29 week appt!

Things are looking good still with baby. We had our second attempt at a 3D ultrasound today, but baby boy is still not cooperating, so we have given up. The ultrasound tech managed to get two decent pictures, but we were not charged because she didn't feel that we got enough to be charged for. She will keep watching him at all the ultrasounds and see if she can get any decent ones, but the chances get slimmer the further along I get because he will just keep getting bigger and burying his face more in the placenta.

Health wise he is doing great, his head is still measuring 3 weeks big, and technically he is measuring about a week ahead, but he is only in the 55% for his gestational age, so he's really not too big. Doctor said he will probably be around Natalie's size maybe a bit smaller as he will be delivered a week early. He was moving around great today and his heart rate was 155 bpm. Still a bit lazy on the practice breathing, but he did it today without being "buzzed" so thats great. They said often times they don't catch the practice breathing on the ultrasounds so not to be too worried about it.

I am hoping to get a preliminary c-section date on the calendar in the next few days, Dr. Boyd said his nurse will be calling me to set something up. I am thinking it will probably be Tuesday, Sept 2 - unless of course he doesn't do surgeries those days...

Anyway, here are pictures from today's ultrasound...





And for comparison's sake... here is a 3D of Natalie...

Dear Baby...

While I am glad you are no longer breech, did you REALLY have to flip the NIGHT BEFORE our 3D ultrasound? I am glad you are in the right position for birth now, but it isn't helpful for Mommy and Daddy when you bury your face in the placenta and don't allow us to see your adorable face. And your big sister Natalie really wants to see what her little brother looks like too, she gives you kisses all the time and would love to know who baby is :)

Love you,
Mommy


My ultrasound went good today, baby is moving well and doing the practice breathing he should be again... although, he does still appear lazy. As I mentioned above, he is no longer breech, he turned in the middle of the night last night... I felt it enough to wake me up subconciously so much so that I thought it had been a dream. They didn't actually do measurements today because they figure every week at this point is overkill. I will get measurements of baby (as well as attempt a second 3D ultrasound - good thing they didn't charge me this time!) next week! I have the 3D ultrasound at 9 am Wednesday and then my other "diagnostic" ultrasound at 3pm and will see the OB at 4. I wish they could have gotten the times closer together, but unfortunately they only do the 3D at 9 am! UGH! We are not too hopeful about the 3D ultrasound next week, baby seems to be in the same position Natalie was in at this point, and she never unburied herself either. The ultrasound tech said that unless he moves it is unlikely we will get anything because the bigger he gets the more he will squish into the placenta! I guess he just wants to surprise us! From what we could tell though, he might look like Natalie... at least feature wise...

Not much else to update on since I did an update yesterday... but here are the ultrasound pictures from today

28 weeks..

28 weeks today! We have another ultrasound tomorrow, these weekly ultrasounds could make for a long rest of the pregnancy! We were planning to do the 3D ultrasound sometime around 30 weeks, but when I called to schedule they said with the baby measuring big we should do it now! So, for my birthday we doing a 3D ultrasound of baby #2! We already know its a boy, but are curious to see if he looks anything like Natalie. We did compare the 2D ultrasounds and we see very similar bone structure for the two babies... so who knows! I will be speechless if we have another fair skinned blue eyed baby though!

For those of you who can understand ultrasounds, compare these two pictures, do you see similarities in bone structure? The first is Natalie, the second is the new baby. Of course one is a scan and one is a file taken from our ultrasound CD, so the quality is a bit different...


































In unrelated news, we had a problem with the Taurus about a week ago, it was leaking fluid, which was reddish in color, come to find out it was transmission fluid! While the car is relatively new (2006) and we bought an aftermarket warranty it didn't help us much in this care, because the repair was the same as the deductible. What is annoying is that the auto tech told me that it was a problem with the way the vent in the transmission works, so you would think it would be a recall issue and fixed for free, but of course we never get that lucky... it would have been fixed with a new car warranty, but alas, it was a year old car when we got it... sucks though as we would have easily been inside the new car warranty time period!

Though, in this bad news we had a really positive potty training experience... I was out ALL day with Natalie. I put her in a pull up and we made it home dry! She told me twice she had to go potty and the third time I just figured she needed to go and she did! It was exciting!

Yesterday we got our verizon FIOS service installed, and of course Tommy is excited about that. I could care less, to me, as long as I have internet I am happy! But, we all know Tommy needs to have the best possible! It took from around noon to 5 pm which was annoying but, at least its done! And in a month we will be receiving our $150 cash back reward for switching.. woohoo!

