Life Lately, 2.25.15

We've been in Missouri for over a month now, and it's weird to think it's almost March.  At the start of February my friend Dee Dee and I took some coupons and got free doughnuts at Krispy Kreme.  It made me regret never going to the original location when we lived in NC.  Oh well.

Last year First Baptist had its first annual Father/Daughter Banquet.  I couldn't go for obvious reasons, so I was so happy to not only attend but to speak at it with my parents and Pepaw as well.  The food was good, the games were fun, and the speakers were great. ;)  

About two weeks after starting at South Gate, Robert and I were to host the Valentine's Banquet which is a fundraiser for youth camp.  Everything went so great, and we're very thankful for the people who helped prep food and decorations, the youth who worked as servers, the people who bought tickets and attended, and the talented youth performers.  Robert and I even got to sing two songs together: Wonderful World and Can You Feel the Love Tonight.  My parents and Robert's mom and grandparents were able to attend.  Serina, Gary, and June spent the night afterward and were our first overnight guests.  The next morning we hit up Springfield Family Restaurant for breakfast, gave them a tour of the church, walked around Bass Pro, and ate lunch at Hemingway's.

Both of my mom's sisters came to town over Valentine's weekend, and we were so happy to get to meet up with everyone for dinner while they were here.

We got our first real Missouri snow about a week and a half ago.  It started with some sleet and turned into snow.  School was cancelled for two days, but the kids had already had a four day weekend, so they ended up getting six days off in a row.  Robert got to go sledding with the students on Monday.  I was so jealous, but I figured sledding wasn't the best idea for pregnant people, and I was working from home so I was busy.  Six days after the snow we got some freezing rain.  The snow has melted away quite a bit, but we definitely still have some on the ground.  The melting has helped to produced some epic icicles.  

Weeks 14-17

14 Weeks (Sunday, February 1)
Size of baby: A lemon, 3.4 inches

15 Weeks (Sunday, February 8)
Size of baby: An orange, 4.0 inches

16 Weeks (Sunday, February 15)
Size of baby: An avocado, 4.6 inches

17 Weeks (Sunday, February 22)
Size of baby: An onion, 5.1 inches

Milestones: Baby has lanugo (peach fuzz) all over the body.  Baby can hiccup.  Joints and limbs move freely.  Baby has eyelashes and is developing small bones inside the ears.  Baby is putting on fat and getting thicker.

I'm feeling significantly better.  I think I've only gotten sick about three times this month.  I still have moments of nausea, but if I just eat a snack or take a break from eating my dinner I feel better after just a bit.  I've also been having some heartburn after eating Mexican or other spicy foods, so I've been keeping Tums at hand.

My lower abdomen has been pretty sensitive as things inside are growing and stretching.  Occasionally, when I stand up quickly I'll get a stitch in my side.  Other than that, pregnancy isn't all that uncomfortable right now.

We still haven't personally purchased anything for baby, but we've received a few gifts and have the very beginnings of a nursery.  Memaw and Pepaw have been storing Jim's and my old crib for approximately 24 years, and Pepaw came to help Robert set it up the other day.  We'll have to do a slight modification so it no longer has drop sides, but I'm so excited to reuse it.  Serina brought us a beautiful rocking chair as well.  According to our calculations, it belonged to Baby V's great great great grandmother.  Serina had it beautifully recovered.  How cool to think of all the adorable little babies who have been rocked in it.  Dad got us a cute Penn State onesie and Nittany Lion hat, and Serina got us a "My Grandma Loves Me" onesie.  Finally, our awesome Sunday School class from North Carolina sent us a children's Bible, and they all signed it.

Just 12 days until we find out baby's gender!  I'm still guessing girl, and R is guessing boy but starting to lean closer to girl.  What's your guess?

