14 Weeks

It seems obnoxious to me when others constantly countdown their pregnancies, but it's just sort of how I measure my life at this point, so I've become the obnoxious one!  I am barely 1/3 of the way through, and still I want it all to be over.  I've never been so sick before.  I even took Zofran (morning sickness 'miracle' drug.  Read=expensive) for a few weeks hoping it would help, but it never did.  Combine that with the awful (snowy+freezing=my personal hell) weather we've been having, and you have a pretty miserable momma who is just hoping to forget the last 8 weeks.  The sun has come out a bit this last week, so I've gone outside (!) with the kids a few times just to breathe in the (semi) fresh air for a few minutes and minimize the cabin fever.  I am looking forward to our doctor visit next week, since we will be able to schedule our big ultrasound at that appointment!  Finding out the gender is always so fun, and should happen around the end of March.  If everything with the insurance works out, I should be able to stay with the same doctor (love her.) and same hospital for this delivery as I had for Gabe.  

Olivia is still the same girl as she always has been, just taller and with more hair.  She's still waking up a few times a night and always wants to climb into bed with Mom and Dad.  We love her snuggles, but no one really gets any rest when she does this, so we're trying to make her own bed seem just as comfy, cozy and appealing as ours!  It's not working.  She's a wonderful big sister and is enjoying going to Sunbeams.  She just turned 3 before the New Year, so she is young for primary, but is doing pretty well.

Gabe is running everywhere and has started talking a little bit.  He says, "Mama, Dadda, bubbles, ball, Nana, Grandpa, no, dog, up, more".  I'm sure there are more.  He's just learning new things every day.  His favorite thing to do when he is getting his diaper changed is to have lotion on his hand and rub it everywhere.  He is a great little teddy bear who loves to cuddle and hibernates for 13-14 hours a night.  A well-deserved treat after so many sleepless nights with his adorable sister :) He started nursery last week and is doing pretty well, considering he's never been away from me for any measurable amount of time, except when he's with his grandmas.  

Ryan and I are doing (enduring) another semester of school.  I plan to take the fall semester off after the baby comes in mid-august and I will continue next spring.  Going two semesters in a row with no break has completely killed my motivation.  The morning sickness/weather/moodiness isn't helping me feel super enthusiastic about my homework, but I'm trying to stick with it and get decent grades, even if they're not perfect.

I just got called as an advisor in the Young Women's, and I'm so excited about that.  I spent so long in YWs before Olivia was born and going back to that calling just feels like home to me.  It is more work (although, I get out of Girl's Camp this year, since it's in early August) than cub scouts has been, but it is so fun to get to know the girls.  I have awesome co-leaders and there is just this unity within our group that I hope I'm not just imagining because I love Young Women's and I think it is the perfect calling :)

Olivia-isms

-"I'm the lost princess."


-Me: Olivia, please focus.
-Olivia: No, Mommy.  I can't be focus.


-Me: Olivia, what are you doing?
-Olivia: It's time for Halloween again.


-"Kelly (cat), do you want to come to my dinosaur party?  Ok, let me go ask Mommy. Mommy, can Kelly come to my dinosaur party?" (Birthday was three weeks ago.  Wasn't a dinosaur party...)


- (Comes down the stairs naked) "Mommy, I need my costume!"

She's hilarious.  Every day is a new adventure.  Tests my patience like you wouldn't believe, but I love her.

This is for you, Makayla :)  So... I had a spare minute tonight (!) and logged into this blog for the first time in over a year.  It was SO fun to read my old posts about my last pregnancy and Olivia's milestones.  It is a great journaling tool, and I want those memories for myself and for my children.  So here's to my one and only New Year's resolution: Blog at least once a month, possibly two or three times.  Once I figure out blogger's new design tools, I'll change my background and stuff (what was I thinking with the pastel? I hate pastel! LOL), but until then, I'll just focus on updating.

Oh, and just a little bonus for those of you who are actually still following/reading: 

Baby #3 will be here in August :) Shhhh...it's a secret :)

Family Photos

I'm so pleased with how these turned out. Ryan's amazing friend, Debbie, took these for us last Sunday. We've never had pictures taken with the kids, so it was a little stressful trying to get everyone ready. I was so nervous that someone was going to puke all over themselves or me that I didn't get the kids in their clothes until we were in the parking lot of the park. But it was totally worth it when I saw these yesterday. Now we're set on pictures for another year!

