18 Weeks

Once again, I'm late on posting a weekly update.  I was actually 18 weeks on Friday, but life is just so crazy at times that I barely have time to realize that I'm a new week.  I feel like this pregnancy is flying by.  The craziest part to me is, I'm pretty much halfway right now! I will be doing a c-section again and they will be doing it early again to avoid labor.  If they schedule it for 38 weeks again, then Friday will be halfway.  However, I had Micah early so for him, this would have been half way right about now.  SO CRAZY!
Baby boy is the size of a sweet potato already!  Or in the daddy version..the size of a pint of Ben and Jerry Ice cream! Yum!  It says that he is about 5.6 inches long and 6.7 ounces, however we had our anatomy ultrasound today and the tech said that he's actually measuring at 9 ounces right now....might be all those skittles and sour patch kids he loved in the first trimester.
He's supposed to be growing rapidly and his blood vessels are now visible through his thin skin.  His ears are in their final position now too.  We had our ultrasound today and got a ton more pictures, and I will post some later from that.  However, the ultrasound went great and baby boy had all his important body parts and everything looked perfect!  And they said definitely a boy, no doubt and not a shy boy at all.
My exhaustion has hit me really hard again and my back pain has been really intense.  We've been fighting a cold, Micah has it really bad so I'm thinking some of the exhaustion might be from my body fighting the cold.  I have another doctor appointment on Wednesday, just my regular checkup.
Here is my 18 week picture.

I feel like the baby bump has definitely started to appear now.

17 Weeks

I can't believe I am already 17 weeks.  That is so crazy!  It feels like its all going so fast this time.  With Micah, at 17 weeks I already had his crib.  We have bought...umm...a box of diapers so far!  Baby boy is the size of an onion this week or according to the dad version of baby size..he's the size of a toilet paper roll!  He is 5.1 inches long and weighs about 5.9 ounces.  His cartilage is turning into bone.  I've been feeling him move around a lot lately..like feels nonstop at lot of times.  He seems more active than I ever remember Micah being.  Brandon also got to feel him last night.
I'm failing at taking pics of my non existent bump.  I will try and remember to take on sometime this week.  But here's a cute picture of Micah instead

Missing in Action...

Sorry, I know I have been missing in action lately.  Life has been completely crazy lately.  Brandon had nasal surgery, Grandpa and Amma came to visit and then Uncle Duane and Aunt Jami came to visit.  We did an early elective ultrasound and saw baby move around and dance for us. And we found out that we are having another boy!! Life has been exhausting.  Now the holidays are coming quickly, baby is growing quickly and I'm starting to feel overwhelmed with the added expenses of everything.  I will try to catch up with tons of pictures soon and stories, but here are the pictures from our ultrasound.

 In the one above, you can see his little hand.

This is his Halloween picture :).

And that is his sweet little foot.

Second Trimester!

I am officially in the second trimester!  So exciting to be a third of the way done, and kind of crazy.  This has been a pretty eventful week.  Brandon had some really long days at work and one day he worked so late that Micah was in bed before he got home, so the next morning he built this for Micah.

I love my boys.  They also had a special adventure day on Saturday to make up for time missed during the week, but I'll post about that later.
Besides Brandon working long hours, the first trimester decided to leave with a bang.  I was napping one day and woke up and went to get up, and I did this..

Luckily it ended up just being a sprain.  The doctor was worried that I might have cracked my fibula, but couldn't x-ray without risking hurting baby, so I put it off.  And now, almost a week later, my ankle is starting to feel better so it was just a good sprain.
We had some fun this week.  Micah had another little girl join him in dance class, so now he isn't the only student!  He did so good.

He is really starting to catch on what they are supposed to be doing.  He also had lots of fun at swim lessons of course.

And I overheard Coach Gavin telling another parent that they can't compare their child (who is a year older than Micah) to Micah because Micah is just a "superstar" and "abnormal".  So proud of my little swimmer.  He is just a fish and loves to be in the water.  Going underwater doesn't bother him at all either.  These goggles didn't last long...they were a little too big for him.
We also tried going out to eat at a Japanese place right by our house.  Unfortunately after waiting awhile, we sat down at the grill only to see on the menu that it had a warning to not eat there if you have a seafood allergy.  Since Brandon does have one, off we went and we just grabbed fast food.  But in the waiting area at the restaurant they had a fish tank that Micah LOVED.

