28 Weeks

28 weeks

taken 8/26/10

Ultrasound pics
from 8/24/10

We had our ultrasound on Tuesday morning. It went pretty well except for 2 things. 1) Nola had her face smooshed against the placenta so that means we didn't really get any good profile or 3D shots. 2) there are 2, I believe they said, cysts in my placenta. You can actually see 1 of them in the first pic in the second set. It's that black hole looking thing on the left of the U/S window. The us tech didn't seem concerned about them at all, but she said she'd talk to the high risk ob person once they came in and then send the results over to my OB. So update, my OB is out of town till Monday, but the nurse called me back and said that the high risk OB said it wasn't 'an emergency situation' ...whatever that means. I'm just going to go ahead and assume everything's fine. Also, turns out our insurance is only covering $42/ultrasound, so that means about $85/ultrasound is left to come out of pocket, yikes.

So, we refinanced the house. We got a better rate than we were expecting (4.5 instead of 4.75) and the Sept 1 payment was taken down from our normal 1700 to 334. That'll help us a lot since I went a little nutso with buying presents last month. I have a problem, when I see things on clearance, I tend to buy them. Not everything, but things that I think would make good gifts...for family, friends, friend's kids etc. Target happened to have a whole isle of toys on clearance last month and so, I stocked up. Back to the refi, we'll end up saving approx 300/month on our mortgage. Hopefully we can put that directly into savings so we can buy a van in March without having to finance anything.

I got the white car to pass emissions on Monday morning. It was truly a miracle. The check engine light hasn't even come back on yet. So I did a 2 year renewal and then poof, the brakes start making a very bad noise...kind of like metal on metal. We're going to see if Tony's dad could look at it and put some new brake pads on. Right before we left for camping, we got a new pvc valve put in for $100, then had to drive it through 2 drive cycles before taking it through emissions. So we took it camping. Everything was fine till we parked it in our camping spot, then the check engine light came on. Tony unhooked and rehooked the battery before we left to go home and it has stayed off since then. Basically end of story, both our cars need to be replaced. Tony can have a smaller car and I need a bigger one.

Our AC broke on Tues night. I've been getting calls from our home warrantly place (which has a warranty on our AC) for about a week and I just haven't called them back. They were saying that my home warranty was expiring and I needed to renew it. So after it broke, I went to look it up online ($60 service charge through the warranty is way better than whatever it costs to fix an AC unit) and miracle of all miracles, the warranty doesn't expire till next week! We got someone to come out on Wed at noon and fix it. Turns out it was a burnt wire in the ac unit and oddly, during the storm on tues night we had some VERY close lightning strikes and I'm wondering if maybe that has something to do with the wire. Anyhow, it's all fixed now and yahoo because pregnant people should not be left in AZ without a proper cooling system.

My friend Jamie came down from Phoenix yesterday and spent the night. We had lots of fun hanging out with her and she has a massage therapy license, so she brought down her massage table and gave me a wonderful prenatal massage today before she left. :) She took some pics of Embry and I at the park this morning and I didn't think I looked quite that pregnant. Woah.
Yes so about camping. It was great. Friday night was a little warm trying to get to sleep. I think we need an air conditioner for our tent. We had people directly next to us that night, but they were out fishing till late, so it didn't really matter. Then on Saturday, we had new neighbors move in and I believe I said to Tony, 'I didn't know people really talked like that.' They had some issues getting their tents up while it was raining. It appeared that it was a dad and his kids and his girlfriend with her kids. So we got to hear lots of swearing and yelling. It got more interesting the more they had to drink. I woke up around 1am to go to the bathroom and had a very hard time falling asleep once I got back. Let me just say that I heard a lovely rendition of 'Do your balls hang low?' I've never heard it sung quite like that before. I think I'm going to have to invest in ear plugs for our next camping trip. All in all, it was a good time. The weather was nice for the most part and Embry had lots of fun. Here's a photo after I got bit by a fire ant. I didn't realize that was so painful.

27 Weeks

27 Weeks
Taken 8/19/10

The pregnancy is still going good. I passed my 1 hour glucose test last week, so woohoo. Nola was kicking up a storm after I drank the juice so I thought maybe she was 'reacting' to it, but apparently that's normal. I got wooden letters to hang up in Nola's room that spell her name. I'm tearing light pink and dark pink tissue paper and putting it on them with glitter mod podge. I only have the 'a' left and so far, they look very cute! I love the glittery mod podge, it's all sparkly, I love sparkles. Ooh, I bought a used double stroller and carseat from a lady in the mom's group. It's the graco duoglider in a tan color with the infant carseat and base for $90. My mom and I washed it all up and it's looking pretty good, definitely used, but for the price it's a winner. It also fits in the trunk, so that's a big bonus. Now we just have to put it back together. It's a very hard process to get all the covers and shades off for washing, as in, you have to take the stroller apart.

