Finally off the couch!

So much has happened this week, it's a far cry from a month ago when I wondered if I was ever going to feel good enough to get off the couch again! I'll start with today and work my way back...
PREGNANCY STUFF
We are a little over 17 weeks pregnant now and have been upgraded from oral Porgesterone to a weekly SHOT of Progesterone! Man, do I feel like a pin cushion! A shot a day, an extra one a week, and got my blood drawn twice this week...goodness gracious! Thank goodness for sterile needles and alcohol rubs! So today I got my first Progesterone shot, and it's with a nice long needle since it has to go into the muscle - ah, feels so GREAT! Nich came to get trained, but neither of us are sure I want him doing it - I may just go in weekly and have a nurse with 30 years of practice do it :) She was so sweet, she let us listen to our baby's heartbeat with the doppler (150 beats per minute today) since I had to wait 15 minutes before getting up...I might go in every week just for that!! Ha!

I've also been feeling this little guy move for quite a while, and he's now strong enough to where I can feel him with my hands, but stops moving when Nich tries - Nich has this natural vibration to his hands that probably startles him. So COOL though!

We also got our first appointment with our OB set up, and he likes to do an ultrasound every time you come in...so, the nurses said they would coordinate with my high risk guy so that we get an ultrasound every 2 weeks instead of 4 :) How awesome is THAT!

About a week ago, Heather, a friend and photographer, took some great pictures of me and my belly :) She's really good and you can get to her site and see all her great pictures via the link toward the bottom, left hand side of this page - under "FRIENDS AND FAMILY" her's is "Heather." She's going to do more belly shots as it grows, and Nich will be making an appearance in them too. AND I can't wait for when this baby's born, she's going to be doing his baby pictures! Here's one of the many pictures and more are on my Facebook page (you need a Facebook account to view them) and on Heather's page :)

NON-PREGNANCY STUFF

We have flowers! No Snapdragons :( It turns out, after reading the label, they don't like as much sun as our front yard allows, so we've got Merrigolds and other bright flowers. One plant has flowers that look like pink shooting stars that the butterflies LOVE. The day I planted it, I had a butterfly the size of a hummingbird come about 1,000 times! He was a FAT butterfly with crazy fast black and pinkish wings, and not too smart...he checked the same flowers at least 15 times over about 30 minutes! I'd like more of THOSE flowers :) The little white butterflies like the purple flowers I got, whatever kind of flowers they are, who knows!

I also pulled a bunch of grass growing on my pathway and swept the stepping stones off, and that pretty much did me in that day!

I also hosted an Alliance get together this week - the Alliance is a club? support group? for spouses of medical students, and we made paper batiks! Very cool!! Several ladies showed up for "Dine and Design" where we ate desserts and played with oil pastels and paint :) I thought it would take a lot longer than it did and was very pleasantly suprised that everyone finished their designs! And it was so much fun with a nice CLEAN house and lots of chit chat in our usually quiet house :) Even the dogs were on their best behavior in their crates - absolutely silent :) I took pictures of the batiks (They can be seen on my Facebook page if you are so inclined) that stayed overnight to dry, but they hardly do the artwork justice...I think I am in need of a new camera! This one was a replacement for my nice one that broke a little over a year ago, but since we have very limited funds, we have a very limited camera :( It's not good at close-ups, makes things blurry, the shutter speed is too slow so you have to be absolutely frozen to take a picture - it doesn't help to put it in the "action mode" - I think they just made up all the modes, close-up, action, night, distant, none of them change anything!! I can't take pictures in dark places - I've tried to take pictures of Nich's band playing at clubs and you can't tell what's going on with the flash on, and with it off, you just see blurs of motion. Oh how I miss my old, trusty camera!

It's a BOY!

It has been confirmed :) We are having a little boy! BUT to my dismay, and Daddy Nich's and uncle Clinton's joy...this baby was already giving a "guns up" in the ultrasound. Ha ha ha!! I guess "Hook 'em" is a little tougher but that's just because we know Longhorns are better at doing more challenging things :) That'll be the next ultrasound :)

We are a little over 16 weeks, and this baby's a little more modest than Julian was, so it's hard to see the "boy parts," but if you look closely, they're there, kind of blended into the thigh! AND, he's definitely a Beer since he kept his hand over his face while they tried for the 3-D image. But what we could see of his little face, he's a CUTIE!

And, for those who like numbers, his heart rate is 150 beats per minute and he's measuring perfectly. We got blood screening results which let us know he is highly unlikely to have neural tube defects (thank goodness the 4 mg of folic acid a day is working!) or Trisomy 18 (1/10,000) or Down's Syndrome (1/1,000). He's got his little four chamber heart and three vessel cord, so all looks as good as possible! We're so excited!

Letter of Promises

So, insomnia has gotten the better of me, and I have been laying in bed thinking about all the things I want for this baby, and decided to write a letter of promises. I may have forgotten a few key things, or maybe I don't know yet what I don't know...we shall see!

To my little Baby Beer,

Sweet little baby, how much do I look forward to your arrival! I have been feeling tiny movements for about a week, and decided yesterday that they are getting stronger and that it must be you I am feeling! How exciting to feel your little body swim around, while there’s still ample room for backstrokes! I am up bright and early this morning and have been unable to sleep for a few hours, so I am writing to you all the promises I will try to keep while raising you.

