The End is Near

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it is getting brighter by the day.  Baby day is fast approaching.  We are scheduled to start the induction process in 26 days.  Wow!  I've had several dreams in the past week that involve me having a c-section (Yikes!) and last night I finally saw little Logan in my dream.  Unfortunately, the only part of the dream that I remember is him having dark hair.  We shall see if that holds true. 

We are very ready to meet our little guy, but still very nervous too. 

Pictures For the Non-Facebook Folks

Just sharing a few photos for those that follow my blog and do not use Facebook.  Enjoy!  :)





Counting Down

My official countdown has begun.  I am probably starting a lot sooner than most, but I have to if I want to keep my sanity.  Ha!

We are scheduled to be induced eight weeks from today.  Unbelievable!  I am ready and not ready all at the same time.  I am starting to panic about having to be responsible for the life of a little person.  I question whether or not I can handle it..if I am meant to be a mom.  I have every hope in the world that I am meant to do this "job" and that I will do it well. 

Eddie is super excited and tells me everyday how ready he is to meet our little man. :)  Don't get me wrong, I am excited to, about meeting him that is, NOT about the actual process of delivery.  The thought of how Logan will enter this world FREAKS me out!  No joke.  I just keep reminding myself that thousands of women do it daily and many do it more than once so it cannot possibly be that bad.  I have always considered myself strong and able to handle pain...hope this experience is no different.

UPS Made My Day!

When I got home for lunch today I was greeted by a large box on my front stoop.  What was inside you ask?  Take a look...

Cuddle Buddy

Changing Pad Cover

Lumbar Pillow

Blanket



We are still awaiting the arrival of window treatments, crib skirt, sheet and bumper.  The company has advised us that those items are scheduled to ship out sometime the week of February 18th.  So excited to get the nursery finished.  In addition to the bedding, we are waiting on a recliner that we ordered.  It is considered "custom" because we chose the fabric color.  I am learning that "custom" equals a LONG wait...not good for impatient people like me.  Lol!

Update on Nursery Progress

The nursery is underway.  Here are a few pictures of what we have done so far....

Eddie getting ready to open the crib box...

Box open and parts everwhere....let the assembly begin

All done!

I worked on wall letters for above the crib....still waiting to hang them

Flip-top Dresser

Dresser and Changing Area

Toy Cubbies (the lamp will be moved...going to sit on a side table by the recliner once it arrives)

Part of the bathroom...



Nursery Progress

We have finally gotten the furniture cleared out of the spare bedroom and are poised to start the transformation into Logan's nursery. 

Today we ordered the crib bedding and window treatments.  We are trying desperately to stay away from a themed nursery and have chosen a fabric combination of yellow and various shades of blue.  This color combination was Eddie's first pick and I just decided to go with it. :)

We went to look at furniture this afternoon and have decided to go with a "lifetime" crib which turns into a toddler bed, day bed and then full-size bed.  Rather than the normal "nursery" dressers we have chosen two pieces from the same manufacturer of our bedroom set.  This (hopefully) means that this furniture will last through high school.  That is our intent anyway! 

We are painting next Saturday!  I will be sure to post pictures of the various stages of progress in the nursery.  I am so excited that we are beginning to make progress and create a space for our little man..

Here are the fabrics chosen with care by Daddy:



Update on Baby

At our second anatomy ultrasound on December 23rd we discovered that what they thought was a baby girl at our December 2nd appointment is actually a baby boy.  It was clear on the screen that this baby is DEFINITELY a boy.  So, we will be welcoming our SON, Logan Connor, in late April/early May.  It was a bit of a shock to find out that our "girl" had grown a third "leg", but after some time to let it soak in we are both thrilled.  Best of all our baby is healthy!

We go back for another ultrasound and to see the doctor on January 13th.  Baby was breach and face down so they were not able to see his brain and both chambers of his heart as well as they would have liked.  Will update once we have that appointment.

I hope everyone had a VERY Merry Christmas.  As always, Eddie and I are BLESSED!!!!

