33 weeks

For the past few days I have been feeling lots of pressure in my lower back and have been very uncomfortable. When I look at my weekly bumpdate pictures I can tell a huge difference in last weeks picture and this weeks. She has dropped into my pelvis for sure. I look different and feel different. I can feel her little noggin pushin down there. 

I had my routine check up today. I was surprised to see that I have lost 4 pounds since my last visit 2 weeks ago. I may be because I physically can't eat as much as I used to. Simply because I have no room for it to fit. Emma has taken up all real estate in there. My belly is measuring 35 weeks though so that's good.  I told the dr about my pressure and she decided to do a pelvic exam (very uncomfortable by the way). No dilation but she wasn't sure about the length of my cervix so she decided to do an ultrasound to measure it.  After that the tech said ok the dr will be in touch with you. Ummm...... Be in touch? Is something wrong? She wouldn't tell me anything. She said that my dr will call me later. Wonderful, now I wait I guess. I'm sure everything is fine but your mind always thinks of every little thing. Anyway, that's all I know. 

The countdown is on. We are super excited to meet this little girl. 

Mini maternity shoot

Mark and I went to the botanical gardens yesterday. We took advantage of all the beauty there and took some maternity photos. Who would have thought my husband would be such a great photographer! I have an app on my phone that allows me to edit them and give them different effects. So here was the end result........

I'll post my 33 week update tomorrow.

32 weeks

32 weeks!!!!! 8 months!!!!! It's still hard to believe sometimes that I'm going to be a mommy soon. But it's true, only 8 weeks left till my due date. Hopefully she doesn't decide to stay in there longer than that. 

Last night Mark and I went to a parenting class. It was fun and informative. There was a lot of little things I wasn't aware of. There were also things that I thought I knew just from hearing from other moms that were wrong. I think some things are based on personal opinions. I also think that you should take some of the advice given with a grain of salt and rely mainly on your instincts. I could be wrong but again it's just my opinion. They gave out a great booklet of the basics and how to's. I have read through half so far and it has answered a lot of those little questions you don't think of until you are probably in that situation. All in all it was a great class. 

I also got my hospital bag all packed except a few little things you can't pack until you are going out the door. Here is a list of the things I have in there. If you have any suggestions I would love to hear from you moms that have already done this! While packing Dakota thought that he should be packed for that special day. I came out of the closet and found him in my suitcase! I of course got a picture!

Hospital bag:

Nursing tanks 

Underwear 

Nursing bra and nursing sports bras

T-shirts to sleep in

Sweat pants 

Going home outfit

Comfy socks

Heating pad

Money for vending machines

Video camera ( we won't be videoing the birth just before and after)

Nursing pads and nipple cream

Last minute list:

Toothbrush and toiletries 

Pillow

Purse with wallet/insurance

iPad

Phone charger

That's it I think :)

Over the weekend I got a maternity support belt. I waited to long for this I think. It helps a lot when going out for walks and trips to the store. I am still having bh contractions every now and then. No real ones yet though I don't think. I can only wear it for short periods of time. It kinda gets itchy after a while. But it's worth the money I tell ya! I highly recommend it. 

Izzy is doing great. She gets weekly cast changes and every time we go I get to stop at smoothie king for a strawberry banana smoothie! I have come to look forward to Fridays now :) 

My next OB appointment is next week. I don't think anything exciting. Just a regular check up. 

See you all next week

New York

Not sure if its the pregnancy hormones or what but I sure am missing San Diego and St. Louis. New York has a lot of great sights to see and things to do but it's just not for me I don't think. People are just different here. No one ever seems to just be in a good mood. They are always complaining about something. If there is one thing I've learned in life it's to just be thankful for what you have. Life is to shot to spend your time mad and upset. Maybe it's the lack of sun shine and beautiful beaches that makes them so mad and rude. I just know that in San Diego people are nice for the most part and always smile. That's missing here. All I know is that I hope I'm wrong about my assumptions and it turns out it is just my crazy hormones talking. 

