Gender Poll!!!

Alright everyone, we're going to do a little poll (thanks Alexandra Shipp for the idea!) in the next little bit.  We're hoping to be able to find out the gender of our little one at next week's ultrasound (though it's a little early and we may not be able to see anything definite) and I wanted to give everyone the change to decide if you think we're having a little boy or a little girl. Below is the most recent belly picture I have (13-ish weeks in the adorable top from Jessica Phillips, particularly bloated after Lovanox and a weekend of too-good eating!) and I'll add another picture right before the appointment. Keep your guesses coming and I'll let you know as soon as we know for sure (whether it's Tuesday or later on at the anatomy ultrasound).

Thanks!

This one's about the kiddos

Alright well this post is going to be all about the kiddos, I think.

I haven't been very diligent about taking belly pictures this time, but I do have them for at least every other week. I've decided that I'm a little self-conscious about showing early. I know, it's silly, in subsequent pregnancies, you're supposed to show sooner, plus when you add in the short amount of time that I had to shrink back down and the fact that I'm injecting Lovanox into my tummy, there's bound to be some bloating/puffiness that's not necessarily baby. Be this as it may, I have not been uploading belly pictures to Facebook this time, so cannot upload them here at the time. However, I think I will do a collage later in the pregnancy when I'm sufficiently monstrous and show the progression of weeks that got me there. That being said, I've been at the doctor's office at least every 2-3 weeks and have TONS of ultrasound pictures, which I will post with their weekly baby-is-now-the-size-of-[insert common object] comparisons (though there's more of those).

7 weeks 1 day (5/11/11)

8 week baby comparison (one of them, since this week there are conflicting fruits)- baby is the size of a blueberry (or a raspberry). (S)he has webbed fingers and toes, which are wiggling like crazy, and his/her trunk is beginning to straighten out.

9 wks 1 day (5/25/11). The picture's a little blurry because baby was wiggling all over the place.

9 week baby comparison - green olive! Baby is now considered a "fetus" and is starting to look like a baby as his/her facial features become more distinguished.

10 week baby comparison - a prune (yuck!). This week baby is forming bones and cartilage, and his/her vital organs are beginning to function. Arm joints are now working and (s)he will be waving before too long!

So begin the onslaught of images from my first OB/GYN appointment and ultrasound at 11 weeks.

I don't have a comparison picture for this week, but baby is the size of a lime with a head:body ratio of 1:1 to make room for all that growing brain! Fingers and toes are no longer webbed (thank goodness no more swamp-monster-baby!) and baby is now growing hair follicles, tooth buds, and nail beds!

About halfway through, (s)he started clapping his/her hands together and waving them up and down.

Then (s)he started doing what looked like doggy paddling, "walking" against the wall of my uterus and touching his/her hand to the forehead.  All of a sudden, we watched him/her pull that hand from the belly straight into a fist, stick the thumb in the mouth, and roll over. Getting ready for a nap, baby?

Baby is the size of a plum. At this point, most of the vital organ systems are formed, and will spend time rest of the en-utero time developing and honing the skills to perfection.

We went to the Maternal Fetal Care specialists this week (6/15/11) for the first trimester screening and got to take a peek at our little grower! The ultrasound tech/doctor look at the fluid space at the back of the neck to try to determine if there's a likelihood for any risks of birth defects... and the doctor said that everything's looking well within normal ranges. We'll go back for a second round of bloodwork in a few weeks.

This closer profile picture lets us get a better look a baby (with the right hand going to the mouth again). His/her heartbeat was 154-156 beats per minute! We go back for the anatomy ultrasound in about 6 weeks, but I'm hoping we'll get a peek sooner than that :)

No baby pictures this week, since we're between visits, but we'll go back to the OB next week, so there'll definitely be some updates then (and hopefully a gender prediction?). This week baby is the size of a peach, forming teeth and vocal cords. (S)he is approaching "normal" proportions as his/her head is now only about 1/3 the size of his/her body. This week, the intestines (which grow very rapidly at first, and are therefore extended out into the umbilical cord) will be making the move to the baby's tummy.

Alright, on to the other members of the family the their great accomplishments (with a quick interlude for a picture from the date night Nate and I took on 5/26/11 to The Melting Pot).

So the end of the year was very productive for Natalie and Alyssa. Alyssa was accepted into Beta Club (a great showcase for her grades and good relationships with her teachers), and made Chorus Ensemble - woohoo, she gets to wear one of the pretty dresses next year! Both girls have decided to audition for Honors Chorus (County and State) next year, and they will be trying out for volleyball (A), track (A), soccer(N), and joining the ping pong club (N) and the student service club (which Alyssa was a part of this year)... guess I'm going to be super busy! Both girls got a 4 on their EOG tests and got awards for having the highest (even if it was a tie) grade in a particular class! Alyssa got awards for Social Studies and Science and Natalie got an award for Math!

When report cards came out, we were absolutely thrilled with the girls' performance. We had a couple hiccups along the way with Natalie's grades as she adjusted to the extra responsibility of Middle School, but were glad to see the outcomes:

 This is Alyssa's final report card. This is the first time that she has gotten straight A's for every quarter/semester/final (last year she was off by 1 B at a quarter mark)!

We were very proud to see that Natalie was able to bring up her grade (one class where she missed an assignment and was tenths of a point from having a B) to get all but 2 A's on her final report card!

