Weekly Bump Updates

Before I get into my normal post, I just have to say I (probably like most people) have been glued to the news all morning about everything happening in Japan and Hawaii. The footage from Japan is indescribable, it's hard to even believe that it's real. I can't imagine what all of those people are going through right now. It really puts some of our issues and every day complaints into perspective and makes you focus on what is and isn't important. My heart goes out to all those dealing with this disaster.

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I know I should have a weekly picture with my bump update... but I wrote this last night and Vince wasn't home to take one and this morning before I left for work I completely forgot about it. SO I will definitely make sure to get a new picture before next weeks update!

How far along: at about 33-34 weeks (depending on if we are going by my original due date of April 29th or the updated due date of April 22nd.. it's kind of weird not having an exact date to count down to anymore haha)

Total weight gain/loss:  I had my Dr's appt Tuesday and I have put on 2 lbs since my last appt (2 weeks ago)... so still gaining about about a 1lb a week, making the total 16 lbs so far...

Maternity clothes: Same as before.. some maternity pants, but mainly wearing leggings or dresses with tights to avoid having to buy too many maternity clothes.

Stretch marks: still none, for now at least... hoping it stays that way. ha.

Sleep: Some days aren't too bad, but still getting up about 2 times a night to pee

Best moment this week: packing her diaper bag and picking out her outfit to take her home from the hospital in. It made me so excited, I couldn't stop smiling the whole time I was getting everything together.

Movement: all day long :)

Food cravings: fruit is the only consistent food craving I have had throughout this pregnancy... not that I don't eat junk food too (because trust me I DO) but I just don't crave it the way I crave fruit.

What I miss: turkey hoagies (the Dr said to avoid deli meats while pregnant and it has not been easy.. I really miss being able to just have a normal sandwich for lunch haha)

Anything making you queasy or sick: I have started waking up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous almost every single night, but not sure why..

 

Gender: Little Lady <3

Labor Signs: nothing more than some random contractions, which have been going on for awhile now so nothing out of the norm.

Belly Button in or out? still in for the moment (and still praying it stays that way lol).

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Weekly Wisdom: Don't rush. Obviously I want to meet my little girl SO badly.. but I also know that she will be here when the time is right. Besides I would rather her be late than to come too early and have to go to the NICU instead of being able to come home right away with me. So I am not going to hope to have her soon.. I'll just hope to have her healthy, whenever that may be.

Milestones: Finally feeling ready for the baby. Not that I (or anyone really) is ever fully ready for all the changes a baby brings... but I at least feel prepared. The car seat is in my car (thank you vince), the stroller is in my trunk, and the swing, bouncy seat, pack n' play, and a bunch of other random pieces of baby gear are all set up and ready for whenever she decides to come. (which as I mentioned right before this, I don't want to be anytime too soon) The nursery is also ready and fully stocked with clothes, diapers, wipes, etc.. but it still needs some finishing touches as far as the decorating goes.


Hope everyone has a nice weekend! I plan on doing a whole lot of nothing ;)

completely random thoughts..

It's raining and not just a little bit. It's supposed to rain from now until sometime Friday and they are calling for some flooding.. somewhere between 2-5 inches of rain (every news channel I check has a different forecast of course lol). Rain makes me feel so blah.. the only time I like the rain is on Sundays when I have nothing better to do but curl up and watch movies all day.

On top of this ugly rainy day, I am exhausted. I am used to getting up at 7 (and really I don't get out of bed then, I lay there until Vince is done showering and until I absolutely have to get up and start getting ready), but recently I have started to have to work from our Harrisburg office on Wednesdays and Thursdays so I have to leave my house by 6:30 am (at the latest). I know some people have long commutes every day, so I really shouldn't complain.. but I much prefer my normal 2 mile drive (seriously my office is that close) over this hour and a half (sometimes more with traffic drive) drive. Thankfully this is just temporary.. they are in the process of restructuring the Harrisburg office so I am just filling in until that happens. Which will hopefully be soon, because I like my normal 7 am wake-up much better. (and yes I know that once the baby is here that will change, but at least then I won't have to get up and drive that far to work I can stay in my pj's at my house... )

OK enough complaining.. Last night when I got home from work, I pulled up to see Vince's car outside. Which is odd because he typically works late (until like 10pm or later), but he surprised me and called off work and took me out to dinner instead. I love random date nights like that and I love that he knows how much those little things mean to me.

