Happy Halloween!

Our pumpkin family

In front we have 4 tiny pumpkins for our 2 birds & 2 cats

Then there's me, baby and J :o)

Hello 2nd Trimester!

Holy moly- time flies! I can hardly believe that I am 13w3days pg. It still feels very surreal. I'm feeling good most of the time, can go a lot longer without snacking, so I don't have to eat every hour just to feel semi-normal. Whoo-hoo! The stuffy nose has begun, and there are still a few trips to the loo daily, but I can deal. I'm totally not complaining! I'm not really showing, mostly because I was already overweight to start with, but my lower abdomen feels tighter (for lack of a better term) and it's getting hard to "suck it in." And, there are days I definitely need the bellyband or maternity pants- which I recently bought on awesome sale at Kohls!

Overall, life's pretty quiet. I need to get into a routine since I'm starting to feel like a major mooching SAHW! My sleeping pattern is all messed-up and I sleep-in way too late, and am not getting much done most days. I'm totally lazy! I am however starting to feel the nesting need kick in. Probably because I've started our registry- my shower is going to be in Dec since I don't want to travel again after the holidays. Registering is stressful! Though, I did call on my mommy friends to get their advice on what is truly necessary and what to skip and that was helpful. I'm taking any real-life advice I can get!

E's Monkey has arrived!

E had her baby girl about a week ago! Introducing Baby Rose, aka Monkey :o)

Isn't she adorable!?!

BellaBand

The time has come- I have broken out the bellaband! The other night there was just no way my jeans were going to fit comfortably. So at 11w2d I wore my beband for the first time. I'm surprised I held out this long- I really thought I'd need it sooner considering I'm eating so frequently to keep the m/s at bay! Whoohoo for the bellaband!

Baby Looking Great!

I had my OB exam today @ 11w1d. The office called me two days ago to reschedule my appt since the mid-wife wouldn't be in for some reason and instead of waiting till next week they got me another appt with a doc. Okay, no big deal. I was kind of looking forward to meeting the mid-wife, but we still have lots of time and appts to get to know each other.

So, I get up at 7am (ugh that was early, I'm spoiled in my new role as housewife) and we leave at 8:30 to get there at 9:30. Even though my appt is at 10, they were adamant about being a 1/2 hour early. I check-in right on time at 9:25 and have a seat with J. Time goes by and I start to realize that women checking-in after me are being called back. Since I used to work in a very busy clinic I rationalized that these other women must be seeing different docs, have emergencies, etc. Well, by 10:12 after four women have come and gone before me, I'm thinking something's not right, so I kindly ask the receptionist about it. She looks at the clock, says they're a little behind. I don't believe her. By 10:38 a total of eight women have come and gone before me and my hormones start taking over. I'm so frustrated that I'm nearly in tears (lovely not being able to control your own emotions!). Then I notice her talking to a nurse, then looking at me. Then the nurse looks at me and walks down the hall. She quickly comes back and calls my name. Turns out the receptionist put my file in the wrong place!

The nice nurse who I saw at my last appt takes me back, preps me and apologizes about the mix-up. Fine, it happens... Moving on, it turns out that I won't be seeing a female doc, I'll be seeing a male doc. Umm, not comfortable with that change! I haven't had a male doc give me a full exam since I was 12 and stopped seeing my pediatrician- because he was male! The doc seems nice enough, and I'm so nervous about getting to the u/s that I just say "okay" and get on with it. In the end, no big deal, but if one more thing were to change I would have had a hormonal meltdown!

Then comes the u/s. The nurse gets J and he joins us. It takes the doc a bit to find Baby (in which time both J and I had mini heart attacks), then finally I start to make out a little figure moving around. Of course the u/s probe is crap and there is a big "cloud" over the image, but we see Baby a bit and get to hear the heartbeat again. I think that is when I finally exhaled! The pic we got is not so good, but we've been spoiled by the awesome shots from the 1st u/s :o)

Here's Baby at 11w1d!

When I got home I decided that it was time to tell the world the good news, so I posted it on Fbook. Funny, now I'm the one posting "baby" pics for all to see... how strange...

Moving On

So, I'm over my little hissy-fit. Whatever happens with the families, it will be fine. It's all about mindset, right?

Moving on- I am extremely nervous about my appointment on Friday. I keep having these horrible thoughts that everything is going to end badly. I have this sense of impending doom. I know it's totally irrational though I can't really help my crazy thoughts, so I do my best to push them out of my mind by distracting myself. One of my favorite pastimes lately is perusing baby sites. Some favorites are babyearth.com and buybuybaby.com, which is where SIL, S, is registered. I bought her gifts today so that's one thing checked off my To Do list (this list gets exponentially longer everyday, how does that happen??). Then I went searching for eco-friendly gift wrap and came across this site: nashvillewraps.com, which is awesome! Apparently I'll be buying in bulk but that's okay since I'll feel so much better about wrapping gifts!

Aside from my crazy thoughts, this pregnancy is going pretty well overall I think. I'm feeling crappy again. The sick feeling went away for about a week, but has come back around. I hear this is normal- for symptoms to come and go. I feel like I should probably eat or I'm hungry, but nothing sounds remotely appealing, or if it does and I eat it, it doesn't taste like I thought it would and I still feel sick. Ugh. Still getting up a bit at night to pee and still have a mild cramp here and there. I don't mind any of these, they actually put my mind at ease a little. Especially the cramping since it's different than the round ligament pain, I figure baby must still be growing if my ute is. I hope so...

Completely Unrelated

On a non-baby note, I am in need of a vent!

So, J and I have always passed on going home for Thanksgiving since we go up nearly a month later in Dec. This doesn't bother us, we don't mind since we usually have friends we celebrate with. Well, this year we invited my mom and stepdad because my brother and his pregnant wife flipped holidays since S is due 2 weeks after the New Year, and they didn't think it would be smart to go out-of-town. Makes sense to me, and so I told my mom and stepdad they should come here instead of being alone (they have extended family, but no one immediate near by). So, my mom bought their tickets. Then J decided that it wouldn't be fair to invite only one set of parents and not the others- yes, that is plural since we have my dad & stepmom plus his parents. I disagreed, since everyone else had close family they could be with. J won, and I really didn't think that they'd all come down. Well, guess what? It looks like all SIX parents are coming. I am not happy. Technically we have a place for everyone to sleep, but it will be very cramped- not to mention annoying as f**k. If it were only for 3 days, okay whatever, but since the airport is 1.5 hours away J's parents want to coordinate with my mom, which means they'd be here 6 days!!! I might end up killing someone. I really wish we could just tell the other parents, that it was a fake invite- we really didn't expect them to come, but of course we can't. I tried to express to J's stepdad that Wed-Sat would be best since my mom was really planning on some alone time with me/us. I don't know if it worked. Now, I love my parents and I like J's, but I can only handle so much at one time. I can see getting so annoyed/frustrated/claustrophobic that I explode. Truly, this is a possibility. Plus, my mom and stepdad didn't sign-up for this, and are now contemplating not coming, which I totally understand, but feel terrible about since this whole thing started so they wouldn't spend the holiday alone.

I realize we (actually J) got ourselves into this and we need to deal, I just hope that I will remember this 30 years from now when our children invite us for a holiday!