Anyway, I am in week 13 now, and about halfway done with this week already.  I change weeks on Friday and it's hard for me to blog on the weekends.  Here is a picture I did take on Friday though

The baby bump is slowly growing!  So baby is the size of a peach now, or about 2.9 inches long and .81 ounces.  Supposedly the head is now about 1/3 the size of the body, but I think Micah's head was more than 1/3 of his body for the first year of his life :).  Baby already has fingerprints!  That seems so crazy to me that at only 13 weeks, baby already has fingerprints.  And this week baby is working on those vocal cords.  I still haven't gained any weight.  I vary between the exact same weight or 3 pounds less than my original weight.  I'm pretty happy with that since I haven't had any morning sickness this pregnancy, I am obsessed with Dominos pizza and Skittles and the month and half before I got pregnant, I had lost a little over 10 pounds.  So I'm quite happy that I didn't just fly right back to that pre Weight Watchers weight.
Hopefully I'll find time to post soon about my boy's amazing adventure together!

Week 12

I'm already half way through week 12.  This pregnancy definitely feels like its going so much faster this time!  We are so busy all the time!  Just this weekend we had swim class..

Daddy and Coach had goggles on, so Micah wanted goggles too.  And see how empty that pool is?! His normal class of like 7 kids was only 2 this week.  And the other kid came late and left early.  After swim, we had nap, then went downtown to Bumbledoo!  Bumbledoo is a baby store in downtown Fayettteville and they were having their grand re opening because they just moved locations.  When we were there, Micah convinced Daddy to buy him an airplane.  He was so cute with it!

Then it was off to dinner with friends!  Sunday was church, Nascar and naptime...It was a pretty great weekend.

So I forgot to update about week 12.  This week baby is developing reflexes.  The little fingers are going to start opening and closing, the mouth will start sucking and toes curling.  The nerve cells are multiplying.  If I push on my stomach, baby will be able to feel it and squirm in response.  The kidneys are already starting to make urine into the bladder!  Baby is about 2 inches long, or the size of a plum!  I've started to feel something, I'm not positive yet if it's baby or not.  It feels like someone is very lightly tickling me inside.  It's in the right area for baby, it just seems really early still.

Now off to a busy day..doctor appointments, errands and going to Bumbledoo because my boys won something at the grand reopening! 

11 Weeks

So today I am 11 weeks.  11 weeks is when I took my first pregnancy belly pic with Micah, so here I am pregnant with Micah...

And here I am today..yup another amazing bathroom pic..

Pretty similair I guess?  I am starting this pregnancy weighing less...but I'm also not losing lots of weight like I did with Micah.  My hope is just to finish this pregnancy about the same weight that I finished with Micah.
Today, baby is the size of a lime! That actually seems pretty good size now!  About 1.6 inches long and weighs about .25 ounces.  So according to my app, baby has a 1:1 ratio head to body..but Brandon says its probably more like 2:1 for our child, if this one is anything like Micah, massive heads :).  Tooth buds are forming and skin is see-through.  Fingers and toes aren't webbed and can move easily in there.  My doctor appointment on Wednesday, baby was moving like crazy.  Baby was moving its little arm, like it was waving at us.
I am still exhausted all the time, and today I woke up to some serious stretching pain in lower stomach.  It's definitely starting to be growing time.
Crazy that is only approximately 27 weeks left?! But now it's time to wake up Micah so he can go to dance class!

Micah's Classes

So Micah has started a bunch of new classes lately.
Every Tuesday morning we have Kindermusik class at our church.  We go and sing a bunch of songs, dance a little bit and play with fun instruments.  Micah has had 2 classes so far, and he really seems to love it.  I was amazed at how much more involved he was in the second class versus the first one.  He seemed to catch on really quickly on what we were doing.  Most of the kids in his class have been going to these music classes since they were 6 weeks old.  Kindermusik is really popular here.
Here he was on his first day..

Obviously it was a success!

On Wednesday mornings, we have tumbling.  We have only had one of these classes so far.  The class in on post.  I don't have any pictures of this class because it was a little chaotic at times.  The first part of class, we had to do an obstacle course a few times.  Micah was really good on the balance beam, he watched another little kid do it first and figured out what he was supposed to be doing, and then he had no problems.  Doing a flip over the bars bothered him the first two times, but he caught on to that pretty easily too.  Overall, a fun class but a little tiring and hard for mommy.  It was a lot of lifting and flipping him.

On Friday we go back to our church for dance class!  We've had 2 of these classes so far and Daddy has been at both, so it'll be interesting this week to not have Daddy there.  He is pretty adorable in dance class.  They've been working on tippy toes, point and kick and marching.  He's also really good at the spinning in circles and side stepping.  Tippy toes was a really hard thing for him to figure out the first week.  He pretty much just became limp when we'd try to get him to do it.  But the whole week after that class, I was watching him and every once in awhile he'd be trying to do tippy toes.  The second class, he rocked the tippy toes! That's all he wanted to do the whole class.  In dance, we have to stretch beforehand and cool down afterwards...

