Movement

Oh and I have to share this... last night / early this morning as I was going to bed (I think it was after midnight) I felt the baby's first real kicks. Not just flutters and bubbly movements as I've been feeling for the past week or so but two good solid kicks. Very neat to say the least. I'm a bit sad that it's taken this long to start feeling real movement but I'm so happy now that it's here. I found out at my last MW appointment that I have an anterior placenta. So it's been padding me from the baby's movements and making them less discernible. I'm also wondering if this is why I started showing and growing out of my regular clothes sooner than other people? The only thing I'm mildly concerned about right now is that my placenta is almost "low lying." Basically it's not touching my cervix but is only 12mm away from it. Appparently it needs to be 25mm away in order for the hospital staff and everyone else to be comfortable enough to proceed with a normal birth. So I've been scheduled for an u/s around 28 weeks to see if my placenta's moved. Apparently this is quite normal and the placenta will have moved (or should) as my uterus continues to grow. So here's my fingers crossed that it's moved by 28 weeks.

23 Weeks (aka I Suck at Updating this Thing)

And the title says it all.

So I'm going to try and do a Reader's Digest update on what's been going on lately.

I guess first things first... We had the ultrasound done at 19 weeks, 3 days and IT'S A GIRL!!! How exciting is that!!!?? So of course here are pictures:

OK, so they're not much to look at but seriously - the u/s was tres cool!! Unfortunately, I only got to see about 5 minutes of the show while John got to see the whole thing - a good 20 minutes or so. The tech was really nice and she showed us all the major organs and body parts afterwards. And our daughter (how cool is that!!) was really kicking up a storm in there that day. The tech actually hard a hard time "pinning" her down to get the last few measurements of her heart.

So I went to the midwife the week after and the babe is measuring completely normal which is fantastic so I'm completely happy!

My biggest concern right now is how quickly I'm gaining weight. Everyone says I look fantastic and I don't think I look half bad most of the time but I did gain 9lb in one month. At my last MW's appointment I weighed in at 168lb... this week I'm already at 175 and I have 1.5 wk until my next appointment. I really really hope I don't gain another 9 lb in between appointments. I do know where all this weight is going though - my poor boobies. :( I swear they just keep on growing. Grrr. Which would be fine but they're already big enough and I really don't want them to get any bigger.

Other than that, the nursery is coming along nicely. John's painted the walls and now it's a matter of putting in the baseboard and trim. Here are some up to date shots - I don't think you can truly make out the contrast in colour yet though.

I can't wait till everything is done! Not much longer now I think!!

Last day before back to work... sadness

So today was my last day of freedom before going back to the grind. Thank goodness I only have a three-day work week this week. I really don't want to go back to work - I'm enjoying this lazy time off. Dangerously enough, I can check my work email from home, which I just did, and it doesn't seem too overwhelming so hopefully tomorrow will be a slow day. For some reason I doubt it though. :)

Sooo the most exciting news, kinda scary news, today was that John's medical release from the army has been approved! OMG. We've been waiting for an answer on this since summer 2007 so it's nice to finally have an answer. I don't know all the details as he was just contacted by phone today from work. He's going in tomorrow to look over the package. But from what I understand, and what he's been told so far, his retirement leave is to start no later than September 1st (just in time for the babe!) and to the best of my knowledge, part of the release package is two years of postsecondary education completely paid for by the wonderful CF (and he gets to collect 80% of a paycheque as well) as well as six months of "find yourself" paid leave. There's also the medical pension which he needs to talk to DVA about. So lots of work to do in the next few weeks to get everything sorted out. That and I don't think he knows for sure what he wants to take in college! :) So that will be something to explore too!!

I'm excited though because this means a whole new career as well as a chance for John to be home more regularly with the little one when s/he arrives. And if things work out, then maybe even have enough time at home during the babe's second year that we don't need daycare. I know, I'm getting ahead of myself. But who knows, right?

So as promised, here are some belly pics and some reno pics.... Enjoy!!

18 weeks, 2 days

18 weeks 1 day

It's the Easter long weekend and once again I have neglected my blog. I am so bad at this sometimes. Oh well... LOL

I've been off since Friday thanks to the long weekend and I have Tuesday off as well. I've accumulated some overtime so I figured it would be nice to burn some of it off and get a five-day weekend. Very exciting!

