Travel - Where and When to Go?

Happy New Year!

Jeff and I have been thinking about a vacation in these last few days. We want to take a "babymoon" aka one last vacation before your life is over and you have a baby. :) It's been a few years since I've been able to take my favorite type of vacation, a cruise. And it'll probably be a few more before I get to go again! So my ideal vacation in the back of my mind has been a cruise. This weekend we looked into them a bit more. I knew the cruise lines had regulations on how far along they allow pregnant women, and it turns out you're not allowed to go past 27 weeks! Yikes! In other words, that means we need to go before February. I'm not sure if we can get our act together that quickly! But I'd sure love to. So we're looking into how many nights we'd like to take, and I would need to call my doctor to make sure they're ok with me taking a cruise.

If the cruise scenario doesn't work out, we'll take a vacation land-bound sometime in February. I really want to go somewhere warm, so it'd likely be Florida, Caribbean, or Mexico. In any case, we need to get it nailed down quickly, we learned our lesson on that last year - we wanted to spend a week in December in New York City. When we first looked into it in June, prices were reasonable. We waited to book everything for some reason, but then by August & September when we were ready to book, prices had sky-rocketed. So we learned that last minute doesn't work! We need to get going. :)

As for pregnancy, I had a possible first today. I was laying on my side on the couch, watching a movie today. Bailey was curled up along my tummy, asleep. The baby was pretty active, and then let out a VERY strong kick that I could definitely feel just having my hand resting on my belly. Bailey woke up and looked at me like "What do you want?" Like I had tapped her or something! So I wonder if Bailey felt the baby?! That would be pretty sad if Bailey got to feel it before Daddy! hehe.

21 Week Picture

Here's 21 Weeks! My last Belly Pic of 2007.



I have tomorrow off work - yippee! Jeff's and my goal these next couple days is to clean up the house a bit, get more organized, and mine in particular is to get the nursery EMPTY. I know it's a bit ambitious, and I doubt I'll get it 100% empty by Tuesday, but I think I can get a pretty good start on it. The great Breyer sell-off has begun, this last week I listed 35 of them on Ebay. It's a far cry from the 200+ I'd like to sell, but it'll help. I've been selling since we found out we were pregnant, so overall I think I have about 1/4 sold and gone of what I'd like to eventually be rid of. Of course I'd LIKE to keep them all, but there's just not enough climate-controlled space in the house to store 300 plastic horses! The other nice perk is getting back some of the money we spent on fertility treatment to get this baby in the first place! I always knew my collecting obsession would come in handy at some point. :) Just so you think I'm weird, (yes I know I am) and because I'm bored and have their pictures online, here are couple that have sold this week.





This last girl I don't particularly want to sell, but I think the timing is just right on her. I won her on Ebay less than a year ago and paid $100. Right now I have people making offers on her, my last offer was $200. I think I'll accept that one, as another one like her sold about a month ago for $200. Not bad appreciation for less than 1 year. She is special because only 333 of her were made in 1987. Of those 333, probably 90% were played with and made worthless, but she is 100% perfect. I'd like to hold onto her, but I doubt the 100% appreciation will last a real long time, so I should strike while the iron is hot.



So now you know a little bit more about me and my horse collecting! :) I started when I was less than 10 years old, so my collection has accumulated quite a bit over the years. I'm a tad obsessive about them, and yes, I even take them to plastic horse shows, but in my defense, it increases their value. People will pay more for a horse who has won ribbons. (Model horse collectors are weird people.) So, whatever it takes to make them more valuable!

I hope you have a wonderful and safe New Years Eve, and a Happy 2008!

20 Week Picture

I'm 21 weeks today! About time to post my 20 week picture, huh? Can't say I'm too eager to post this one, I'm not a fan. But, to retain consistency...



My latest fun pregnancy development is acid reflux. It started a little over a week ago, and comes anytime I eat anything. Looks like it's time to buy some stock in Tums! I've also gotten 2 bloody noses in the last week, after never having a bloody nose ONCE in my life! Pregnancy does some weird things.

I thought I'd also throw a couple pictures of Bailey up here that I took with my new camera.





Such a sweet girl! She needs a trim around her face though.

We don't have too many plans for the weekend, we've been trying to re-organize the house, find a place for everything, and find a place for all the junk we've had in the nursery! So we'd like to continue with that project this weekend, I'd like to get the nursery almost cleared out. Maybe we'll go shopping at Lowe's to find a ceiling fan for the baby's room. Tomorrow night we're going to a Dallas Mavericks game while Joel is in town. Other than that, I'm looking forward to a nice, long 4 day weekend!

Lots to Talk About!

First of all, I hope you had a very Merry Christmas! I wish I could say the same for myself.

I got to spend the hours going from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day in the ER! I'm not sure if I came down with the flu or food poisoning (we suspect food poisoning), I started feeling sick in the late afternoon of Christmas Eve. After having lots of "fun" symptoms I don't need to get into, and then finally throwing up 5 times around 10:00pm, I called the local hospital to see at what point they think I needed to be seen. She asked me to describe what was coming up, and after I did, she said I needed to go to the ER right away, that could be blood. They just don't mess around when it comes to pregnancy.

