on him.  But he didn't try to make an early appearance, so Sunday morning we got released and I was told to take it easy, drink lots of water, and try not to fall on stairs anymore! :)  Lesson learned- Cravings are bad! Don't give in to them!

Stroller!

So my awesome stroller finally came yesterday! Actually...according to the tracking number, it got here on November 7th, but I never got a sticker on my door saying a package was at the front office, nor did a UPS man ever knock on my door.  So I found out it was supposedly here yesterday, so Brandon and I went down to the front office to find out if it was there, and we told the lady that it was going to be a big package.  So she looks in this little storage closet and goes nope it's not here!  So we were like umm ok, so where is our stroller?  So we go back to our apartment, and as soon as we get inside, the front office lady calls and says, "umm I just found your package, it was to big for our storage closet so it was in the conference room."  I guess she didn't believe us when we told her it was big!  So anyway our beautiful stroller is finally here!!

Isn't so pretty?  I'm so excited about it.  Now I'm feeling like we really need to get our car seat to put in it!  We're keeping it up so the dogs can get use to it.  And yesterday, we went on a walk with the puppies with it.  I kind of felt like a crazy lady pushing an empty stroller around my apartment complex, but Chester was very scared of it at first and was pulling trying to get away from it, and running into it.  At the end of the walk he was doing much better, so we're going to keep practicing so it doesn't even faze him after Micah is here.  But it pushes so nice! I'm so excited, I can't wait to take Micah on walks with it!

26 Weeks, Happy Veterans Day!

Yay for 26 weeks!  I'm starting to feel massive, and I think I look pretty massive in this picture.  The only plus is my thighs look smaller as my belly gets bigger!  According to my pregnancy apps, Micah is about 14 inches long, about the size of a English Hothouse cucumber.  My app says he weighs about 1 and 2/3 pounds now, but according to my ultrasound on Monday, he was already at 2 pounds.  He's practicing inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluids now, which is why his mouth was probably wide open in that picture.  By next week he'll be 14.5 inches long, about the size of a cauliflower.  Only 98 more days until my due date!  And I'm quickily approaching the 3rd trimester, which after hearing all the horror of it, I'm not sure I want to leave 2nd trimester! I kind of like it here!
Today is also Veteran's Day.  I'm so thankful for all our Veterans and the soldiers that are currently fighting.  I'm especially proud of my own soldier.  It's not always the easiest life, or the easiest job, but it's the only job I see Brandon doing and being happy at.  I never thought I'd be an Army Wife, but I'm so proud of him.  Him and the soldiers I meet around base amaze me, being a soldier is hard enough, but to volunteer to serve during a war time takes a special kind of person.  So today we're hitting up the free food at restaurants, and he's enjoying time with me and the puppies.

Happy Veteran's Day

99 Days!

YAY! In less than 99 days, Micah will be here! We finally hit the double digits! 181 days down, 99 to go.  99 days is my due date, so it's less since I'm having a c-section, but I don't know how many days less. So until it's scheduled, I'll go by my due date countdown and be happily suprised when it's earlier!  I only have 4 more weeks until my doctor will schedule a due date with me!
On a random note..have I always been such a messy eater?  I go through so many shirts a day now, because I keep looking down and seeing food from earlier on my belly! Or I'll be sitting on the couch and my dog Chester will come over and start licking my belly, and I'll be like awww you giving Micah kisses?  And then realize, nope! He's licking jelly from my peanut butter and jelly sandwich earlier!

Holy Stretch Marks!

So this post is definately not getting a picture!  It feels like all of a sudden, I have massive stretch marks, weirdly it's just on one side of my stomach. Not really sure why only one side of my stomach is stretching, and it's the side I always feel him on. I knew with my skin plus Ehlers-Danlos, I was probably going to get a lot of them, but it's so sad to see them.  I lotion up my entire body every morning with coco butter lotion, but it seems as though it's doing absolutely nothing!  So are there any suggestions on things I can do to fight this?

25 Week Doc Appt

There's Micah waving hi! He was being a little ham today for the camera, and he was waving at me during the ultrasound! Everything went really good at my appointment, the doctor said my weight is perfect and my blood pressure is perfect. I go back in 3 weeks; it was going to start being every 2 weeks, but 2 weeks is Thanksgiving week and my doctor is on vacation that week. And when I go back, I get to have my awesome gestational diabetes testing done. I'm not looking forward to that, but at least if I fail, it's after Thanksgiving. I also go my flu shot today, my first one, and I'm suprised how sore my arm is from it. The ultrasound tech said that he looks to be weighing 2 pounds, which is bigger than my pregnancy app said he should be right now, so I guess he's going to be a big boy. But today was special, because I didn't just get a picture of him waving, but we got 2 pictures today!

Not really sure if he's yelling, laughing or yawning in that one, but I'm hoping yawning.  He's been jumping around like crazy all morning so I would appreciate a naptime!