We were talking about going to a movie after dinner, but decided we would rather go home and rent a movie on demand instead.. but then we ended up getting caught up watching American Idol. Vince usually can't stand that show and the past few years I only watch it on and off, but like Vince said last night this year has some really good contestants and it makes it a lot more fun to watch. So I have a feeling after watching last night, I am going to be hooked on it for the season..

This Sunday we are switching churches. We are going back to the church we got married in (which was actually my family's church for years and I used to go with them every Sunday). Right after we got married Vince and I moved about 20 minutes from where I had been living, and not that it was a far move or anything, but it made more sense to start going to the church that was literally across the street from our new house. Plus since my family moved to Missouri they weren't going to the other church anymore either. Now, we have been talking a lot about when we have our baby baptized and if we really want to do it at the new church.  Not that there is anything wrong with it at all, the pastor is actually a really nice guy and I like going.. but it just doesn't feel like our church. Somewhere that we want to stay with long term. So, after discussing for awhile we decided that driving the 20 mins to church on Sunday's to go back to where we feel is our church was the best decision for us. I feel a little weird going back after being gone for over 2 years now, and hope the pastor doesn't mind that we switched... but it just feels like a better fit for us and our little girl. (plus I like that the pastor is friends with my family, married us, and can now baptize our baby).

Well.. that's really it. I know it was a random post, but that's really all that's been going on lately.

Hope everyone is having a good week... I'm sure you already know, but tomorrow is FRIDAY! Yay! (and I couldn't be more ready to be able to sleep in on Saturday! haha)

Top Two Tuesday



Top 2 Things you've learned about relationships

1. Pick Your Battles. OK so we all know that it isn't always easy trying to mesh two lives into one. Everyone is different and has their own way of doing things and once in awhile those differences can cause people to argue. BUT what I have learned (and really try to implement in our marriage) is to PICK YOUR BATTLES. Obviously there are going to be times when you may need to argue (seriously, no relationship is perfect all of the time), BUT there are other times when you can just let it go and move on. There is no sense arguing over who does what chores or things like that.. as long as both people are pitching in and things are getting done that's all that matters. There are way more important things to worry about.

2. Appreciate your time together. With Vince's work schedule these days (he leaves the house before 8am and gets home after 10pm Monday-Friday and usually works Saturday mornings too) our time has become limited. When he was just working a normal 8-5 schedule I never really appreciated our week nights in just relaxing together, now when he has a night off they are my favorite nights. We also try to make time together other ways during the week.. about once a week we meet for a quick lunch together and even though it's not a lot of time it's a nice break in the day and something I really look forward too. At night even though it's late when he gets home I still wait up and have dinner with him. It's all about taking whatever time you have together and making it count. This will obviously get even harder once our Little Miss is here, but we will find a way to make time for just us every once in awhile. (Plus hopefully this summer his schedule will be going back to typical 8-5 hours and then we can get back to a normal routine!)

To join in go to The Undomestic Momma :)

Weekly Bump Updates

So I have seen a few different versions done of these pregnancy updates and I think they are cute and a good way to look back and remember what each week was like. So I am going to start doing this weekly (I probably wouldn't normally do it every single week, but since I only have about 7-8 weeks left I figured I might as well :))

**Please excuse the horrible picture. I am SO bad at taking my own photo! Apparently I can't keep my hand steady enough so it comes out so blurry. I normally have Vince take a picture for me, but since he wasn't around I had to take this myself. Next week I will try to get a better one!

How far along: between 32-33 weeks now (it's crazy how quickly this pregnancy is flying by!)

Total weight gain/loss: ughh this question is definitely my least favorite on the list, but as of now I have been consistently putting on a lb a week since about 18 weeks (before that I lost a lot in the beginning months and then finally got back to my original weight right about 4 months).. so that would make it a total of 14 lbs so far (and obviously I know that number is just going to continue to climb over the next couple months). Can't believe I just put that on the internet..

Maternity clothes: I actually wore my first pair of maternity dress pants to work yesterday. I finally gave in about 2 weeks ago and bought a pair of jeans too.. but mostly I wear either leggings with long sweaters or tights with dresses.

Stretch marks: as of now no (thank goodness!)... but I still have plenty of time for that to happen.. ugh

Sleep: not the best. My back hurts a lot when I lay down so I toss and turn a lot during the night... I feel bad because it keeps Vince up too. (sorry babe!)