With Father's Day being tomorrow I just want to send out a happy Father's Day to all the wonderful dads out there! My dad is an amazing one. I put him through hell and back my teen years for sure, I thank him for not kickin my butt out on the streets, lol. Now he is a grandpa to my amazing nieces and soon to my Emma! I'm not to sure if I should count this as Marks first Father's Day or not but happy Father's Day anyway honey!!! I know you are gunna be a great daddy! 

That's all for now. Hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Last post today

So after I had my ultrasound with the perinatologist I had another appointment with my regular OB. She said things looked great but that they wanted to do growth scans every 4 weeks from here on out just to make sure she stays on track. Her reasoning behind this is because I am on Prozac and metformin. She said she is sure everything will be fine but better safe than sorry. Fine with me :) The more I get to see her the better!

I am gaining in every two weeks for check-ups now. Measuring my belly, weight and blood pressure. So far so good. Emma is still measuring a week ahead of schedule. We may just have a little porker on our hands. She weighs 4 lbs and the average weight is 3.31lbs at 31 weeks and 3.75 lbs at 32 ( according to baby center). So she is definitely ahead on that chart! I just hope her outfits I have packed for her fit.

I'm getting more and more anxious each day. I can't wait to meet her. Of course I don't want her to come now but I just can't wait for the first glance of her little face. :)

Ultrasound

Had our ultrasound today and didn't get one picture. I'm a little upset about this. I know it's not that big of a deal but I have been looking forward to this for weeks now. She was facing my back so they said they couldn't get a good picture. They were able to get a face forward picture but said it wasn't good. I don't care if it looks good or not I just wanted a picture. Nothing though. You could tell they were ready to go to lunch and didn't want to spend a lot of time trying. Oh well, I guess the next time I see her little face will be in the delivery room. 

Oh and she weighed in at a whopping 4 pounds!!!!! Big girl!!!!!

31 weeks

Yesterday marked 31 weeks! I'm feeling very tired all the time. I just can't seem to keep up with day to day stuff. Walking and moving around has become kinda painful. My belly is getting heavy and hard to tote around. Once I'm up for longer than a few minutes I feel gravity starting to kick in and my belly muscles start to hurt. I do short trips around the house when I need to do housework. It literally takes all day to get a few simple tasks done. I'm so worried about the weeks to come and how much worse I will most likely feel.

My home baseball team is in town so we were able to go to the game last night! Go cardinals! We had fun. I got my favorite snack, pretzel with cheese and Mark enjoyed a few Stella's. By the 4th inning I was starting to get uncomfortable in those hard seats. By the end of the 7th I was ready to go home. I actually lasted longer than I thought I would! We had great seats and almost caught a few foul balls. Well mark did, I just ducked and covered my head, lol. We both had fun and the cardinals won! All in all a good night.

Tomorrow is my appointment with the high risk dr. I get to see little Emma again. I hope to get some good pics of her. I'll probably eat a snickers before hand so she is awake, hehehe! I'll post the pictures tomorrow. Hopefully everything looks good and all we have to do is wait for D-day!


Mood: Pretty good. Getting anxious though.

Cravings: Pretzels with cheese and smoothies

Wedding Ring: Still fits

Sickness: nope, not unless I don't eat for awhile.

Miss Anything: Being able to stand up and move around without getting out of breath.

Weight gain/loss: from my lowest weight 11 pounds, maybe 12. I lost weight in my first trimester. But if you look at my starting weight, only 6 pounds! :) Very proud of myself.

Object Comparison: Emma is the size of a...... Baby! Lol

Movement: I'm pretty sure she will be a hyper little girl. Moving ALL the time

Belly Button: In

Name: Emma

Medical concerns: Nothing really

Looking Forward To: My ultrasound tomorrow!