Gabriel's Welcome

The last part of pregnancy was crappy. It always is. I had a lot of contractions from about 33 weeks on, none painful, but I stopped working mid-July. That helped a lot with the contractions, but not so much with the weight gain :) I slept all day, rarely got out of my PJs, and made Ryan bring me Wendy's about 3 times a week after he got off work at 10pm. Yeah, the combination was not lovely to my waistline. I'm still working on about 15 more pounds until I'll feel really good about my weight again, but I have clothes that fit and that's what matters!

Gabriel was born on a Tuesday morning. The Sunday before, I was supposed to play the organ. We showed up to church, I practiced for a bit, then I got really sick. I was so hot, felt really faint and nauseous and couldn't even read my music! We told the bishop to find another plan (five minutes before sacrament started...poor guy.) and went home so I could rest. I drank a bunch of water and laid down the rest of the afternoon. My wonderful parents came and picked up Olivia to give me a break. Ryan went to work and I decided I felt good enough to get some tidying of the house done. I started having regular contractions, and these felt a little different than what I'd experienced before. They were getting closer together, about 5 minutes apart and lasting about 1 minute each. I even started keeping track on my trusty little contraction timer app. LOL. And then I went to bed. And they stopped. Ok, so if you've ever been to that point and had everything just quiet down, you get mad! I was so angry. I wanted this baby out so bad! I couldn't understand why I was almost 39 weeks and still pregnant. Everything hurt; I was out of breath all the time and I couldn't play with Olivia. I was just done!

I was still a little grumpy when I woke up Monday morning, but I took Ryan to work and took the car out to my mom's to do her hair instead of staying home and wallowing in self pity. I did her hair, it turned out great, I packed up Olivia and we headed back into Salt Lake to pick Ryan up from work. We went home, Ryan went to work at his second job and I got Olivia ready for bed. There were no more contractions. I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I would just have to wait until Friday morning to have this child (my c-section was scheduled for Friday, Aug. 19th). Ryan got home about 11pm and we got ready for bed. My back was killing me, so I took a shower. When I climbed into bed, I relaxed and then...for lack of a better term...felt like I wet my pants! I just love that feeling. LOL. I thought I knew what was happening. It happened with Olivia, but I couldn't quite remember exactly what it was like, and I kept second guessing myself. I waited about 1/2 hour, running to and from the bathroom, wondering if I should go in. I finally decided that it was probably a good idea to get checked out just in case, so I told Ryan to get ready. I dried my hair, but I didn't want to waste any time with the flat iron...which made for a lovely case of frizz-head that I had to live with for 2 and a half days. Pretty.
We got to the hospital, checked in, spent a little while in labor and delivery waiting for my doctor to show up, the usual. I was not progressing at all. Not even a little dilation 4 hours after my water broke. I was so antsy. And tired. I decided to have a c-section instead of trying VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and was so relieved when the decision was actually made. The nurse took some blood when she put in my IV and sent it to the lab. And then the lab called to say she had put stickers with the baby's name on the tubes instead of mine. Apparently they are very picky about these sort of things and wouldn't use the blood for testing, even if they changed the stickers. So I got poked. Again. And away went four more little vials of my blood. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to have any left!

The whole crew arrived shortly after that. We got all set up in the OR. I remember there were mirrors in the OR and I caught a glimpse of myself...not pretty. Hosptial gown+no hair+little makeup...I know I am vain, but I HATE how swollen I get at the end of pregnancy. Ryan was allowed in the room with me the whole time and I was so grateful. I was getting so nervous and started shaking pretty badly from being so tense, and he helped me relax. After the spinal block was done, it took a few minutes for me to get numb enough to start the procedure. The doctor kept pinching to check for feeling and I kept telling her to wait because I could still feel it. I was so scared to feel ANTYHING. There was one point during the procedure when I just about jumped off the table because the pressure was so intense, but overall it was comfortable. I got a massive migraine (I felt it coming on before we got to the hospital) while we were in the operating room and the anesthesiologist put an oxygen mask on me. It was amazing the effect of the pure oxygen on my headache. Headache gone. So fast. I need that at home. Gabriel was born at 3:59 AM, 3 seconds before 4. He started screaming right away.

It sounded just like Olivia's screams and that was the best sound ever :)

Hibernation

I've been in hibernation mode for almost two months now. And my blog has been suffering longer than that! LOL. I don't have much time...I'd rather be sleeping...so here's what's been going on with us:

Gabriel is growing so fast. He's up to 8 1/2 pounds from 5 1/4 when we left the hospital. He eats much more than Olivia did at his age, but he also sleeps much better and is just more content overall. He is such an easy baby, which I am so grateful for.