Shelf

So I had no idea that shelves were so hard to find! But I finally found out I liked at Target, and then the new challenge was finding baskets to put on it, so all the supplies would be hidden.  The shelf was the normal 8 inches deep, and I found out that most baskets are bigger than that!  I would have thought baskets were designed to be put on shelfs, but I guess not!  So I finally found some at Babies R Us, and I got blue so there would be some color on that wall, only to come home and see that the blue didn't match my other blues.  The baskets looked periwinkle, so back to the store I went!  So this is the final project

There's still plenty of room for Micah, without worrying about hitting his head, but I'm also able to reach inside the baskets and get things out with them still on the shelf.  Now I'm trying to figure out baby wipes, is it possible to find a cute container to put them in or make one?  Or should I just make room in one of the top drawers of the dresser for them?  I'm thinking the top drawer, because the baskets can hold some diapers, baby lotion, nail clippers and all that in one, and the other one could hold socks, hats and bibs.  The baskets have dividers in them, so it'd be easy to have one section for socks and so forth.  But the nursery is getting close to being done!  All that is left is his laundry hamper, diaper genie and mobile for his crib.

25 Weeks!

Already 25 weeks today, which is so crazy to me!! Less than 15 weeks until Micah is here, and we still have so much to do!  I'm in the part of pregnancy that I want it all to slow down so I have more time to get everything prepared.  Right now I feel like the holidays are about to happen and then bam! he'll be here! 
According to my pregnancy apps, Micah is about 13 and half inches long and weighs about a pound and half now.  I love him weighing more than a pound, because I feel like I can blame some of that number on the scale on him! :)   He weighs about as much as a rutabaga, which means I need to go to the grocery store and see how heavy that is.  Micah is also starting to get some baby fat on him, so I can't wait until my ultrasound, because if its 3d again, I'll be able to see how he's starting to work on his chubby cheeks.  And he's growing hair!  His hair color and texture is now there, my guess is blonde at first, if he's not a bald baby. This week he'll be growing to be about 14 inches long, or as big as a hothouse cucumber, and gain about another quarter of a pound. 
My apps also say that I should be having my gestational diabetes testing done in the next few weeks, which I'm not looking forward to at all!  I'm guessing my doctor will schedule it when I go to my appointment on Monday.  I'm dreading the test, because everyone says it tastes horribly gross, but I'm also worried about failing. According to PubMed Health, people at higher risk are -
      Being over 25 when you're pregnant (which I'm not),
      Have a family history of diabetes (which I do),
      Gave birth to a baby over 9 pounds (nope, Micah is my first and I sure hope he isn't that huge!),
      Have sugar in your urine on a regular doctor visit (Hasn't been mentioned to me, so no?),
      High blood pressure (mine is high for me now, but considered still very low compared to most),
      Have to much amniotic fluid (again, hasn't been mentioned to me),
      Have had an unexplained miscarriage (nope)
      Overweight before pregnancy (sadly yes)
                     got these risk factors from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001898/

So I guess, I'm not to bad on that list, only 2 items.  But I'm still worried because how awful to find out you have GD right before the holidays!! :( I want my yummy holiday food!  So hopefully I will pass with flying colors!
Less than 105 days until Micah is here!

Prenatal Courses

So my hospital finally called me back (after waiting like 3 weeks), and I'm officially registered for my Prenatal Crash Course and my Breastfeeding Class.  I really have no idea what to expect from the Prenatal Crash Course.  It goes from 9am-3pm!! That seems like a forever long class! The class description is "This class is designed for couples expecting their first baby or as a refresher course." Not exactly real detailed on what takes 6 hours to learn. I'm hoping they teach us how to swaddle and things like that.  I know we get a more in depth tour of the hospital as well.  But I really hope they don't spend a lot of the class practicing breathing and all the labor stuff, because that stuff doesn't pertain to me.  I already know I'm getting a c-section, so maybe we can go get snacks during that time?  It'll be interesting! I've got another month until my classes and I'm excited!

Bummer Day...

So today was supposed to be a doctor appointment, so I was planning on posting an update on Micah and new pic of him.  But my doctor decided to cancel all his afternoon appointments, so I had to reschedule for next week. Boo!! So I decided to post other pics...

That was our very first pic of him.  It wasn't my first time seeing him, because I had been to the doctor like 2 weeks before, but he was to tiny for them to print out a picture.  This was the first time Brandon got to see him though.  He is definately the most photographed baby, we have so many ultrasound pictures all over the house.  And then only 15 weeks later, this is what he looked like

It's crazy to me how fast he's grown.  And now when I finally get in to see the doctor next week, he'll be even bigger!!  I'm hoping I'll see him in 3d again, but I'm not holding my breath.  Most people have to pay lots of money to get that, and I already got one free (thanks insurance!!).  It was absolutely amazing, especially when they showed his feet, and I was really happy that Brandon got to be at that appointment too.  I love going to the appointments to see him, which is why it really bummed out my day that my appointment got cancelled, but looking at these old pics, and remembering most people only see their baby twice before they have their baby, makes me thankful that I get to see him all the time and see that he's ok.  And Monday really isn't that far away..