Izzy update- Izzy is doing very well. She is back to herself for sure. It breaks my heart that I can't let her play like she wants to but I'm scared to death she will hurt herself. She doesn't put weight on it as much as we would like her to so we are doing some at home physical therapy with her. I don't think it is hurting her, i think it has just become a habit to hold that leg up. Hopefully with some work she will start using it again.

That's all folks. See ya soon!

30 Weeks

The countdown is on now! Less than 10 weeks until we meet our little angel! This week has been uneventful for the most part, that's the way I like it to. Just going through the motions. Emma is doing well and is quite the athlete in there. Always moving around. She is getting closer to my ribs now. My breaths are shorter and its a little more difficult to catch my breath. I am definitely moving a lot slower these days as well. I have to add time to everything I do. Oh well, I have a good excuse if I'm ever late for something :)

Izzy is doing great. Almost back to her normal self. Actually she is back to herself, only difference is she only uses 3 legs. Let me just say she is FAST for having only 3 functional legs. She acts like it never happened! That's the hard part. Because she is supposed to be on a strict no play, no run, no fun routine. :-/ well that is VERY hard, especially because her brother wants to play just as bad as she does. I just have to do my best i guess. We go back on Saturday for a new cast and a check up.

On a side not I just wanted to send out a congrats to my blogger friend Amber. She got a BFP! There is still a long road ahead of worry but a big hurdle was crossed! You can visit her blog here.

I got the last of our must have items before she makes her big entrance! Now all I have to do is pack my hospital bag. I plan on doing that within the next week.

I leave you with some pics of her room and a bump pic!

29 weeks and my poor puppy

I'm a little late on posting this week. We have had a rough week here. I can't seem to arch a break. I'll start off with the main event. On Monday evening my little izzy jumped/fell off the couch and broke her front right leg. Poor pup. I will never forget those screams from her. It was awful to say the least. We rushed her to the emergency vet office where they did X-rays and fount that both bones snapped and she dislocated a bone in her wrist. They put her out and put the bones back in place. Then gave her a pretty bright pink cast and told us that she would need surgery. Surgery! Really? Uuhhg. This was not what we wanted to hear. They gave us the name of some orthopedic surgeons, we paid the bill and went home. She was so drugged up that she was dripping slobber all over the place, :( I felt awful for her. That night I got about an hour of sleep because she could not get comfortable. She cried and whimpered a lot to. Any move she made woke me up. By 1am I decided to just stay up with her on the couch. Much of Tuesday was spent on the couch just trying to get some zzzzzz's with her. Thankfully by the next day she was starting to feel better and able to move around better. Wednesday and Thursday we went for consultations with the surgeons and set up the surgery for today (Friday). I dropped her off this morning. They are putting a plate and screws in her leg to stabilize the bone. She will be in a cast for 4-6 more weeks after that. I pick her up tomorrow morning. Sooooo, that was how my week went. Please send puppy prayers for her today! Poor pup

Other than that, nothing really new in my life. I'm just growing a baby!

Emma is getting much bigger these days. She rolls all around in there. I love seeing it. Sometimes it's a little painful but worth it. I love seeing her move around. It just tells me she is doing good in there. My belly is getting kinda heavy now. Standing for over 15 min becomes difficult. I may have to go get one of those support belts. Going up the stairs is a challenge to. By the 5th step I'm out of breath and my belly starts to hurt a little. Kinda like a muscle pain. You know you are in the third trimester when you drop something and then think to yourself "do I really need that?" Lol most the time I do without. I also plan my trips between the upstairs and downstairs. I have to make sure I get everything I need in one trip. And if I don't make a list chances of me forgetting something are very high! My pregnancy brain is getting BAD!