So, the whole family packed up and went! This was at 11:30 pm. They checked me out, and I had a small fever, but the baby had been kicking all evening so I knew it was ok. The nurse got the heartbeat with the doppler, 175 bpm. The dr came in and talked to me, and said it very well could have been food poisoning, or he said there's also a 24 hour flu going around, and it could be that. He said if I were in serious danger, I would be seeing bright red blood, so he wasn't too concerned. He gave me some Zofran, had me sip some water, wait around about 45 minutes, then they released me. Sent me home with more Zofran.

We got home around 1:30 am, and we were all so exhausted. My only problem was, if I laid down, I felt like throwing up. So I parked myself on the living room couch propped up against the arm to keep me in a somewhat vertical position. I slept about 2-3 hours, and got up at 4, drank a little water, kept it down fine, so I decided to try to go to bed at 4:30. Mistake. I didn't even make it half hour before running to the bathroom, throwing up 3 more times. So back to the couch I went. I got another hour or so of sleep, but mostly stared off into space in the living room. Everyone woke up Christmas morning and we all opened our presents, I was pretty out of it! The rest of the day all I could do was lay on the couch falling in and out of sleep. I hardly had the energy to stand up. The rest of the family went over to Jeff's grandpa's for Christmas Dinner, but I knew there was no way I could eat or be around food like that, much less have the energy to get up and go, so on the couch I stayed. I was actually able to sleep in bed that night, which was nice. By that point I think I was getting better, it was just taking a while to get energy back. We came home yesterday (the 26th) and stopped at my parents' house for dinner. It was my first time attempting to eat anything other than crackers and jello!

Today I'm still a little touchy, but on the road to normalcy again.

In pregnancy news, I had my big 20 week ultrasound today! They said all is looking good! The baby weighs 12 oz, which my doctor said is on the low side of normal, but still perfectly healthy. He said maybe the baby will help me out and stay on the low side of normal to help me out during delivery! But then he said don't hold my breath. :) Baby's heartrate was 140 BPM! That shocked the heck out of me, especially because the nurse at the ER on Christmas Eve said it was 175 BPM! After the ultrasound, my doctor came in the room and said, "So, do you know what you're having?" I said, "Nope!" And he said "I do!" I'm like NO FAIR!! For some reason it didn't bother me not to find out, but knowing the HE knows kills me! haha. I think it's funny though, and you could tell he thought it was fun being the only one who knows. :)

The u/s tech said the baby has long, skinny feet:


The baby put it's hand up on it's head, and we got a cute front shot. I love that tubby belly! (it reminds me of Micah's!) Jeff said the baby was thinking.


Here's the best profile we could get, the baby was facing inwards, making it difficult to get a good profile.


And this picture kinda scares me!! My friend said it looks like a pirate baby!


It was so fun to see the little one in there! I have my 20 week pictures in my camera at home, I'll have to get them uploaded and posted soon. I'm 21 weeks tomorrow!

20 Weeks!

Woohoo! I'm halfway there! Crazy. I very well could be OVER halfway right now! I don't feel like I've been pregnant that long.

To mark the occasion, I had another "first" last night - I felt the baby from the OUTSIDE, with my hand! I was sitting in bed after putting on my belly butter, and I pressed down onto my stomach, held it firmly for about 10 seconds, and then released. While I was pressing down, I felt the baby squirm a little bit inside, but I didn't feel anything on my hand. Then, when I let up on the pressure, I kept my hand there, and the baby gave me a nice big kick in the hand!! :) It was so fun! I tired it again, but it didn't work. Jeff will probably have to wait another week or two until the baby is strong enough to give consistent, strong kicks to be able to feel it, but it's fun to play with my baby! Even if I am just serving as a nuisance.

I also had some VERY strange dreams last night. I hear it's par for the course though. One of them was that I was approaching my due date, but not overly close, it was a good 2-3 weeks early. I went to the hospital for a check-up, and they told me they were going to induce me. Next thing I know they're wheeling in the epidural cart, gave me one, hooked me up to pitocin, and left me to progress! In my dream 24 hours passed and I still wasn't having regular contractions. People kept coming to the hospital and giving me matching "mommy and baby" outfits for us to wear, and then someone brought me some nursing pajamas to wear after the baby is born, and they told me "I bought them in the biggest size they sold, I hope it works.." What is THAT supposed to mean??!! Thanks a lot! Then later in the dream, if you're a Gilmore Girls fan you'll know who I'm talking about, but the character Kirk from Gilmore Girls came and tried to kill me! Nice.

I like to spend time on Babycenter's message boards. They have "Birth Clubs" where you can hang out with other women due at the same time as you, in my case May. By this point, a good 70% of the ladies have had their "big" ultrasounds and now know whether they're having a little boy or girl, so there is an official post about what they are naming their child. So far, out of 60 responses from people who are having girls, there are 9 Sophias! Crazy! That name came out of no where. I do think it's cute, but I can't believe how quickly it skyrocketed into popularity.

19 Week Picture

Without further delay, here's my 19 week picture!