My birthday is on a Thursday this year, which I was disappointed about before because it was one of my babysitting days, but now I am no longer babysitting (the other babysitter they use is about as pregnant as me and no longer wants to work so instead of finding someone for the other 3 days they decided to put the Addie in daycare...) So, I will probably be relaxing on my birthday. Most likely we will go out to dinner at Bandido's (our local Mexican restaurant that gives a free birthday meal!) and then renting a movie from the redbox! Exciting plans I know, but hey it gets me out of the house so I am happy..

I am sure I am forgetting something I wanted to update about, but Natalie is getting cranky...

27 week update..

SO, its been a while since I updated this thing, I went to the OB today for my 27 week appointment. This was a dreaded appointment because I had to do the glucose testing as well as some other blood work, and I also was nervous about the biophysical profile ultrasound. As I expected, I was at the OB's office for quite a while today, over two hours. As far as the blood work I won't know anything for a few days.

But, Baby looks good... albeit big, but healthy, and lazy with a big head. Wonder who baby's taking after there... lol Baby is measuring 2 weeks ahead, so approx 29 weeks instead of the 27 it should be measuring. We did get confirmation that IT'S A BOY, so that's one good thing that came out of the ultrasound. They also told me that my placenta is up high in my uterus which could be why I am not feeling as much movement this time around. When he moves though, I can already see it through my tummy. Baby is breech as well, not only breech, but "butt first" as the tech said, so between that and the big head, I think its probably a good thing that I will most likely be having a c-section. My blood pressure is still looking good and my weight gain is still at approx 0 for the whole pregnancy (I lost 10ish lbs in the first month or so and then have been slowly gaining it back, although my weight gain for the last month is ZERO!) I now go every two weeks to see the OB, but I also got the "bad news" that I have to go EVERY WEEK for an ultrasound from here on out... I am confused as to why because everything looks fine... guess I will just be glad I get to see baby frequently... but man will I get tired of seeing that office by the time I am done!







So, I guess all is going as good as can be expected on that front. Tommy is mostly recovered from his gallbladder surgery. And, we are potty training Natalie!! She is doing excellent, she has absolutely NO accidents when running around bare bum. Now, we are going to transition her to big girl panties and see if she can master that. She still will be using pull-ups for nap and night time, but hey.. its progress!

Speaking of pull-ups, we got really lucky this weekend. I found an ad on CVS.com advertising Pampers Easy Ups for 8.99 and you got $5 ECB back (basically, cash to use in store... which I will turn around and use on another awesome sale.. I go EVERY Sunday!). So, that's 3.99 a package before my coupons... I ended up getting 3 packs basically free. Actually, the ad was an error on CVS's part, but thankfully they honored it for anyone who had purchased before they pulled the ad! :)

Pampers 8.99 - $1 coupon
Pampers 8.99 - $1 coupon
Pampers 8.99
Bayer 2.00 - $1 coupon
Candy for Natalie .88
Filler caramel .33

- $10 off $30 purchase CVS coupon
= approx $18 on my debit card
Got back $5 x 3 ($15) ECB for pampers and $2 ECB for the bayer (raincheck)
So, I got all the diapers, plus the other items for about a dollar!! Sweet deal!

Summer update

'bout time that we get an update in. Quite a bit has happened since the October update.

Best things first: Jenn is pregnant with our second lil' one. We're looking forward to our lil' boy late-August to beginning-of-September. Natalie seems excited and says "baby" often, especially when she sees ultrasound pictures... even little tiny ones that are sitting on the desktop of the computer.

Natalie is zipping along in speaking. She knows lots of words (never had the chance to start a list to count) and strings together some sentences, such as:

• Help you (really meaning help me, but she imitates "Want us to help you")
• Oliver, stay there
• I get it; I drop it
• Hold it (sometimes followed by what she wants held)

There's some others in there, with the list of words and sentences growing as time goes on.

Jenn has recently put together a bunch of scrapbook pages in a whirlwind scrapping frenzy while I was recovering, getting a large percent of what had been queued up complete... There's still quite a bit left, but she put quite a dent in it.

Speaking of my recovering, two weeks ago I had a gallbladder attack and went to the ER. At the time I didn't know it was the gallbladder and the doctor suggested that might be it... so I was sent home and set to schedule an ultrasound to figure out what in the world it was. I managed to get in Monday afternoon and was sent to get the surgery done ASAP. I was sent to the ER to get a doctor's validation of what needed to be done and was admitted right away. Late Tuesday I had the gallbladder taken out and went home Wednesday. Early recovery was not very friendly, laproscopic != simple process after reading up. All is good now and I just need to watch what I eat.

There's been some new things at work lately: new cubicles, a new intern, and an office manager. Work is as busy as ever with no shortage of things to do and client projects to complete.