Olivia is going non-stop. She talks so much now and some of her favorite things to say are:

"What happened?"
"Oh NO! A baby!" Every time Gabriel makes a peep.
"Hi Mommy! How are you?" Holding phone up to her ear.
And I can always tell when she's getting tired, because she will lay down where ever she happens to be (stairs, porch, playhouse, kitchen floor) and say, "Night Night!"
She is such a good big sister and only tries to hurt Gabe ocassionally, when I'm not paying enough attention to her.

Ryan is just plugging along. He works like crazy plus he's taking two classes this semester. He's doing great, grades are excellent and I'm just so proud of him.

I started back to work a couple of weeks ago, and am working overnights at my group home. It is pretty simple most nights, just cleaning and checking on the girls. I'm only doing Sunday nights and filling in when the other two graveyard shifters have nights off. I really am a night owl, so it's no big deal. I do play sleep catch up the day after, but good thing Olivia doesn't mind a couple of movies and Gabe sleeps a lot :)

Happenings

I can't believe I am 26 weeks pregnant. Its starting to sink in a little bit, slowly. I have been a busy busy bee the past few months. I made Olivia a scrapbook for her first year milestones, went through all of the baby stuff to determine what was usable for a boy, painted Olivia's room, made graduation announcements for my brother, Chris, made a missionary scrapbook for my brother Alex, and organized everything in sight. Whew! All that is DONE! Which is good, because I have no energy left. Nothing. I feel like I'm starting all over with those first trimester blahs. All that I have left to do is collect boy things as I find sales and cook this baby!

Olivia and I have been having fun with her new stroller. There have been a handful of decent weather days that we've gone for walks and we were able to hit the zoo with Ryan a few weekends ago.

Olivia is so fun and learning so much. She says things like "Dadda, Wh'are You?", "Teef", "Bye Bye", "Where is it?", "Elmo", "Drink", "Its OK", "Good Job!", and her personal favorite, "Bobba". She knows lots of body parts and has this fascination with taking things out of drawers, containers, bags, etc., and then putting them back. OCD? Probably. Must get it from her dad. On a daily basis, I find her clothes stuffed in the bathroom drawers and all of her washcloths in the bathtub. This makes keeping things neat pretty much impossible, but I'm learning to childproof just as fast as she learns how to open and close EVERYTHING. For example: I like to shower in the morning, but I also treasure every minute of sleep before Olivia wakes up. Solution: Take her in the bathroom while I shower. So she usually sits in her bumbo on the bathroom floor and eats a snack while I take a 3 minute power shower! The other day she decided to take the tray off her chair, open the bathroom door and head out into the hallway while I was totally soaped up! This would not normally be an issue, but I live in the basement of my in-laws house, and Olivia makes a beeline for upstairs every time she's set free! So I jumped out of the shower and threw on my robe in time to catch her halfway up the stairs and everyone having quite a nice laugh at my expense. Locking bathroom door from now on. I just can't believe she can open doors. Not even 18 months. I'm so in trouble.

Baby boy (still nameless. LOL) is doing so good. He is quite a mover and hardly ever stops when I am sitting still. Ryan teases me that I should be exercising at night time to teach him how to sleep at the right time. I don't feel huge yet, but breathing is definitely becoming a chore and I have this permanent charlie horse in my right back thigh. I can only assume that is sciatic nerve related and will hopefully go away after delivery. This pregnancy is very different from my last one, but with one definite similarity: My nose is congested ALL the time. It sounds like a small thing, but 6 months of not being able to breath through my nose while I'm sitting or laying down is no good. But, I've had such easy pregnancies that I can't even complain. Minor things. Can't wait to meet this baby!

Ryan and I are enjoying our new jobs. His new job is in addition to his day job. He's such a trooper. We are trying to get ahead in preparation for this fall when we'll have a new baby, and Ryan will be starting a full-time semester at the college. I will admit I may have pushed him a bit to get things going with school, but we definitely both agree that now is the time to take advantage of someone else being willing to pay his tuition!

A post of pictures to come soon! I need a new belly one anyway...I'll get on that!

Oh...PS JAMIE NICOLE JOHANSEN: if you are reading this...You have a post on your blog entitled "WHOA BABY" but I can't open it, and I want to know if this little bundle of joy has made his/her appearance! Let me know! Hope you are well! Love ya girl!