We finished laying the flooring in the nursery on Friday. I haven't taken any pictures yet but I will shortly and post them. The floor looks amazing, almost professional!! Now I can't wait to see what the room will look like once we pick a colour for the walls, paint and put the baseboard and door trim up.

We went to John's dad's for lunch today. More storybooks for the babe and some stuff for us. But the most exciting thing of all... he bought a cat clock for the nursery just like this one:

I love it!! I think it's the neatest thing and I've always wanted a cat clock!

So on the preggo front, oh my. My boobs have grown two sizes and I'm now in a 38D as opposed to a 36B. So is that two sizes or four??? Yikes. I'm definitely not comfortable, especially by the end of the day. I only bought three new bras in the fear that the "girls" will grow another size before I'm done so I really didn't want to spend all that money. I am hoping that they don't grow anymore though. Seriously.

I still haven't felt any "true" movement... like no kicking or anything. But I swear I'm feeling flutters and a little bit of what could be tapping. I have no idea. I really want the babe to start giving off some good kicks. I can't wait till they're strong enough so that John feels them too. I'm sure I won't be saying this once the babe is active and keeping me up constantly. LOL

Other than that, I'm feeling great. I'm really enjoying being pregnant now. Any kind of nausea is gone and there are days when I actually "forget" that I'm pregnant for a bit. Is that wrong? I don't think so. LOL... I just can't believe that I'm almost halfway done! We go for my 20 wk ultrasound on April 2, so as long as the baby cooperates we will know then if it's a boy or a girl... John's waiting till then to seriously consider paint colour for the room. Either way there will be no pink. I think we're just deciding on a light blue or another colour... a light green or yellow. Maybe a light purple - that's what I would like but John's deadset against it right now.

And on the exciting work front, the old biddy who's been driving me nuts with her incompetency has gone off for at least two months! I already feel less stressed even though this means dividing her caseload between two of us and increasing our work load temporarily. Oh well. It's all good.

Anyways, I'm going to take some more belly pictures and some more pictures of the nursery and post them later this weekend!

16 weeks 3 days....

But anyways...

I went to the MW today for an appointment. I'm at 16wk 3days right now. Everything seems to be in order - this was my shortest visit so far - only about 20 minutes. Nothing really to talk about as I didn't have any questions and my 20 wk ultrasound is already booked. On the up side, no problems with my sugars or proteins; my blood pressure is normal; and the baby's heartbeat was nice and strong at 160 again. I met my secondary MW today - she's really nice too. We chatted for a bit and that was about it. My next appointment is April 9th with my primary MW again...

I had a dentist appointment this AM too so I killed two birds with one stone. Yay! :)

Other than that, no movement yet but I swear I'm feeling something. The baby was kicking up a storm while the MW was listening to his HB on the doppler so I'm sure I'll feel something soon. I hope so!! Can't wait for that.

My older brother is visiting the parents with his family over the March Break... I've asked him to try and hunt down some of my old children's books and bring them back to me... hopefully he's successful and I'll add some more books to the baby's already growing library (thanks to DH's dad!!).

Nursery In Progress

Just some pictures of the nursery's progression...

15 Weeks!

Yikes! It's March 2nd already! Where does the time go??

It's been insanely busy at work for the past two weeks so I'm using my exhaustion after work as my excuse for not updating this blog since Feb 21st... One of my coworkers - the one I've been complaining about - has been off for the last two weeks with an alleged respiratory infection. Rumour has it that she may not come back to work... I guess we'll see tomorrow. One of the other girls and I did go through her caseload and cleaned up a whole whackload of problems... So thanks to us, she's coming back to some organization. However, there's a lot more going on here and I know our manager is peeved so I'm just going to sit back and see what happens this week.

Ok, 'nuff about that.

Today is officially Week 15 of my pregnancy!! Only 25 more weeks to go! Wow!! We worked on the nursery a bit today and about half the floor is done. Unfortunately, we ran out of flooring and we have to go back to Home Depot to get some more before we can do anything else. But it's starting to look good. Amazingly, just by laying down some of the cushioning thingy (I have no idea what the name of it is but it goes underneath the flooring over the subfloor) and the room is already oh so much warmer.

Belly Pics @ 15 Weeks