Letter to Aspen

Dear Sweet Baby Girl,
You are becoming more and more active as each day passes. I love the little kicks that I am feeling every now an then. It's your way of reminding me that you are there and you are growing and getting ready to meet us in a few months. Last night as we were sitting on the couch watching the Patriots win their 16th game of the season, you were kicking hard enough for me to feel you with my hand. Thank you for those little movements. That's what makes you so real to me. I can't wait to see your tiny toes and count each one of them.
I tried to get your older brother Max to feel you kick with his hand last night, but he was too shy. He's going to be a great big brother. He already knows your name and tells everyone that Mommy has his baby sister in her tummy. It's so cute when he says your name. The first time I heard him say "Aspen", that just reaffirmed to me that it was the perfect name for you. I have a feeling you are going to fit in with us nicely.
I'm almost 21 weeks now. Next Saturday you are going to go on your first plane ride to San Francisco. You won't remember it once you get here, but I will make sure to include you in my belly in some pictures.
I pray for you every night that you will be healthy and strong and funny. I hope that you will laugh with us and take life in stride. Your brother is pretty good at this, so I'm sure he will be a great example for you. He loves to laugh and I know he will be right there telling jokes for you and tickling you, all to watch you smile.
We love you so much already and can't wait until the day we get to meet you. But you still have some time. You are going to be a wonderful Spring flower in our lives this year.
Love,
Mommy, Daddy, and Max

New Fuzzies

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was absolutely wonderful and Max got absolutely spoiled!! We were so blessed this year and are so thankful for everyone in our lives. Love you all!!
Curt's mom knitted everyone new fuzzy slippers! We wanted to show off our new slippers in our Christmas family picture. Max is holding Aspen's tiny slippers in his hands. Can't wait for her to get to wear them!

Half Way Belly!!

I took these a couple days ago. At the Half Way point now!!!

Almost 20 weeks


At my mom's

Randomness

I wanted to let you know that I am feeling much much better! I haven't been having anymore headaches and the nausea seems to have passed for the most part! YIPPEE!!! I love the second trimester burst of energy! I'm feeling more normal than I have in several months, other than the fact that I'm outgrowing some of my pants, lol.
I've started feeling Aspen a lot more now.(It's so nice to be able to call her by name now :o) ) It's not really strong movements, but every once in a while I'll get a little thump, thump on my belly and can't help but smile. It's truly amazing being able to feel your child growing inside of you. It's very surreal and alien-ish, but also very cool. There can't be anything like it in the world.

Since finding out we are having a little girl, I've really wanted to buy some girly things! I didn't think I would ever have the chance to shop for a little girl. For some reason I always envisioned myself as a mother to boys. Curt doesn't want me to go out and get anything right now because he says it's too early and we have other things to focus on right now. But it's SOOOO hard not to get something. Max and I did pick out a little sleeper the other day at Target and bought that. It has a pink and green ladybug on it and it says, "Little Lady" on the chest. SUPER cute!! Shhh! But don't tell Curt we got it, he wouldn't approve, hehe. Oh HI CURT! You read this blog too?? Who would have thought...?

Today Max and I walked around Babies R'Us for a while. I had him sit in several different double strollers to see which one I liked best. He was way too long for almost all of them! Not to mention those things are HUGE!!!! So who knows what we will do about that. I love the idea of a double stroller, but not if it can't accomodate both kids. So we'll see.

Another GIRL!!!!

My wonderful sister Tiphanie and her husband Eric, found out yesterday that they are also having a girl!! I'm SUPER excited about this!! It's so wonderful!! It's neat because my brother had a boy close to the same time as Max, so he has a cousin close to his age that he can play with and now our little girl's are going to be close in age!! Couldn't have worked out more perfectly!! Even more perfectly I think because Tiph and I are due three weeks apart, so our girl's will be even closer in age!!

TP Tuesday and WG Wednesday

18 Weeks

TP today (12/12): 9 and a tiny bit, so like 9 1/8
Previous TP:
(12/05): 9
(11/30): 9

WG: +2 lbs, 3 lbs Total

Names

I forgot to mention the names that we came up with.