The Third Appointment

We had our third appointment yesterday, and it was our first appointment with our new obgyn in MO.  We really liked her!  She was a lot more pleasant than the doctor in NC.  Oddly enough, we discovered that we live approximately 30 seconds from her house.  This was our first appointment without an ultrasound.  She just used a doppler to listen to the heartbeat which was 163bpm this time, a bit slower than last time.  She did a standard exam and confirmed that everything seems to be on track.  She pushed on my stomach a ton, and it's pretty sore today.  It feels like I did a bunch of sit-ups.  She agreed with my previous doctor on the due date: August 2.

We'll have our next appointment on March 6, and we'll find out the gender then!

I've felt fairly good the last few weeks.  Not nearly as much sickness.  It's more just nausea without actually getting sick.  My stomach feels quite tender, but I'm still not particularly "showing."  If I wear something tight and pooch out my stomach, I can notice it.  But on a normal day when I'm in a loose-fitting t-shirt you can't see much of anything still.  Apparently, that's one of the advantages of being tall.  One of my good friends, Tarah, had a baby about a month ago.  She said when she was around 15 weeks her school's secretary said, "Oh, I see you're in the fat stage of pregnancy."  Good grief!  Nobody has said that to me yet, thankfully.  She's also 5'10", like me.  I have another friend who's 2 weeks behind me and has been showing for weeks, but she's about 5'4".  I guess everybody is indeed different.

Mittens goes to the vet

Mittens does not enjoy going to the vet.  Is that a surprise to any of you?  I'm sure you imagined a shy, feral cat just dying to get in a car carrier, go for a ride, and get manhandled by a stranger.  Mittens had three experiences at the vet in NC.  

1. A checkup to make sure she was healthy enough for us to keep her indoors with us when we first got her.  Getting her in the car carrier was a joke, but Robert did it.  The vet was nice, but she was scared to death since she had just gotten a new home living with Robert and me the day before.  He checked her out: eyes, teeth, ears, paws, booty, and fur.  Everything was good.  Then it was time for her shots.  Poor thing was so scared that she peed on the table.  The vet said that was normal, and I guess it was a reassurance that her urinary tract was working well.
2. She went back about a month later to get spayed.  She was scared again.  You could tell she was so embarrassed to come back out with her tummy shaved.  We pampered her and made sure she took it easy.  Mittens has no problem taking it easy. :)  However, our little stinker licked her wound too much and it got infected.
3. A trip to get an antibiotic shot and the cone of shame.  Our vet informed us that if we ever wanted to bring Mittens back we would have to tranquilize her.  Holy cow!  I had no idea we had such a terror kitty on our hands, but apparently knows what she likes and doesn't like and isn't afraid to tell people.

So when it came time to take her to her annual checkup I was dreading it for weeks.  This is my first house cat, so I don't totally have a tried and true view on taking a cat to the vet for yearly exams.  I would tend to think, "Mittens is never around anyone but the two of us.  She's never around other animals so it would be tough to pick up a weird disease from one of them, and she's never even come close to biting anyone.  Why bother with the pain and trauma that going to the vet entails?"  But we're renting a house and need to provide paperwork that she's on the up and up.  Also, I would hate it if for some bizarre reason she did bite someone and something happened.  Finally, it's good to get confirmation that she's healthy and we're doing our best to give her a happy life.

I just so happened to be busy at the time of Mittsy Coco's appointment.  Darn the luck!  R had the pleasure all to himself.  I don't want to let myself visualize the horror of getting her into the carrier, but R said it was bad and involved her trying to climb up a curtain.  He got her to All Creatures Animal Clinic, and Robert said it was a much better experience than we had anticipated.  They had him take Mitts back to an exam room and told him to go ahead and let her out to explore while he waited for the vet to come back.  I thought this was a great idea.  It allowed her to get acclimated to this new environment without any strangers there.  Of course she went right to the window.  She's so predictable!

Then she hopped up in the sink which is very uncharacteristic of her.  She was just feeling so adventurous!