Not many Daddies come to their son's dance class in their dress uniform.  This was during the stretching time, they were about to walk their hands down their legs and stretch to their feet.

On Saturdays, Micah and Daddy have swim class.  Mommy skips participating in this one.  Not wanting to try putting on bathing suits right now...and Micah and Daddy love doing swimming together.  We've had this class for 3 or 4 classes now.  This past week, Micah finally really started kicking his feet.  He'll float all day in the pool, he'll go underwater..he'll do whatever you want.  However, he won't kick or move his arms :) He's completely passive in the water.  So Coach Gavin brought a beach ball this time and Micah was using his arms to try and get the ball and he also kicked the ball with his feet a bunch.  He thought it was hilarious.

He's really good at holding his head up too so he doesn't swallow water.

Those are Micah's fun classes for now.  I don't know if we will be cutting some back or changing some up in the Spring time..I could see Tumbling stopping for awhile just because it is hard on me.  With new sibling in late March/early April, this busy schedule might be hard!  But right now, we are enjoying it.
And random picture of the day..

Totally blaming Mimi for this :)  During her visit, they were playing with the truck and she put Micah in the truck and was pushing him.  So today, Micah emptied his truck out and successfully climbed in his truck, wiggled back and forth to get it to move until he ran into the coffee table...and then successfully climbed out.  He is so adventurous now!

10 Weeks!

Well yesterday was officially 10 weeks.  I've been struggling with a lot of back pain, so I went to the doctor on Thursday to make sure everything was ok.  I just hurt my back muscles pretty good, I have to take it easy.  When I was there though, they did an ultrasound just to double check that baby was all good.

I call this the little ghost picture.  Baby looks like Casper the ghost to me in this picture.  Baby was wiggling around like crazy though during the ultrasound.
Baby is the size of a prune or kumquat (still never seen a kumquat).  Baby is approximately a little over an inch long and weighs less than a quarter of an ounce.  So tiny, yet baby has already completed the most critical parts of development.  Baby is already forming fingernails and hair.  Also is already swallowing and kicking.  So crazy that baby is only 10 weeks and already has fingernails.
I have another doctor appointment on Wednesday, thats my actual next scheduled appointment.  Only 5 more weeks until we find out if baby is a he or she!  The Ramzi theory goes off of which side the placenta is on, and according to that, this one is a girl.  We will see if it's right!

Labor Day Weekend Fun

So this past weekend we had family come visit for Labor Day weekend.  Micah absolutely loved having a bigger audience all weekend.

 His Mimi and cousin Casey came on Friday morning.  They got to witness Micah's first dance class (which is the cutest thing ever, but thats another post in itself).  That night, we went to get Sweet Frog, which is a frozen yogurt place near our house, and we saw this car show happening.  So we stopped and looked at the cars for a little bit.  Micah liked hearing the engines on them.

We saw this amazing truck too.  It's a Mini Pickup truck.  Perfect size for Micah.

Everyone else got here very late Friday night/early morning Saturday.  After a lazy morning of playing and showing cousin Caleb our favorite toys...

We were on our way to the Children's Museum in Raleigh.  We had never been there before, but we will definitely be going back.  It was amazing.  Micah loved it so much.  There was a huge pretend area that he loved playing in the different vehicles and the toys.

Pretty much the cutest fireman ever...

They had a water play area which Micah thought was so cool

There was a HUGE pirate ship in there!

And the place were I really lost my boys for forever..big building blocks!

But the end product was pretty amazing

Sunday was church and just hanging out and then they all left on Monday.  Micah was bummed to see them go.  He liked having so many people to play with.  Luckily, our schedule is so busy with classes, that he stays very active all the time.  I'll post about the classes soon, I keep forgetting to take pictures during his classes so everyone can see how adorable it is.  

This was Micah on Tuesday though..we had a rainy day and Micah is just completely enthralled with rain.