For a girl: Aspen Elise (I also really like the middle name, Annalise, but we can modify that later if needed ;) )

For a boy: Jasper Reid

Drum Roll Please!!

We had our big u/s today and everything looked great with the baby. It was being really stubborn at first, keeping it's face towards my spine. But it eventually turned around and gave us a nice profile. It looks EXACTLY like Max's u/s pictures! SOOOOOO cute!!! Everything's measuring right on target and everything checked out perfect!!! It was really really nice to see my little baby! I got all weepy as soon as I saw it's heart beating strongly. Love that sound!!

Curt's all worried now...

His wallet is about to get a big hit...

Introducing...


Waving to us,


Her arm,


She did a quick 4D shot. It's a little blurry, but still really cute!


It's a girl!!! I made the lady check like 3 times just to make sure! I told her she had to tell me 100% that it was a girl, and she said, "Yep, that's 100% a girl!!"


Guess who gets to go shopping?!!!!!

Did you notice?

I was just looking at my floating baby ticker on the right and thought to myself, you know, that actually really looks like a baby now. Kinda neat to think that's what he/she looks like now.

TP Tuesday and WG Wednesday

Gosh, can't believe it's that time already!

17 Weeks
TP squares this week: 9, but just barely. I'm thinking I will be into the 10th square next week.
WG: up 1 lb total.

Last Week
TP: 9
WG: 1 lb total

TP Tuesday and Weight Gain Wednesday

My due in board has started doing Toilet Paper Tuesdays and Weight Gain Wednesdays. So I thought I would keep up with it here too.

In case your not familiar with TP Tuesday, that's where you take toilet paper and count how many squares around your belly you are. Sounds fun, right? hehe

TP: 9 squares

Weight Gain: 1 lb

(I was up 3.5 lbs, but right before Thanksgiving I had lost a pound. Then the Monday after Thanksgiving I had lost another pound. I have NO IDEA how that happened because I ate a TON during the holiday. But anyways. After last night's ordeal I had lost another pound, so I'm back to where I started. But I had a decent sized dinner tonight so I'm going to say I'm +1 for now.)

Grow Baby Grow!!!

So much for doing belly pictures every two weeks...I'm 5 weeks late, lol. I made a little collage to show Baby Jag's progress so far. (btw-we are calling it Baby Jag for now since Max is still insistant that it's a jaguar, lol)

15 weeks (two days shy according to my doctor's new due date, but I think I'm a few days ahead of what they say, so I'm going to call this one 15 weeks, lol)
Wearing 1 of 2 pairs of jeans that I can still button and breath

I Need NAMES!!!

Ok, seriously this naming thing is getting to be a thorn in my side, lol.

We've agreed on a boy's name. So that's settled.

But who knows what's going to happen if this baby ends up being a girl!! I've found so many names that I absolutely LOVE and Curt has shot EVERY SINGLE ONE them down! Granted I haven't loved every name he has given me, but I've given him a LOT of choices whereas he has only given me like 3.

So if you want to throw some girl names out there that you like then maybe I can work on a new list. I really want to have a girl's name picked out by the time we have our u/s. I know that seems soon, but with Max we had two names and they wrote on the u/s "Baby Max" and I thought that was cute. Not that that matters entirely, but it was kinda cool for his baby book.

HELP!!!

Fast Update

An update on the name situation. We have settled on two names. Buuuuuut I'm waiting till we find out what we are having to announce the name. Don't worry, it won't be too much longer. Only a week and 3 days actually. Can you believe it's that time already!? Gosh! I'm so excited!!!

Did I ever mention my insane headaches I've been getting lately? I don't think so. Well, right after the morning sickness stopped, I started getting excruciating headaches that last ALL DAY LONG. It's awful. I talked to my doctor about it and she said that it's common for some women to get headaches while they are pregnant. Niiiiice. Yesterday was probably the worse day for headaches ever. It was hurting so so bad I could barely see. We had to go to UPS to pick up a package that I had missed that day and had to have the next morning. On the way there I started getting really really dizzy. Curt was driving thankfully. I went into UPS and got the package and then came back to the truck. I told Curt that I was going to throw up, but couldn't do it right then. So he started driving. I had him pull over once because I thought I was going to puke right then, but didn't. Then once we got onto the expressway, I couldn't hold it back any longer. So I quickly tossed the contents of the package into the backseat and puked into the box. OH THE PAIN!!!!!!! I need to send a letter of thanks to WHCC for providing something for me to puke in so it didn't get all over my clothes. Think they would appreciate that?? hehe.