Robert said everyone kept doting on her beautiful fur, how soft it is, and how unique her coloring and markings are.  I know I'm a weirdo, but I always like it when people brag on M.  The vet said her coat is healthy, her ears/teeth/nose/eyes are great, and he trimmed her nails (the worst part of having her).  It was worth paying him $4 to do that.  Whew!  Mitts got two shots.  She came home very sleepy.  We expected this.  The other time she got shots she was extra lazy and reclusive for about two days.  It seems to be her normal.  She sleeps more and keeps to herself so she can get back to her normal self.  Don't we all need to do that every now and then?  We are so thankful that my parents have fostered her for 8 months, but we are also super pumped to bring her back home with us.  My parents have fallen in love with her which has been fun to watch.  Maybe she'll be an incentive for frequent visits from my parents. :)

And now, to solidify our status as a crazy cat family, I bring you some abstract kitty cat art.

The Second Appointment

Our second appointment was on Wednesday, January 14 at 2:45.  This time I had a male doctor, and he just didn't have very great bedside manner.  I didn't care too much since I knew this was my final appointment at this clinic, but if I were to stay I would probably ask to never have him again.  He seemed very distracted and uninterested in asking our questions.  He also only gave us one sub-par ultrasound pic.  He went over my blood work from last time, and everything was good.  My blood pressure is still very healthy.  My heart rate was a bit higher, but I think it was just nerves and feeling uncomfortable because, duh, you're at the doctor.  He did another ultrasound, and baby still looks great.

Heart rate was at 168 bpm.  You can see a head, tummy, and feet now.  I was 11w3d for this appointment.  After the appointment I had the secretary forward my medical records to my new doctor in MO, and I went ahead and set up an appointment with the new doctor.  I'll go in this Thursday to fill out paperwork and do the pre-screening, and then on Tuesday, February 10 I'll go in for my first appointment which will include my first doppler experience but no ultrasound.

The First Appointment

I took an at home pregnancy test on Friday, November 21.  I talked about that on my Announcement post.  On Monday, November 24 I decided to call the OBGYN to set up appointment.  I didn't have a particular doctor I had seen before, and I knew that no matter where we ended up moving after Robert graduated I most likely would only see a doctor in NC one or two times, so I primarily based my decision for a doctor on two factors: insurance and location.  I found a clinic through Wake Med that's only about 15 minutes away from us, so that was good.  I called and probably sounded so uninformed.  Since this is my first pregnancy, obviously I'm no expert.  I thought I needed to go in to have a blood test or something to confirm pregnancy, but the secretary said that since I'd had three positives at home that it was safe to say I'm pregnant, so she scheduled an appointment for approximately eight weeks which would be December 10.

On December 3 I had a phone appointment with one of the nurses to go ahead and get family medical history so that my initial appointment wouldn't last forever.  I thought that was nice.  Then my actual first appointment was on Wednesday, December 10, at 1:30.  I took a half day from work, and Robert was able to go with me.  I met with a female midwife, and she was very nice and reassuring.  She was able to do an ultrasound and determine baby's "age" to the day based on size.  It was pretty incredible.  She dropped pin points on the screen at baby's head and rump, and the computer calculate exact age to be 6w3d which was "younger" than we had thought, but she said this method is accurate within a day, plus or minus which would mean 6w2d - 6w4d, so it seems quite accurate with less than a 3% deviation rate.

The little cocoon is baby

It was incredible to hear the heart beat for the first time.  It was 141 bpm.  I may have gotten a little lump in my throat.  It was awesome!  We went home with four adorable pictures of our little blobby, perfect babe.  After the ultrasound we went into another room to ask questions and get information packets.  I also received a flu shot since I hadn't had one yet and am more at risk now.  Lastly, we went downstairs to get my blood work done.  Per usual, it was a traumatic experience, and I'm praying that when it's time for labor and delivery the IV goes okay.

Baby's due date is August 2, 2015.  That's a special date because that was my great grandmother Sweetie's birthday.  I know the odds of baby arriving on that day are slim, but it sure would be cool!