The girls have enjoyed a relaxing beginning to their summer break with nothing to do but laze around at home watching TV, playing games and sleeping late! They are currently at their grandparents' house for a few days - swimming at the lake, cooking new creations, and maybe some extracurricular-y type activities depending. Their grandfather is particularly ill - I believe he has Parkinson's, though I'm not 100% sure - and has been in a steady decline for the last 2 years. With his time quickly approaching, we want the girls to be able to spend as much time as possible with him and their grandma Pat, so as not to miss any opportunities. While I'm sure they're having lots of fun, I'm enjoying the quiet house and counting down the days 'til they'll be back (you never realize how lonely it is without them!)

So Blogger and I are not friends!

Well... I had been doing well: I put up my second post about 3 weeks after the first and went to do the 3rd about a week after that, but lo and behold, only my first post is on here! After tons of complaining to tech support, I didn't seem to get anywhere. It seems that this was a wide-spread problem and that a lot of my friends' posts were coming back on their own a few days later - but not mine. So I'm going to try to backtrack and get this back up and running since SO much has happened since the first post!

On April 16th, I took the girls to Raleigh with me to do our bi-weekly shopping at BJ's (since we don't have one in Greensboro and I HATE Sam's and Costco).  Unfortunately for us, there was some particularly inclement weather involved and with torrential downpours and tornadoes touching down all around us, we got stuck in Walmart when the power went out.  Megan, of course, took the opportunity to document the moment via her iPod as if we were the new crew for "Survivor: Tornadoes + Walmart"!

April 18th = SURPRISE!

We'd been trying to get pregnant again, and with all the specialists involved in my care, it seemed like it was going to be a little while before this happened.  I saw a Reproductive Endocrinologist on the 6th who ordered a bunch of tests (and the HcG level didn't come back for whatever reason) and he said that he thought I'd ovulated recently (TMI? Sorry!), so we were hoping and praying. With my last pregnancy, I took 5 tests over the course of a month and a half that came back negative before the first one (one of the expensive brands) finally came back positive - and by then I was already 8 weeks.  Considering that, the timing on this one seems a little strange, since on the 18th, I took one from the DollarTree, one Target brand, and then one of the fancy-schmancy Clear Blue digital tests - and they all quickly came back positive, even the cheap one!  Now generally, they don't read HcG levels until you're about 5 weeks, so I'm not sure how the timing is playing out.  We went back to the reproductive endocrinologist on the 27th and got to see our little "peanut" - and we go back for an ultrasound again on the 11th and get to hear the heartbeat.  With all the complications that label me "high risk", we'll have to find a speacialist to follow me throughout the pregnancy, and we'll probably end up in Chapel Hill.

Easter was fun again this year; we gave the girls mostly non-sugary stuff as we were going to my parents' house and knew that they'd be jacked up on sugar from them and my grandmother.

On April 30th, Mommy and I decided to take all the kiddos to pick strawberries near her house.  They were huge... and guarded by turkeys!  The kids seemed to have a great time, and we're still making our way through the loot.  Being as pasty as I am, I ended up getting a sunburn from walking around (half the time in shadows) for the hour that they were picking!

During the time we were out there, we drove through the "warzone" where one of the aforementioned tornadoes demolished a couple neighborhoods.  While there were only a few fatalities (our hearts go out to the 4 children in the mobile home, hiding like they were supposed to, who were killed by a tree falling directly on top of their hiding place), the neighborhoods seem to be banding together and putting themselves back together.  The destruction is detrimental, but luckily homes can be replaced.

On May 1st, Nate's work, DriveTime, sponsored a 5k for ALS research.  One of their customers has a family member suffering from ALS, so the day was dedicated to him. We showed up early to set up for the post-walk cookout and get everything situated and once we had everyone accounted for, we set off on our walk in a nearby park. The walk was surprisingly relaxing as it was shaded and only slightly hill-y. I was worried at first that Nate, being overprotective, wasn't going to let me do the walk, and Angela, being the renound chef wasn't going to let me help grill, but finally he relented. We were entertained the entire time by Kory (Nate's Senior Sales Advisor)'s girlfriend's son, Blake, who was regaling us with tales of being a werewolf/superhero/spy/rock. Since it was a short walk, we all made it back to the "campgrounds" and started grilling and dishing out food goodies. After everyone was miserably full, the family member who has ALS stood up to give a speech about how much he appreciated our walk and the awareness we're bringing to his disease. He still goes to the gym 4 days a week and walks miles each day to keep his body in shape (though I'm sure few of us can claim that kind of dedication!) - WOW!

For Mother's Day, we changed up our tradition a little bit. A few years back, on the first Mother's Day that I spent away from my mom since she was pregnant with me, at a wedding in Myrtle Beach with a friend, she unfortunately suffered a miscarriage. Since then, I'm terrified of being away from her on Mother's Day, but this year, we set the tone for something different. Saturday, she and I met at Southpoint to see a movie, do some shopping, have some dinner and spend some girly time together. We watched "Something Borrowed" - which surprisingly I enjoyed as much as the book, wandered the mall looking at maternity clothes (though I was too small to wear any of them at that time) and searching for the perfect gift for my Grammy. I was telling her how much I desperately need a new purse since the strap of mine is plastic-y and cracking, which scratches up my shoulder and pulls my hair, so we walked to Target - which was supposedly in the adjacent parking lot, but ended up being about a half mile away. By the time we got there, we wandered a bit, got pretty tulips for being mommies, and headed back towards the mall and our upcoming dinner... totally forgetting about the purse purchase!