Head is a little better today. Not hurting as bad, but still a dull pain. I'm definitely going to talk to my doctor on the 11th to see how bad is normal. Are headaches this excruciating considered normal during pregnancy??

Update! Update!

Update!! I feel better!!! This is the best news I've had to share since early September! It's amazing how great you feel when you go from feeling SO incredibly lousy to feeling more like yourself. Such a lovely feeling.

Tuesday I think I ate ALL DAY LONG...SERIOUSLY!! I decided that since I haven't been able to eat much since forever I was hungry! I ate a panini at Fazoli's for lunch with Curt after my appointment and as soon as I took the last bite I was like, "Man, I'm still hungry!" He went back to work and I went straight through Wendy's drive through for a Frosty with M&M's. Oh that was SO good!!

I just kept shoveling food into my mouth all day, lol. I think I went to bed eating and I STILL could have eaten more!! This could get very dangerous!! Very dangerous indeed!!!

I had my 12 nucal transluesency(sp?) scan Tuesday. I won't know the results for another 6 weeks or so because I have to go back in for more bloodwork at the end of this month. But is was still cute to see the little bean again! It's starting to look more like a baby! Amazing what a couple weeks of development can do!!

According to them, my due date is still the same. But I'm still confused about what it really is. The u/s tech told me it was 12 weeks exactly, but my u/s pictures say 13 weeks 1 day. And when I was putting my pants back on after the u/s I sneaked a peak at the u/s screen that had the measurement data on it and it said, 12 weeks 4 days. So I have no idea really, lol.

I think its cute no matter how old it really is, lol

6

That's the number of zofran pills that my insurance will pay for with the refill. SIX!!!!!!!!! And no more refills. This is just awful. My doctor called in a prescription for phenergren last Friday, but that puts me to sleep so I can only take it at night. I'm going to cut the zofran pills in half to try and get by on half a pill when I need one. Please pray that my morning sickness passes soon. I'm miserable.

Sick Again

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, and even the posts that I have done recently are too short. I promise that one day I will get back into the whole blogging routine. I just have to get past this rough patch of pregnancy. It's really kicking my butt this time around. Which is making it DRAAAAG on. Ugh.
I ran out of my current prescription for zofran two days ago. I called in the refill and went to pick it up, but my insurance won't pay for it until the 28th, so I have to wait until Monday to get it. Morning sickness is back full-swing again. I've been feeling so great lately too! It sucks so bad to feel yucky again. We ate lunch with Curt today and I was able to make it to the parking lot before throwing up my entire lunch. This SUCKS!!!!!!!!! Looks like I'm in for a long weekend!

Meet My Little Blob

The appt went well this morning. They did the u/s first, and the u/s tech said that I was actually measuring 10 weeks instead of 11 weeks, which is what I had originally thought. So no biggie. My new due date is May 13. But since I was too early to do the Integrated Screening u/s that had to be rescheduled and I will have another u/s two weeks from today. I saw my doctor and she went ahead and did my pap and stuff. She commented on how small my pelvis was, which I've been told the same thing by two other doctor's. She asked if I was wanting a VBAC and I told her I wasn't really sure. The only thing I was really concerned about was having the baby with me after the delivery instead of going to the nursery so I could try to BF as soon possible this time around. She said that was fine, I would be able to keep the baby with me as long as everything was ok with it right after birth. So that's encouraging. I don't have to decide on the VBAC right now. She's really great and I can tell she will support me in whatever decision I make, which is nice. But she did mention that because my pelvis was so small I may not be able to. Which is fine with me actually. A c-section doesn't scare me at all. I'm actually more nervous to go through labor again and have a vaginal birth. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Still PLENTY of time to think about it.