It's the Big Day

I am sitting at work just counting down the minutes until I get to leave and head to my doctor's appointment in Virginia.  The plan is to find out if the baby is a boy or girl!  I am so excited and beyond ready to know.  I just want to be able to put a name with the kicks.  :)

After our appointment Eddie and I are going to dinner with my family to celebrate my 28th birthday.  Wowza!  I cannot believe I am so close to 30...not so sure I like that.

I will update in a few days once we have filled the family in on the sex. 

Pregnancy and Weight

When I first found out I was pregnant, I was terrified to get larger.  I was at my all time high weight of 336 pounds!  Yowser!  As of this morning I am down to 309.  The doctors are not concerned that the weight loss is having an adverse affect on the baby and have encouraged me to continue to lose at a healthy pace.  I am still not proud of the numbers themselves, but I am ecstatic to be so close to the 200s again!  I am hoping that the doctors are correct and I will only put on ten to fifteen pounds during my last trimester.  If that is the case then I will deliver at a lower weight than the day I found out I was pregnant.  Exciting!!!

Doctors, Sugary Drinks and Bloodwork

Our first appointment with the high risk specialist in Virginia was last Thursday and it went extremely well.  I saw four different physician-type people while I was there (RN, Physician's Assistant, Doctor and the Diabetes Specialist).  All four of them are women and I love that!  I feel so much more comfortable being treated by women than I do men.  One reason being that men cannot possibly relate to what I as a pregnant woman am going through.  I much prefer having someone care for me that has gone through this herself. 

The terrible pain that I was feeling last week has subsided.  I am still feeling discomfort at times, but I'm sure it is nothing unusual. 

Back to doctor stuff....I had two blood work orders (one from my OB here and one from the OB in Virginia) that I had to take care of this morning.  The famous orange glucose beverage was my pal at 6:30 this morning.   That stuff is so extremely nasty.  I have my fingers crossed that I passed.  If I didn't, I'll be drinking it again and getting blood drawn once every hour for three hours.  After the horrible sticking experiences this morning I think I'll pass.  I have a bruise on my right arm that is bigger than my head.  Okay, that is a bit exaggerated but nonetheless it is huge and it hurts.  They finally had to resort to the inside of my wrist to draw blood.  Can you say OUCH.!?  I have to keep reminding myself that it will all be worth it when I am holding our child in my arms.  Pass or fail, I will have another glucose test at twenty-four weeks.  Happy happy, joy joy.

Our next appointment here at the beach is Tuesday, November 16th.  I do not expect anything too terribly exciting to happen.  However, our next appointment in Virginia may prove to be full of excitement.  I'll be nineteen weeks at that appointment which happens to be on my birthday.  I plan to beg for them to take a peek and tell us the sex of the baby.  They assured me that they will be able to tell for sure between 18 and 20 weeks.  I say 19 weeks is just as good a time as any!  :)  So....expect a post December 2nd or soon thereafter revealing the sex and name of our little one.  (The name should come as no surprise!)

Lingering Pain

I spent five hours in the car last Wednesday driving from Kitty Hawk to Washington DC for a work related conference.  6 am was the wake up time Thursday, Friday and Saturday for breakfast, key note speakers and classes all related to the conference.  After the last class of the day let out my co-worker and I met up with her Dad and toured the area and had dinner.  The bedtime Wednesday - Friday was between 11 and midnight.  On top of that, I lugged the following from my car to our hotel room on Wednesday and from our hotel room to my car on Saturday:  suite case on wheels, shoulder bag with school text books, shoulder bag with laptop, briefcase, purse and body pillow.  I then spent another five hours in the car for the drive back to Kitty Hawk on Saturday.  Apparently all of the above contributed to the great pain that I was in all week. 

I returned home around 5 on Saturday.  Our dryer quit working while I was gone and Eddie was sick with a virus the entire time.  We needed to get the sheets washed so that I wouldn't get sick.  With no dryer available, we decided to make a Walmart run and purchase a second set for our bed.  On the way into Walmart my left foot gave out and down I went. 