9 Weeks..plus a little more

Life has been a little busy, but I'll post about it all later.  We started a bunch of fun new classes, and family came to visit.  So today week's update is almost a whole week late, but here it is!
Baby Ferraro 2.0 is now the size of a green olive or another website says the size of a grape.  Technically now a fetus instead of an embryo but of course, to me it's been a baby since we found out.  I'm officially in month three! YAY! And almost done with the awful first trimester,  however this trimester has been 8 million times better than with Micah.  He had me so horribly sick all the time, and I haven't felt as much of that this time.  The only thing is my body aches all the time and my back has been killing me.
Baby is .9 inches long, weighs around .07 ounces and is starting to develop distinct facial features.  All of the baby's essential body parts are there.  The heart has four chambers now and the valves are forming.
Only a 5 and half more weeks until we find out the sex of this baby.  I'm going to do a bunch of the midwife tales for gender predicting in a couple of weeks to see how accurate they are.  We are going to do an elective ultrasound around week 15.  The doctor we have now only does 2 ultrasounds normally.  A dating ultrasound to start and the 20 week scan.  However, I want to see baby at least one more time than that! So we decided to do the gender one at week 15.
Names are still completely up in the air, we aren't even really thinking about many names right now.  We are thinking we will wait to see if baby is a boy or girl before picking out names.
I'll post tomorrow or so with cute pictures of Micah and all of his classes that he's doing! But here's a pic I took last Friday on Week 9 day.

8 weeks fun

So Baby Ferraro 2.0 is 8 weeks right now.  Baby is approximately the size of a raspberry.  Crazy part, baby is getting their taste buds right now! Taste buds at only 8 weeks.
I've been feeling a lot better than I did with Micah.  However, my exhaustion levels are insane.  Some days, I feel like the whole day was just one big fog.
Poor Micah is starting to copy me.  When he sees trash cans, he spits in them and he'll randomly hold his hand over his mouth and breathe deeply.  Lol we are trying to get him involved in activities with other little kids.

I love his little smiles.  Tomorrow is our first music class and Friday will be dance class!  He's been doing swimming lessons for two weeks and he's getting so good.  We have been working on kicking his legs in the water.  I'll write about music and dance later this week!

Micah's big news

Yup, Micah is going to be a big brother!  We are due April 4, 2014.
We are a little over 7 weeks along now, we had an appointment last week and got to hear the heart beat.  It was pretty amazing.  The picture above is actually our second ultrasound.  Both ulstrasounds looked really good.
So far, I haven't had that really bad morning sickness like I had with Micah.  I am just exhausted all the time.  I am very thankful for naptime.

Water play, Gillis Mill Farm

So we didn't really have any plans this weekend.  Our lives have been so busy lately, we decided to just kind of hang out and enjoy our new home.  We started this morning with water play.  It wasn't planned that way, we went outside to play in the backyard and Brandon emptied the dog's water bowl and Micah wanted to play with the water.  We moved out front and got the hose.  Micah and daddy got completely soaked.

After water play fun, we had nap time.  After lunch, we decided to check out a place called Gillis Mill Farm.  It is a family farm that has been there since the 1700s, ran by the same family.  They have a homemade ice cream shop there.  If you buy any ice cream from them, you can do the self guided tour of the farm animals.  We spend $2.43 for a kid ice cream for Micah, which he loved.

Micah loved the goats.  He's always loved goats, he loves to yell MAA at them.

The horse was pretty cool too...there was also a small pond.  I love that Micah will say cheeeseee now for pictures.

Hard to see, but that is what he is doing there with daddy.  I get yelled at for being the one always taking the photo..so here's one of Micah and me.

Micah REALLY loved the mini pony too.  Brandon fed the pony some grass, so he was hanging out there right by us.  Micah desperately wanted to feed the pony, but we were scared his little fingers would look like grass.

Afterwards, we had another nap time because it was a pretty exhausting day..then dinner..and then it started pouring rain! Micah loves watching the rain.

There was a break in the rain and we went outside to play again..

Then it was a bedtime.  It was a pretty wonderful family day.

Airborne and Special Operations Museum

We decided to have a relaxing weekend this weekend.  We have been so busy and on the go, it was nice to take two days to just relax and enjoy Fayetteville.  On Saturday, after a morning nap, we went to downtown Fayetteville.  We explored some local shops, saw a big train come through downtown!

We then ate at Beef O' Bradys for lunch.  Micah felt like a big boy, sitting in a booster seat.  Daddy kept getting him with the straw.

And I love my little boy...he had to clean the table after we were done eating..

We then walked back to the car so that we could go to the Airborne and Special Operations Museum.  Along the way, we saw a fountain, which Micah thought was AMAZING.

How pretty is that downtown?
Then it was museum time!
It was a really good museum! Very impressive!!

This statue is outside it, and it is MASSIVE.

I thought that the building was really cool looking too.

We discovered that Micah loves watching museum TV.  He was so good through the museum.  

And isn't he just the cutest little soldier?

We can't wait to go downtown again and try out some of the other restaurants and go to the train museum!