SO the u/s tech didn't try very hard to get any decent pictures because she said I was too early to do the screening test. She just did a fast scan with measurements and that was it. We did get to hear the h/b, which was a big thing for me! It was nice and strong, 174 bpm. Here's my cute little blob,

Morning Belly

Ok, so this morning I got up and it felt like the all the bloating was gone. I'm definitely going to stop taking belly pictures at the END of the day, lol. This is probably more true to size, lol,

HOUSTON! We Have a Belly!

You know, I seriously need to start taking these bi-weekly pictures in the mornings. I KNOW I'm not nearly this big first thing in the morning! I did shoot a wedding today and I was on my feet ALL day (from 8:30 am to 8pm) so I think I'm bloated too....OR there's two in there, in which I will find out on Tuesday, hehe.

Chinese Gender Chart

Anyone else think that the Chinese Gender Chart is bunch of bologna? Some people swear by it and say that it is SO accurate, but come on! If you aren't familiar with how it works, it takes your age and the month that you conceived and tells you whether you are having a boy or a girl. But that makes NO sense whatsoever! The prediction it gave me was that I was going to have a boy, because I was 25 years old at the age of conception and I conceived in the month of August. So that means that every 25 year old in the world who gets pregnant in the month of August is going to have a boy??! Crazy. But the thing is, this particular gender chart is EVERYWHERE! Of course, it has a 50/50 chance of being right, lol. By the way, it predicted that Max was going to be a girl, lol. I just think it's silly to use that type of logic to tell what the gender is.
Now the pendulum test...now there's a prediction worth doing, hehe...

Back to the Beginning...Sorta

After a rough week and one prescription for Zofran later, I'm down 3 pounds and my jeans fit again, lol. Go figure. I haven't been able to button my jeans for the past two weeks and today I weighed myself and realized that I've lost 3 pounds and I can button my pants again. Weird.
I'm kinda glad though, because I was beginning to panic when I couldn't button my pants already at 8 weeks. I didn't really start showing with Max until 18-20 weeks and even then it was pretty small. So I thought for sure I was going to be huge by that time this pregnancy. I'm due for a belly picture, maybe I'll get Curt to take one tonight...

Getting Some Real Medicine

I finally called the doctor today and they are calling me in a prescription for zofran. I tried everything on the list of morning sickness help aides they gave me at my visit last Thursday. I'm still practically unable to function. I did get some stuff called Morning Sickness Magic that seemed helped yesterday. But yesterday evening the nausea had returned and today it's back as bad as it was before. I really hope the zofran helps! I'm so ready to start feeling better!

Two Weeks Later

It's that time again. Time for the dreaded belly pictures. I hate this point in pregnancy. It's too early to tell that you are actually pregnant, but you are feeling fatter than you have in months with all the bloated and whatnot going on. So it just looks like you've had one to many twinkies lately. BUT believe me, ain't no twinkies come near this mouth. In fact, food in general has become quite the determent to my stomach lately. I find myself in a state of mild panic mode all day in efforts to keep my nausea under control and looking for the nearest bathroom whenever I enter any public place, just in case I decide to lose whatever bits of food I've managed to keep down at that moment. Saltines, ginger ale, jolly rancher suckers (green apple flavor) and Sea-bands are keeping me sustained these days.
But alas, the first trimester will soon be over, and hopefully this common pregnancy symptom will go by the wayside. So until then, here is 8 weeks. I think I can tell a slight difference? Can you? My ticker says that the baby is an inch long now. That's pretty neat!

Not a Good Idea!

Oy. I am meeting and having dinner tonight with a client, so I decided to put a roast in the crock pot to cook all day for Curt and Max for dinner. OH MY, the smell is killing me! Normally I love the aroma of something cooking all day, but now it's really getting to me. I can't stop it either, I don't want a whole roast to go to waste. This is SO bad!!! What was I thinking??!