Upon returning home from Walmart I finally decided that pain had become unbearable and I called my physician.  I was instructed to take one Tylenol, one Tylenol PM, drink lots of water and keep my feet off the floor for the next 36 hours.  Well.....the pain is still lingering.  I am not sure what I have done to myself, but trying to walk has become quite comical.  The pain is not the comical part, but the waddling from side to side and slowness of pace has just started to get to me.

We go to the high risk doctor in Norfolk on Thursday.  I am hoping to get answers to why I am hurting so badly and if the pain will subside.  Will post an update once we know something.

On another note, all of my preggo friends and acquaintances down in Georgia have been finding out the sex of their babies at sixteen weeks.  I on the other hand have to wait until twenty weeks.  That hardly seems fair!  December 12th marks twenty weeks so I'm hoping for an appointment on Monday, December 13th to get the news! :)

General Update

We had our official "New OB Appointment" today.  Apparently this marks the beginning of contract billing which means no more $30 co-pays but instead a lump sum payment of $1,482 due by March 1st.  Oh joy!  They do break it up into three installments so I guess that makes it easier to swallow.

The "gummy bear" looks good....we got to see it wiggling around on an ultrasound screen this morning.  They say we will be able to hear the heartbeat externally on our next visit which is four weeks from today. 

We are still headed to the high risk specialist on November 4th for a general visit.  I'll be sure to update after that appointment. 

Today marks twelve weeks and two days.  Woo hoo!  Doc says my issues of not being able to eat and feeling yucky will go away now.  Here is to hoping.  :)

Hope It Gets Better

I had a couple of rough weeks then I felt great all of last week.  All of a sudden Monday of this week rolls around and I am struggling again.  My appetite has once again diminished and for the first time this pregnancy I have been fighting a headache daily.  I have taken Tylenol but it does not touch my headache.  A friend suggested caffeine so I tried that...no luck.  My last resort is to increase my protein intake per another friend's suggestion.  Hopefully that will do the trick.

Today is a horrible day for me to be feeling as poorly as I do.  I have a discussion board posting with three outside sources due on Workplace Drug Testing by 9 pm.  I also have ten corporate finance problems to work and a quiz to take by midnight.  For my third class, I have a group case study due next week but our first individual contribution of research to the group is due tomorrow evening.  Needless to say there is far too much work to do while feeling this bad.  Boo!

I apologize for being so negative, I just needed to "vent".  :)

On a positive note, I will be 12 weeks on Sunday and I've heard that once 14 weeks arrives all of this yuckiness goes away.  Fingers crossed!

Update from the Doctor

We went to the doctor this morning for another viability ultrasound.  That word, viability, is scary sounding to me.  Anyway, everything looked great.  The gummy bear was flailing its arms and legs in fury.  It reminded us of Kung Fu Panda. 

We did get to hear the heartbeat!!!  It was 176 bpm which the doc said is PERFECT!  Makes me happy to know that our baby is "perfect".  :)

We go back to this doctor on the 19th for a "new OB" appointment.  I am not really sure what that is all about so I guess I will just have to wait and see.  Between now and that appointment we are being sent to meet with a high risk specialist in Norfolk.  There is not anything wrong with the baby now, but the doctor worries that with me being borderline diabetic and overweight there may be a problem later in the pregnancy.  We are go to the specialist simply to get our foot in the door and become an established patient.  This way if we do require the extra care a few months down the road we will be able to get right in.  Based on what the doctor told us this morning, he is mainly concerned with gestational diabetes and preeclampsia.  I hope we face neither.

Here is a blury pic of the gummy bear....



Gummy Bear

For those of you who know me well you know that I have a slight addiction to Haribo Gummy Bears.  I have loved these little guys since I was a young child.  Eddie and I recently discovered that Target sells them in a three pound bag.  Watch out!

Anyway, while some refer to their unborn children as peanut, squirt and many other names, we are referring to ours as the "gummy bear".  :)

I was not feeling well this past Sunday so Eddie went to the grocery store by himself.  Guess what he came back with.!?

We go back to the doctor this Friday morning for another ultrasound and hopefully to finally hear the heartbeat.  I expect to be able to post an ultrasound photo of our gummy bear sometime Friday afternoon so stay tuned.  