Lets talk about hot flashes! OMG! I can't keep cool. I am hot 90% of the day. I have a portable fan with me most of the time. My skin isn't hot, the heat comes from within! It's crazy. Then after a few minutes I start breathing heavy and feeling sick. Last night was the first time I ended up puking from it. It was a violent vomit session to. I thought I was dying. The heat here in New York is much different than San Diego. San Diego has dry heat and it gets hot but nothing like here. You walk outside and can barely breathe because the air is so thick. I forgot how much I hated humidity. For the time being my air conditioner is running almost all day. Our bill will be outrageous but hey, I'm frickin hot! It's hot as hell and I'm not gunna suffer. This momma is gunna keep cool any way possible! Eating ice or ice cream helps! I usually choose the ice cream :) I often find myself stripping down to my birthday suit throughout the day. Lol whatever works right?! Don't worry I shut the blinds before I take off everything, haha.

Next week I go in for another check up. Just routine, no ultrasound this time. One thing you get spoiled on when you are an Ivf patient is having ultrasounds all the time. Then once you get further along all you get is the Doppler :( not that I don't enjoy that, but I would rather see her little face. We go in for a growth scan in two weeks though. I'm super excited for this! I hope to get some good pics of her. Maybe we will even get some 3d ones and be able to see some features.

I hope next week is a little less eventful to say the least. Maybe I can finish washing the remainder of Emma's clothes and blankets. Other than that and getting some curtains her room is finished!
See you all next week. I'll leave you with a bump pic and some pics of my little gimp, Izzy.

7 Months!

Today I went to my new Dr. Here in New York! I saw the nurse practitioner because that's just the way they do first visits. She was very nice and gave me lots of info about their practice and what's to come in the weeks to come. I am measuring a week ahead at 29 weeks! Heart rate was normal along with my blood pressure. All in all a good appointment. I got my whooping cough vaccinations. Ouch! My arm hurts so bad :( To all my current prego followers I suggest you get one while you are pregnant. Studies show that the antibodies from the vaccination reaches the baby. And since your baby won't get vaccinated right away for this it will help protect him/her. Also be sure your partner gets one to! Anyway, back to my appointment. The NP also wants me to see a perinatologist (high risk dr) in a few weeks for a growth scan and to meet with one of the specialists there. Everything is normal with both me and Emma but because I am on metformin and Prozac she wants them to make sure all is ok. So I will call them after I finish this entry. She gave me a to do list since my pregnancy brain is so bad. I have to make that appointment, pre register at the hospital and set up parenting/childbirth classes. Feeling lots of new symptoms this past week. My hands and feet are swelling often and tingling. This can be very painful. My wedding ring is tight sometimes and others it fits like a glove. Another symptom, I get extremely out of breath very easily. I feel like it takes me an hour to get up our steps. I can for sure tell I have hit the 3rd trimester. My energy has dropped off and I am moving at a snails pace most of the time. I wish I could just fall into my bed and sleep for a week! We all know that doesn't happen when you are this far in! I'll settle for a cat nap here and there. :)

Unpacking has gone great. My entire upstairs (living, dining and kitchen) is done! Put away and decorated! The bedrooms are downstairs and are mostly complete. I have a few pictures that I need the hubby to hang and a few bathroom items to unpack. The only thing left for unpacking is the garage. Lots of miscellaneous stuff in there that needs to go in the storage unit out back. Mostly tools and crap. We also have an old couch in there that I need to put on Craigslist. We just have no room for it.

I have spent most of the last few days working on Emma's room! Fun stuff I tell ya! I can't get enough of all that cute stuff. I have washed clothes, sheets, blankets and all the burp cloths. Everything is folded and put in its correct spot! The crib is up and decorated. I also put together lots of stuff, bouncer, swing, stroller, car seat, changing table and the bassinet. We have everything set up and ready just in case she decides to make an early arrival! Lets pray she doesn't though. I packed most of her stuff for the hospital. I need to figure out a few more outfits though for her hospital pictures. One of them is going to be this cardinals baseball dress my friend made (big Cardinals fan!). I ordered this adorable bow from etsy to go with it. Etsy can be very addicting! I have a few pictures of the nursery but ill post better ones when it's complete. :)

This weekend all we have planned is finishing the house and unpacking the garage. We may take a trip to the city for some sight seeing if we finish early. I hope you all have a great Holiday weekend.