Best moment this week: Our crib and dresser/changing table got delivered on Tuesday so I could finally start putting things together in her room! I REALLY need to stop being lazy and get out my actual camera so I can get some decent pictures, but for now you can see these I took on my camera phone of just the crib so I could send the pic to my mom haha. (once I get the rest of the room at least some what together I will post more)

Movement: All of the time and I love it. Even though, it is starting to hurt every once in awhile.. but still, I know this won't last much longer so I am trying to enjoy it while I can :)

Food cravings: people ask this all of the time, but really I haven't had any crazy cravings. The only thing that I seem to want all of the time is fruit... specifically oranges. For awhile there I was going through about a box and a half of clementines a week lol.

What I miss: Sleeping on my stomach.. can't wait to be able to do that again!

Anything making you queasy or sick: nope, not really.

Gender: Girl :)

Labor Signs: Nothing crazy. The Dr said at my appointment last week that she is down and in position.. so I am noticing more pressure and a random contraction here or there, but nothing that has me calling the Dr's office yet. I want her to stay in there a bit longer :)

Belly Button in or out? In and praying it stays that way. Just ask Vince, this is something that has seriously worried me since day 1... I don't know why, but I am dreading the fact that it may pop out haha.

Wedding rings on or off? On. My hands have occassionally swollen, but not so much that I can't wear my rings.

Weekly Wisdom: Stop worrying about my weight. It's part of pregnancy and it has to happen, so just deal with it. I won't get to experience this very many times in my life, so stop stressing and just enjoy it. (but you can bet I will be worrying about it again after she comes out and I have to start getting ready for bathing suit season! haha)

Milestones: Getting past week 32. With some of the issues we were having earlier on, the Dr just kept saying as long as we could get to that point I could let out a sigh of relief. So, it's very nice to know that I can relax and stop counting the days until week 32 ;)

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Well that's it for this week! Hope you all have a great weekend... Happy Friday! :)

Thankful Thursday

First I have to say just how very thankful I am to all of my family and friends who came to my baby shower this past weekend. It was such a nice shower and meant so much to both Vince and I. I really can't express enough just how much we really appreciate everything. (I plan on doing a post with pictures soon)

I am thankful that tomorrow is FRIDAY. I started a new position at work (which I am also thankful about), but the downside is that on Wednesday and Thursdays I have to drive to our Harrisburg office (which means I leave at 6:30am and get home after 7pm).. and I am not used to those hours yet, so I am exhausted. Can't wait to sleep in this weekend!

I am thankful for a husband who knows how to deal with my crazy up and down emotions... thank you hormones..

I am extremely thankful that we have an accountant do our taxes instead of using turbo tax. When I put in all of our info in turbo tax it came up that we would owe a small fortune (at least to us).. but thankfully when our accountant called to tell us our taxes were done, he was able to get them down by a TON.. which was a nice little surprise yesterday :)

As I mentioned in my last post, the builder started working on our house again which I am thankful for. NOW if only he could actually FINISH it sometime over the next few months I would be VERY thankful..

Our nursery furniture got delivered Tuesday and I am oh SO thankful that all of the bedding and everything put together looks just how I wanted it to! (as I type this I realize I should have taken some pictures... the rooms not done yet, but I will try to take some this weekend so you can at least see what it looks like so far) 

I am thankful for a dog who likes to take naps with me... since right now naps are one of my all time favorite things ;)

And lastly I am thankful to be sitting here with my baby kicking me as I type.. it reminds me of just how soon she will actually be here in my arms, and that I simply can't be thankful enough for <3

Happy Almost Friday Everyone :)



So much for that perfect plan..

Back in May I wrote this post telling you all how excited Vince and I were because we had just signed and bought a house. (We had sold our townhouse earlier that month and were excited to be getting a single home). We had decided to go with new construction and had a lot of fun being able to pick out all of things that we wanted in it.

Well... since that time it has been a NIGHTMARE. Seriously SO MUCH DRAMA nonstop.

It is now March, and we are still waiting on our house. It has been a very long 10 months to say the least.

I could go on for days about the roller coaster ride this has been, but rather than bore you to death with all of that (and get myself all worked up and annoyed) I will give you the short version of what has happened.

Basically we signed in May and then had to pick out all of our options and then wait for the builder to get everything submitted to the township for approval. It took a little over 2 months for that, which was normal and exactly how long the builder told us it would take. (and just to clarify.. we had our townhouse built as well, so I understand the process of new construction and what is and isn't "normal").