More and more strangers are starting to notice, and I love it. I love getting questions, people asking when I'm due, and saying stuff like "Oh! My birthday is May 10!" Stuff like that. It's just so much fun. I'm very thankful to be having an easy pregnancy thus far. I know people who have had miserable pregnancies, and it makes me sad that they didn't get to enjoy it. I love watching all the changes, feeling my little baby move, and just experiencing everything.

A few nights ago I got together with some friends, and we took a fun picture of everyone with their hands on my belly. :)



We're going to have to repeat once more when I'm huuuge, and then again after the baby is here. Fun!

The further along I get, the more and more I'm feeling the baby move and kick. At first I was lucky to feel it 2-3 times a day, and now I'm getting more like 4-5 active periods a day, lasting about 20-30 minutes each time! The baby definitely gets fired up just when I'm going to bed. It'll kick around for a while when I'm trying to fall asleep! :) And sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, it'll give me a few kicks... "I was sleeping, mom!!" And it still loves food, every time I eat it wakes up and moves around a bit. :)

I found out this morning that our friends (and my former roommate) Adam & Amanda Coleman are expecting their first baby! Yay! That is so fun. They live in Ft Worth so hopefully next summer we can get our two little ones together! Maybe we can meet in the middle for a late summer Rangers Baseball game or something.

My Sick Weekend in Tucson

Just after I posted Thursday that I was sick, I realized I needed to go home and take a nap before our flight. So I did. When I woke up from my nap, I took my temperature because during my whole nap I had the chills, but was sweating when I woke up. My temperature was 101!!! The literature my OB gave me said to call if my temp ever goes over 100, so I called them and talked a bit, they said if it gets any higher, or I take a turn for the worse, I'd have to come in right away. I didn't have the guts to tell them I was flying off to Arizona, with my luck they'd tell me I have to stay home! They told me to take Tylenol to keep the fever down. (And good luck with the rest of your symptoms!)

The flight went surprisingly well considering how sick I was, I think I was sort of out of it all day. We arrived in Arizona safe and sound.

Friday (my birthday) was even worse than Thursday. The fever was still there, but I was able to keep it under control with Tylenol. But I still had congestion, sore throat, headache, dizziness, all that fun stuff. We got up early and went to my brother's graduation, had a quick lunch, then came back to the condo. I went back to bed, fell in and out of various states of sleep, until dinnertime. My dad planned a big celebration dinner at the Melting Pot, one of our favorite restaurants, to celebrate my brother and my birthday. I was so miserable the whole time. I had chills for the first half of the meal, and was dying of heatstroke the second half... And I couldn't taste any of it because I was so plugged up. Boo. Here's a picture of the happy event.



I'll spare you the rest of the details, but Saturday and Sunday were about the same, except the fever was finally gone. My sore throat got worse and worse through the weekend though. I was glad to get home on Sunday night.

I did get to spend some time with little Micah though. Steve (Andrea's husband) had a cold, and Micah was congested himself, so she let me hold him! I made sure I washed my hands carefully before holding or touching him. Saturday and Sunday morning she after she changed and fed him, she'd hand him off to me so we could have some time together while she showered and got ready. :) It was alot of fun. I was careful not to breathe on him too. :) He is so sweet. I can't believe the next time I'll see the little guy he'll be almost 6 months old! Here's a couple pictures!





To keep this post pregnancy-related, I did have my first bout of REAL round ligament pain on Saturday! The resort we were at had a heated pool, so we went swimming on Saturday afternoon and evening. After we were done swimming, about an hour later, I was sitting in a chair at my parents' condo, and was struck with this lightning sharp pain in my lower-right hip/belly area. Everyone in the room looked at me like I was dying as I cried out in pain! haha. I got up to try to walk it off and the pain almost took me to my knees! I was talking to my friend Rachel on the phone at the time, trying to figure out where we were going to meet to eat out that night! haha She had no clue. The pain continued for about 4 hours or so. We got to meet up with Lee and Rachel, it was so great to see them. It hurt really bad as I got out of my chair to leave the restaurant. Then, when we got back to the condo, as suddenly as it came, it was gone. Weird stuff.

When I woke up yesterday morning to go to work, my throat was on FIRE. I knew there was no way I was going to work. It hurt so bad I was crying! I called my OB and told them I needed to come in, I can't take it anymore. They got me an appointment for 3:10 in the afternoon, so I chilled at home, and took a 3 hour nap. THAT was nice! The doctor said that my throat looked pretty red, and they were going to go ahead and treat me with antibiotics. Ahh what a difference. When I woke up this morning, I'm still tired, congested, and have a headache, but the sore throat is gone, which was the worst. While I was at the doctor, I also asked to make sure what I experienced on Saturday was round ligament pain, since the same spot was sore again. Sure enough, that's what it was! That's fun stuff, I tell you. Andrea said she'd had some soreness, but never the "bring you to your knees" type of pain like I had that night!

So I think I'm on the road to recovery! That was one long, awful weekend though! Hopefully I can heal up in time for Christmas, but I really wish I could have been feeling well this weekend.

I'm also overdue for my 19 week picture. I'll try to get that taken tonight.