Here are some pics! The pups think all of these new soft toys are for them! Lol

Moving and 27 Weeks

Yesterday marked 27 weeks! Our last week in the second trimester, yay!!! How am I feeling..........very pregnant! I'm tired all the time, no energy, my butt hurts (yes my butt, by my tailbone), my lower back hurts, my legs ache all night long, I can't sleep....... There is a little sample of how I feel. I think the second trimester "I'm feeling great" attitude has left the building. Oh and my emotions are all over the place! crying one minute laughing the next.
Emma is quite the athlete in there! She moves ALL the time. Looks like she is trying to escape from the outside. I do love that part, except at 3am! I have my first appointment with my new Dr. next Thursday. They are doing an ultrasound so I get to see this sweet girl again! I think I'm going to eat a huge candy bar before I go so she is awake, lol. Oh, and I did get my diabetes test back, NEGATIVE! That's a relief for sure. I did come back anemic though. So I have to start taking iron pills at night. But everything else came back normal.

Now I need to vent a little about our move out to New York! I just had a bad feeling something was gunna go wrong before we got on the plane. I had been having major anxiety for weeks about putting my sweet Dakota under the plane. So when I had to do my final handoff to the airport officials I had a little bit of a breakdown. I cried like a little baby! He was so scared and I hated leaving him like that. But I had no choice. So once I gathered myself mark and I made it over to our gate with our other dog Izzy. She is only 5lbs so she could ride in cabin with us. Once on the plane my anxiety came and went for most of the flight. 5 long hours I sat there wondering what he was doing under there. Oh and the flight was freezing the entire time! The stewardess said there was nothing she could do about it. Then I went to the bathroom and I think she noticed my very pregnant belly cause she came back with a blanket and said she stole it from first class for me! One of the perks of being pregnant, people always feel sorry for the pregnant girl, lol!! Works for me! Anyway, I tried to keep busy with playing games on my phone and eating all the peanuts I could find! Then we finally landed. We got off the plane as fast as we could and went to pick up Dakota. Once down to baggage claim our suitcases were already there, but no Dakota! We asked the workers and they said someone will bring him out shortly. Ok, wait wait wait, still no Dakota. By this point I'm pissed! I just want my dog and I want to go! Mark told me to wait where I was and went to the counter again. He came back and said they can't find him!!! WTF, what do you mean they can't find him, he is a live animal in a huge crate!!!! The lady (baggage handler) walked passed us and said there's no dog back there in a rude pissed off voice and walked away! I about lost it. If I hadn't been pregnant that woman would have been on the floor and I would have been in hand cuffs. (Yep, I'm crazy like that when it comes to family and my dogs) Anyway the manager came out and said I'm she was trying to figure it all out. We sat there for an hour and a half when finally they brought him out! I was sweating and crying hysterically. I was so happy to see him and he was so scared. He to was ready for the day to be over. At the end of the day we received $200 in travel vouchers for our trouble. Not enough if you ask me but whatever. I will never fly delta airlines with my pets again. I mean seriously, how do you lose a live animal on a direct flight?!? Craziness I tell you.

So we got to our new apartment late that evening and set up the air mattress and went to bed. And this is where my bad luck continues! The place is beautiful but it was dirty! The floors, bathtubs and counters were all dirty. They vacuumed and painted but that was it. Also the hot water heater is a tankless one and it gives you a few minutes of hot water then switches to ice cold! I have to keep turning it off and wait for it to turn hot again. So we called the office and they said they would send someone to clean and to fix the water. Someone came for the water twice now and it's still not fixed and no one came to clean. I finally just did it myself. I'm still trying to get them to fix the water though.