Happenings At The White House

1) Our "gummy bear" experienced his/her first wedding Saturday night (9/18/2010).  I wonder if he/she enjoyed the band as much as Mommy and Daddy did.

2) "Gummy Bear" will be attending his/her first concert this upcoming Friday (9/24/2010).  Mommy and Oma (grandmother in German and thus my mom and baby's Oma) are going to see Sugarland in Virginia Beach.  We are really looking forward to a fun mother-daughter evening.  I bought the tickets for my mom's mother's day present months ago.  We are so excited that the time is finally here!

3) My aunt and uncle from Virginia are coming to visit us this week.  They will be staying at Eddie's family's cottage for a night or two.  Aunt Evi is so excited....she purchased my first maternity dress and will be bringing it with her Wednesday.  We do not get to see my Aunt Evi and Uncle Pres as often as we would like so we are definitely looking forward to this time.

4) Daddy (Eddie) went on a cleaning rampage this weekend....it is amazing!  Mind you we do not have a nasty house, but occasionally it is nice to really CLEAN.  As I sit typing this he is on our patio sweeping and spraying weed killer.  He is also hoping to shift things around and make room for outside baby toys (I think he is way ahead of the game on this one).

5) I spoke with my daddy earlier today and he informed me that he and my step mom plan to come for a week when the baby is born.  I'm so excited that they are looking forward to this adventure as much as I am!  My dad lives in Georgia so we do not get to see him as often as we would like.  It is amazing how well he and Eddie get along....I just love watching them!

6) Eddie and I have decided to replace the carpet in our downstairs.  When I first moved to the beach my puppy Bailey refused to potty train.  Evidentally that is common with beagle females.  After that my dalmatian Daisy who was eleven years old started having incontinence issues.  So needless to say the carpet has had its fair share of pup accidents and quite frankly we do not want our child crawling around on it.  We do still have dogs, but they are very much potty trained.  :)  We have our "measure" appointment this upcoming Thursday where we will get the actual quote for the work to be done.  Hopefully it will be in the ballpark of what we were told this morning by the Home Depot associate.

7) Eddie and I will be going to our only football game of the season on October 16th.  We bought the tickets prior to learning that we are pregnant otherwise the budget would not have allowed for such an expenditure.  We have pulled the reigns in pretty tight in anticipation of the little one.  I hope the baby enjoys football and the marching band performance.

8) Our next doctor's appointment is Friday, October 1st.  We will be 9 weeks and 5 days when we go.  The plan is that we are having another viability ultrasound.  I am secretively hoping that we will get to hear the heartbeat this time.

Our First Doctor Appointment

Eddie and I went to our first appointment this morning.  We were initially told (over the phone) that our due date would be April 22, 2011; however during our ultrasound this morning our due date was detemined to be May 1, 2011.  I am thankful that it is more than one week past the end of tax season unlike the original due date.  The new due date just happens to be our wedding anniversary.  :)

Counting Down....

Exactly one week from today Eddie and I get to hear the heartbeat of our little miracle.  We could not possibly be more excited!

We are also counting down the weeks until we find out if we will be welcoming a little girl or a little boy into the world.  We have approximately thirteen weeks before we will get that bit of exciting news!  Everyone in Eddie's family says it is a boy while everyone on my side of the family is betting on a girl.  It will be interesting to say the least.  Eddie and I do not have a particular preference as long as our baby is healthy with ten fingers and ten toes.  :)

The names that we have chosen....

Abagail Francesca for a girl - - she will go by Abby
Logan Connor for a boy - - he will go by Logan

Bring Your Own Gown....

Most hospitals allow expectant mothers to bring their own gown these days.  I was lucky enough to find a website that sells plus size maternity hopsital gowns so I ordered one.  :)  See below for the one that I ordered.  The site is http://www.littletrendybaby.com/.

Crib Bedding Ideas

For months I have been searching the internet for crib bedding ideas.  I have narrowed my search to four girl and four boy choices.  Take a look.....

Girl Option 1

Girl Option 2

Girl Option 3

Girl Option 4

Boy Option 1

Boy Option 2

Boy Option 3

Boy Option 4