Speaking of needing room, we've been looking at minivans. I don't like minivans. #1) since I'm blind in one eye, I don't have any depth perception, so the bigger the car the more afraid I am of accidentally hitting something. #2) they're ugly. #3) I like to think I'm more than 'just a mom' and by driving a minivan, that is automatically what I'm labeled. #4) did I mention, they're ugly? But when it all comes down to it, they're cheaper and more economical than an SUV and we need to get a bigger car. So the minivan wins over the SUV for practicality purposes. Now we have to figure out, should we wait until we have all the money saved to buy one used from a private seller? Or buy one after our house refinance goes through (end of Aug) and just finance a couple thousand until we get the money to pay it off (most likely March of 2011)? For now (and I say this hesitantly) we have both of our cars working. Will they break again before March? Probably. Will we then continue to throw good money after bad? Probably. For now though, they work and hopefully we can keep the 'check engine' light off on the white car until we run it through emissions on Monday. Kelly blue book has assigned the generous amount of approx $800 to each of our cars. How much money do you spend fixing an $800 car before you just throw in the towel and buy a new (new, meaning used) one? I don't know. Hopefully the worst is that I'll have about 4 months where I try to cram 2 kids, 1 adult, and 1 double stroller into a compact car. Don't plan on seeing me outside my house from the months of Nov-March, let's just say that. Then if I do manage to make it out, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Embry is adorable. She is saying so many things, she'll pretty much repeat whatever you say too. She now calls my dad (previously known as papa) 'Don' which is his name and obviously what my mom calls him. Now she'll willingly dunk her face in the water in the pool while holding her nose and closing her mouth and eyes. She saw my friend Anna's kid, Olivia (who she calls 'Dahlia') do it and now she thinks it's super fun. She will also lean her head way back to get her hair wet which she would never dream of doing before. She wanted her wings off the other day in the pool, so I took them off and she acted like she still had them on. It was slightly scary yet pretty funny too. She'd just go and jump off the steps and start sinking and with her head under the water look up at me like 'what the heck just happened?!' She just didn't understand that she was no longer quite as bouyant. She gets ver excited when I tell her we're going to see her friends or they're coming over to play...especially Noah. She gets equally as excited if I tell her Elmo is on or that she can have a popsicle. Suddenly she really loves to have 'hair ties' in her hair. She even asks for them when her bangs are in her face...which is great, because I love them and spent a lot of time making bows for her. She still doesn't really understand that she's getting a little sister. She'll point to my belly when I ask her where the baby is, but I don't think it's actually registering yet. Oh and everytime we say Nola, it inevitably sounds like Noah, so then she goes into hysterics about the idea of seeing Noah. Tony taught her how to say my name. I'm not very fond of it. He was downstairs with her saying 'Leatrice, come here!' and she repeated him saying 'tree-trice, umm, heore!' I have to say it was cute, but to her, I should be 'mama'.

I decided to try to make matching dresses for Nola and Embry. I was wanting to get Nola a cute 'coming home' outfit like Embry had, but then saw this pattern online and luckily someone else who made it also made an enlargement pattern for a toddler...so matching dresses it is! I'll be trying to make 2 of these but that one in particular looks like it's made out of jersey material. Mine will be cotton. Here are the fabrics, piping, and bias tape I picked out. I'll use the pattern for the main fabric on both dresse, then the light pink for Nola's accent color and the dark pink for Embry's. I'm excited!

26 Weeks

26 Weeks
Taken 8/12/10

I have to say that I really love being pregnant. Not that the whole thing is glamorous or anything. There are the backaches, sleeplessness, exhaustion, poo issues, hemmies (yep they're back again), heartburn, etc etc...but in the general scheme of things, I think it's pretty great. I get to feel like I'm making a contribution to the world, I'm helping to create a whole new person. Another of God's miraculous creations is dwelling inside of me and I just can't help but smile. Another bonus is that I can just let it all hang out. I've always had issues with belly fat, it's just where my body chooses to store it's extra weight. Now during pregnancy, no more problem, I'm no longer flabby...I'M PREGNANT!

Anyhow, not a whole lot new is happing on the pregnancy front in week 26. I got my next ultrasound scheduled for the morning of Aug 24. I'm thinking of bringing Embry along with us and seeing how she fares or if she'll finally realize that starting in Nov she will have to share her toys. If this girl is anything, she's strong willed (aka stubborn). She's in for a rude awakening.

25 weeks (1 day)

25 weeks
Taken 8/5/10

I'm 25 weeks pregnant, wahoo!

I had an appt with the OB today. It was uneventful. Heard the heartbeat, which was great and that's about it. I'll be having ultrasounds every 4 weeks from now on, so the next one is the end of August. I got the order form for the 1 hour glucose test and then at I believe 28 weeks, I'll be going in for 2 non-stress tests each week until the end of the pregnancy. Oh, I guess the most interesting part of the appointment was taking my weight. According to their scale (which I swear weighs you 5 lbs heavier than a normal scale) I'm now at ... ... ... 152 lbs. Eeek. I guess I'll be fine as long as I don't exceed what I weighed with Embry (which was 167 lbs). Although that doesn't give me much room for weight gain in the next 15 weeks.

I'm very tired and my sciatica says, 'ow'.