So finally on August 6th (I'm not the type of person who remembers every date like that, but with all of the legal issues I now know the date of everything for this house) they broke ground. We were so excited because that meant we would be in the house sometime between the end of November and the beginning on December. Which, since we found out we were pregnant a few weeks later, the timing worked out perfectly so we could move in and still have a good 4-5 months before the little miss would be here. Well, at least we thought it would work out perfectly... turns out, not so much..

The builder worked on the house for about the next 3-4 weeks. They got it up and framed.. here is a picture of what it looked like at that point (it actually has the windows in too, but for some reason I can't find that picture).

 

Then from the first week of September until the end of November they did NOTHING. Not one thing was touched in our house for almost 12 weeks. We drove by daily and called and emailed constantly, but NO one would give us any answers on what was going on. (and also just to point out this was not just happening to our house, it was the entire neighborhood as well as the other 4 neighborhoods the builder owns). The problem, not only being extremely frustrating,was that they had framed our house but not finished the roof. So every time it rained outside, the inside of our house was flooded. (and if you live in PA you know we had some serious rain the month of October.. the mall here even flooded, so you can imagine what our house was like).

Finally the day before Thanksgiving one of the project managers finally called us back. He said they had been having financial issues (well duh, we figured that much out ourselves..) but not to worry that they had paid all of their contractors and everything would be back up and running the following week. So at this point we figured they have about 2 - 3 months left of work to finish until we would get our house... so at the latest we would be in was February. Wrong again.

They started working like he said and finished our roof the week after Thanksgiving. Then stopped working AGAIN. Since that time our house has continued to just sit there, with nothing else being done to it.

I know you are probably asking.. "well then why don't you get out of it and get another house" (because EVERYONE asks us that). The answer: if we could we would.

We gave the builder our down payment and signed a contract. He legally has up to 2 years from when we signed to finish the house before we get our money back. We can't just walk away and lose that money. But we recently started working with a lawyer who actually found one stipulation in the contract that might make it possible for us to get out of it. We were just about to have him send the builder a letter that would basically be telling him to either release our money (he doesn't technically have it the title company does) or we would go to court.

And then, of course, they started working again. Apparently since it's a new year, the builder was finally able to get loans from the bank. He has actually done a lot of work and seems to be getting things finished on the other homes. However ours isn't going that smoothly. The reason ours isn't getting anywhere yet is because as I mentioned it sat in the rain for 3 months, so now they are having to tear apart and replace a lot of the damaged wood. As much of pain as it is to have to now wait for them to fix problems they caused, I am just glad they are fixing them. Once they have made the repairs we are supposed to have a sit down meeting with the builder (for the first time in this entire process we can actually talk to him.. should be interesting) and find out what is going on.

We would rather not have to go to court, so if he can actually continue work from here on out and get us in the house then we will wait, but if it looks like they are going to stop again then we will start the court process. (which like everything else will take awhile).

SO I will definitely keep you all posted as to when (and if) we ever actually get the house. It has obviously been a huge stresser for us this past year, BUT to be honest at this point we are just focusing on having our little girl. The house is kind of out of our control and there is no need to continue worrying about it. Besides for now we have an apartment so it's not like we are homeless and eventually one way or another it will either get done or we will get our money back. It all may just take a lot longer than we originally planned.

Guess that just proves you can't always base your life around plans. That was probably a lesson I needed to learn sooner or later.. haha

Pregnancy Ups and Downs

It has been a VERY long week. I am in the process of switching positions at work and this week I started training for that and it has made for some long days... BUT I have off tomorrow because my family is flying in tonight and a bunch of friends are driving in tomorrow for my shower this weekend. SO I am really looking forward to getting to spend some time catching up with everyone!

OK.. last week I posted about finding out I was pregnant, but it's clearly been awhile since that happened as I am now about 8 months along. So, I just wanted to type a post with some of the ups and downs (and there have been lots of them) that have gone on to catch you all up to where I am now.

So in August I found out I was pregnant. Then had to wait about 5 weeks until my first Dr's appt and then a couple days after that I had my first ultrasound. Which was the first time I let myself really get excited about everything. It was such a relief to know there was a heart beat and everything looked good!