1st Appointment

I had my first appointment today. The first appointments are always uneventful, so nothing to report really. They did recalculate my due date, so now I'm due May 5th, instead of May 8th which is what I thought. So that means that Tiphanie and I are due 10 days apart!!! That's SO cool! I hope we both have the same gender!
Going back on the 23rd to hopefully hear the heartbeat. I will be 12 weeks then!

Useless

I've become completely useless. Morning sickness (or rather ALL day sickness) seems to be SO much worse this time around. I'm waking up nauseous. I'm on the verge of puking all day long. I can barely keep my eyes open half the day from the extreme exhaustion, but when I get to sleep I can't stay asleep because I have a horrible sick feeling on and off the whole night. I wake up sick. I can't seem to get off the couch, let alone get anything productive done. My energy level has fallen to an awful low. I remember feeling really tired when I was pregnant with Max and I felt sick a lot as well. I thought that was really bad then, but I honestly think it's a lot worse this time. I get hungry fast, then I get sick from being hungry, yet I can't eat hardly anything without getting sick. The thought of cooking food makes me want to puke. I'm really looking forward to getting past this part of being pregnant and hopefully if everything turns out ok in the end, I'll never have to do it again. Being this sick this time around has confirmed for me that two kids are enough. It's harder this time around as well because I can't just take care of myself and focus on exactly what my body needs when I need it because I am also caring for a 2 year old. He is a great 2 year old, and I'm very thankful for that, but I feel bad when I'm just too tired to play with him or too sick feeling to do anything with him. The first trimester is the worst and I'll be happy when I get out of it!

1st Belly Picture

I didn't start taking belly pictures until about 18 weeks with Max, so I want to start earlier this time. Even though none of my pooch has anything to do with THIS baby, lol. It's all left over from Max, but I guess that's what makes it different this time. Next time I'll have Curt take a picture of all of me, lol. I told him to take a picture of my belly, so that's ALL he took a picture of, hehe. Oh well.

Gender Prediction

I saw this on my DIMay board and tried it. It's really cool!! You take a pencil with a threaded needle in the top and hold it over your wrist and it moves in certain ways to tell you what the gender of your children are. It signaled boy first (for Max) and then paused and then signaled girl. It was really neat! I even did it a second time and when it paused after signaling "boy" I started really thinking about another boy and trying to get it to say "boy" again, but it paused and then started moving across my wrist for a girl. Who knows if it's really true or not, but it's still fun to try!

To do it: Thread a needle with string and poke the needle into the eraser of a pencil. Hold it above your wrist (or your friend's- whoever) and watch how it pencil moves. It will move up and down your arm (hand to elbow) for a boy and back and forth (across the wrist) for a girl. The pencil comes to a short pause in between each child and when all children are accounted for it completely stops moving. It's WEIRD!

OY!

Bring on the nausea! It's hit and it's not pretty....ugh.

Sick Boy

Max woke up vomiting this morning and running a fever. I gave him a pedialyte popsicle and he ate about 1/4 of it and puke again. The problem is, last night he didn't eat any dinner and barely drank anything. At lunch, he barely ate anything either. So this morning he is vomiting (about 4 times already) and there isn't really anything for him to vomit. So he already has dry heaves and that greenish yellow vomit you get when there isn't any food or liquid in your stomach. I'm afraid that he is going to get dehydrated really fast.

Updated at 4 pm:
Max has been puking constantly all day. I've only given him water, 2 tbls at a time. He's vomited at LEAST 10 times, probably more. He did finally have to go to the bathroom to pee (first time since yesterday), but couldn't walk to it himself. I had to carry him. Poor little guy is so so sick. His fever isn't too high, so I guess that's a good sign. When should I start to really worry and call the pedi?

I really hope Curt and I don't get whatever bug he seems to have caught. I keep disinfecting everything just as a precaution! I'm already queasy enough as it is due to being pregnant. Plus, not to be gross or anything, for almost a week anything I eat sends me straight to the bathroom, but not to vomit...if you get my jist. I was the same way when I was pregnant with Max, but it didn't start till later. If I were puking too that could be really bad.

I go on vacation for three days...

And I come home to find this,


Curt's first words when I told,
"How the hell did that happen?"

Honey, I think we all know how these things happen..