Then on top of all this we are still waiting for our stuff and car from San Diego. The driver told us on Thursday it would take 4-5 days tops. He called today and asked if I wanted him to deliver Saturday or Monday? What?!? Really 10 or 12 days? That's crazy especially since he said 4-5 in the beginning. I told him Saturday and asked why its taking so long. He said well I have a delivery in Virginia to and I don't want to have to back track. Grrrrr! He also said that in our contract it states 7-10 days for delivery, so really he is on schedule. Well he shouldn't have said 4-5 days if this was the case. Whatever, so now I sit here in an empty apartment for another 2 days with nothing to do.

Over the weekend I had mark take me to Carlos bakery in New Jersey! He is the guy on TLC with the show called cake boss! Ummmmm, I'll just say YUM! It was delicious. My favorite is the lobster tails pastry. So delicious! We also went to Central Park on Mother's Day and walked around. I got my first slice of New York pizza. It was great! We also got pedicures :)

That about sums up my past week! I know this post isn't as cheerful as my others usually are. I'm sorry for that but sometimes a girl just needs to vent. Hope you all have a great week! See you at 28 weeks

26 weeks, baby shower and moving!

Well this last week has been a little crazy! I'll start with my pregnancy..... 26 weeks! It's going by fast and slow, if that makes sense. Baby is moving like crazy all the time. She is laying from left to right most of the time now. I have been waiting for hiccups but haven't felt any. I hear it feels weird. I have been feeling pretty good for the most part. My lower back is often achy and I get occasional leg cramps to. I'm guessing that's all normal. I have gained 8 lbs from my scale. I went to the dr yesterday though and she said that overall I have only gained 3 because I lost weight in the first trimester. Doing good on that front though. I also had my glucose test yesterday. I should get the results back today sometime. Other than that, there is nothing new with the pregnancy.

I left on Thursday for St. Louis. My baby shower was amazing! We got a lot of great gifts including homemade blankets from a few folks, diaper genie, gift cards, couch diaper bag (thanks mom and dad), regular diaper bag, toys, excersaucer, bouncer, eating utensils, clothes (lots) and a ton of other stuff I'm forgetting about. The theme was of course mainly giraffe but included other safari animals. My cake was super cute and tasted amazing! There was also a great balloon lady that made a really cool palm tree. I have pics of it. Lots of friends and family showed up so we had a great time. My sister also brought the twins with her and it was the first time mark got to meet them! He got a little practice while in town :) He didn't change a diaper though, lol. Seemed like he always had something to do, crazy how that worked out like that. The trip was great though. We are extremely grateful for everything and everyone who helped make it possible. We came back home on Monday. The flight was a direct one so that was nice.

Once home I got a second wind after eating some pizza and decided that we should go to target and babies r us to stick up on everything else we needed. :) we had a lot of gift cards so we only ended up spending a little bit of our own money. Now I'm sure there is a ton of stuff we need that I am not aware of but we will cross that bridge when we get there. We got our stroller, swing, bedding, bath tub, pack n play, carseat, safety stuff, bath stuff, bottles, monitors, sheets and a lot more! I was so excited. We did have one little hiccup along the way :-/ I ended up losing my wallet at babies r us. It had over $500 in cash in there so I freaked out! Turns out I must have taken it out of my purse while in the bouncer section because that's were it was. After running around like crazy and having the manager look over security cameras I retraced my steps and found it sitting right next to a bouncer. Pregnancy brain I guess, lol. The husband was not thrilled with that excuse :) In the end though everything worked out. I learned my lesson though.

So today, actually as I write this, the moving company is here. They are packing everything for us, thankfully! I can't imagine how stressed I would be if I had to do it all. Yesterday I had to get everything packed that we will bring on the plane including dog stuff, bedding, clothes and shower stuff. I also had a dr appointment and a vet appointment. So the day was full! I was completely exhausted by 9pm. The movers come again tomorrow to actually load it all up and get on the road with it. It will take 7-10 days for it to get to New York. That's a long time to be sitting in an empty apartment. But I will have to make due. I guess I'll spend most of my time figuring out where everything will go and writing thank you cards for my shower. We fly out on Friday morning.

Well that's all I have for now. A lot going on. I'll update again next week. Here are some pictures