About a week later I had my first "down". I got a call back from the Dr's office letting me know there were some issues with my blood work. They told me I came up positive for being a carrier of cystic fibrosis. I know it may not seem like a big deal to some people, but to me it was. I kind of panicked. I didn't want to be the cause of any issues for my baby. Vince had to go get tested to see if he was a carrier (usually only 1 out of 30 people are carriers, so it wasn't a huge risk but at the time that seemed like a high percentage). If he was a carrier too there was a 50% chance our baby would have CF. Thankfully after about 10 days of waiting (why does it take so long to get blood work back sometimes??) the Dr called to say Vince was NOT a carrier. So this baby (or any future kids) can't have CF, they could be a carrier like me but they would need 2 strands of CF to develop the disease. To say I was relieved would be an understatement.

The next month or two I dealt with the first trimester (and into part of my 2nd trimester) fun of morning sickness. Good times. At one point I kept losing weight so the Dr considered making me go to the hospital to get an IV.. but thankfully not too long after that I started to gain the weight back. (and since then the scale has constantly been going up... maybe a little too much haha).

A few weeks before Christmas when I was 20 weeks and got to go for my second ultrasound. Vince and I both were SO excited because even though we had seen the heartbeat at the first ultrasound this would be the first time we would actually see our baby. It was AMAZING. I couldn't stop smiling while I was looking at the screen and every time I would turn to look at the Vince he was starring at the baby with the same exact smile as me :) The Dr said everything looked good and the baby's measurements were exactly on track.

This was also the appointment where they could tell us whether we were having a boy or a girl. We decided since it was so close to Christmas that we would have the Dr put the gender into an envelope and we could open it together, just the two of us at Christmas. It ended up being my favorite moment from the entire pregnancy.. and definitely the best Christmas gift I have ever opened :)

On Christmas Eve we went to his families house for dinner and then went home, started a fire, and watched a Christmas movie (Home Alone, one of my favorites). Before we knew it, it was almost midnight and we decided to finally open the card. Now, just so you know.. the ENTIRE pregnancy I thought I was having a boy. I have NO idea why I thought that, I just did. So to be honest even though I was excited to open the card, It wasn't like an "OMG I can't wait any longer!" type of thing because I thought I already knew what the card would say. Well, I was wrong.

The card said GIRL. and Oh. My. Gosh. it was one of the biggest and best surprises of my life. I was over the moon excited. (so was Vince!) Since I was so sure it was a boy, I hadn't even thought about it being a girl. From that point on I have thought of nothing else but bows, ribbons, and cute little dresses. (ok not really, but I am really excited to be able to get all of that cute little girl stuff haha)

On Christmas morning we were going back to Vince's parents house to open gifts with the family and to tell them the gender... but when I got up that morning I was spotting. I was about 23 weeks at this point and it really freaked me out. I told Vince, but decided not to say anything to anyone else about it. I called the Dr on Monday morning (2 days later) and she immediately had me come in. She couldn't really tell anything from my exam, but wanted me to come back a week later.

By the time I went back I was having really bad cramps and more spotting. Our little girls heart beat sounded good and she seemed to be fine, but they wanted to make sure I wasn't going to go into early labor.. So I had to go for another ultrasound a week later. At the ultrasound they found that my cervix had been open (which isn't normal that early), but I didn't seem to be progressing anymore than that.

Even though I was nervous about having to check on everything again.. it was really nice to see our little girl. (and to make sure she is in fact a girl lol). How amazing is this picture of her hand on her face... I can't believe how much you can see from an ultrasound!!

They talked about bed rest a little, but thankfully she ended up saying as long as I tried to stay off my feet at work and then at night made sure to keep my feet up I could wait and see how things went. (obviously I would go on bed rest if she really wanted me to, but I really didn't want to use my time off before the baby was even here)

Since then its been a week by week kind of thing. (I feel like I am at the doctor's office more than anywhere else lol) I have weeks with no problems at all and weeks where I am spotting and having contractions on and off. The Drs have said since then "if we can just get you to 32 weeks then we can breathe a sigh of relief". Well I am now just a couple days shy of 32 weeks and finally feeling better. So, I am hoping the little lady will plan on staying in for a while long, but it's nice to know that if she does decide to show up early then we are out of the "danger zone" as one Dr put it.. haha.

So like I said there have been lots of ups and downs... but overall I have really enjoyed being pregnant and going through this whole thing with Vince. He has been absolutely wonderful the entire time and has taken such good care of me. This pregnancy has brought us even closer together, which I didn't even know was possible haha.

OK well that should sum up most of it for you. Hope I didn't bore you too much ;)

I probably won't post again until next week, but hopefully I will have lots of cute pictures from the shower to show you then! Have a great weekend! :)