First, I will love you and protect you always. I will be the mom who won’t be your best friend, won’t be the “cool mom” who other kids talk about when “everyone else is doing it,” but I’ll be that responsible parent who you (and your friends) can trust, depend on, and always come home to; that will insist on meeting all your friends, their parents, and ask you a million questions before I send you off on outings and dates. I’m sorry baby, but you won’t be one of those doing “it” whatever the latest “it-thing” to do is. I promise to give you time-old clichés like, “if all your friends are going to jump off a cliff, would you do it too?” and you’ll give me smart-allick remarks like, “if they’re cliff diving, yes.” And beneath my frustration, I’ll smile and think, this kid’s smarter than me at 10 years old.

Because you will be born in West Texas, I promise to take lots of embarrassing pictures of you doing West Texas things - I’m sure that includes prairie dogs, cowboy hats, cows, belt buckles, oil rigs, and tumbleweeds, but along with that will be fun stuff like blue bonnet picnics, sunsets, and football games. I promise you your Daddy and your Uncle Clinton will buy you more Texas Tech gear than you can stand, but I promise I will keep you looking even better in Longhorn gear, and teach you the proper way to salute the only college football team worth watching :) I promise to keep you “real” without getting you all the latest and greatest gadgets and toys - you‘ll probably end up liking the boxes they‘d come in better anyway. You’ll grow up with sweet, hopefully by then trained, dogs, lots of fresh air, dirt and trees, healthy food, playing one sport at a time should you choose to, and limited TV and computer time. If you want a new gadget, I promise we’ll make you wait until Christmas or your birthday, or we’ll assign all the chores you need to earn enough money to buy it yourself.

As much as you might like or dislike it, I promise to know all your teachers and be a familiar face in your school. As a former teacher, I promise to teach you how to read, write, use scissors and not eat glue before the other kids in your classes - yes, you might be labeled the “smart kid” but with your Daddy’s good looks, you’ll also be the “cute kid.” I also promise to keep your doctor Daddy from diagnosing you with all the strange illnesses he’s learning about, but if he says you’re healthy enough to go to school, you probably should. I also promise you will meet and get to know as many relatives as possible so you won't feel awkward at family reunions. Your grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are all incredibley good people who you will learn a lot from, and I promise they will at some point make you laugh, cry, and feed you entirely too much. I also promise to keep as many family traditions as possible, like celebrating Advent, eating homemade pizza as Christmas dinner, and getting to miss a day of school every year for one-on-one mom time. And finally, my last promise to you is to try my hardest to give you a happy, healthy childhood so you will be a happy, healthy, self-sufficient, independent adult, and I promise I will always be there as a safe place you can come back to anytime you need a soft place to land.

Sweet baby, I can’t wait to feel your bigger, stronger movements, punches, and kicks as you grow and grow, and I am so excited to meet you!
Love you always,
Mommy

Oh silly me

So, I've been feeling GREAT this week! No more nausea, and only the occasional pain around my tailbone from that wonderful hormone, relaxin that loosens up all the muscles to make my hips even WIDER...cause I need that... And then yesterday, a day of no symptoms! I should have been happy about that, right? While I felt wildly comfortable in my newfound ability to move without looking like I'd dirtied my pants, and my ability to enjoy all kinds of food my stomach would normally reject (that translates to Greek in this case), I spent part of that time with the little thought in the back of my head...is everything still ok in this pregnancy? Why don't I have ANY symptoms? My symptoms have been getting less and less and my energy more and more...and so goes the endless circle in my head. Well, because my body has an awesome sense of humor and wanted to teach my brain a lesson, I am sick today. Sicker than sick. Even after a Zofran, I went running to the bathroom. On my way there, I noticed my tailbone acting up again. And, now I'm getting a headache to boot. And out of the blue, my right calf has decided to throw in the occasional charlie-horse. Woo-hoo. Ok body, I've learned my lesson, can I please have it back?

There ARE angels here on Earth!

God works in mysterious ways. I have been put on temporary bedrest due to some strange pains, bruising, and discharge for three days, and if it worsens, I get to go in and have another ultrasound. In 24 hours, it has not worsened, and actually all the symptoms have gone. I am so thankful! But that is not why God works mysteriously. As this pregnancy has been progressing, I have gotten more and more concerned with how this baby is doing because with each passing week, it is closer to being "viable." I have been praying, as have a lot of wonderful people, for this baby, and I have been praying to feel comforted, knowing that no matter how many good ultrasounds I see I always wonder what's REALLY going on in there and if things are REALLY going ok.

Today I came home from the vet, with Daisy who has a yeast infection in her ear poor baby, and saw one of my neighbors across the street, raking up pecans, who I haven't run into since summer. In the year and a half we've lived here we've only spoken for a total of maybe 25 minutes. I don't even know her name. She asked if I could talk for a minute because she had to tell me something, and after short chit-chat about how Nich's doing in med school, I told her we were pregnant again, and she said now she HAD to tell me something, tears suddenly in her eyes, that she felt like she had to tell me for the past several days, but didn't know how to without sounding crazy. She said that she had a dream, out of the blue, of someone in the bathroom taking a pregnancy test, and it came out positive, and that it resulted in a healthy baby. She woke up from the dream, felt it was a message from above, and the first person that came into her mind was me! She kept trying to substitute other people she knew better, but her mind would always go straight back to me. She felt weird telling me she thought I might be pregnant, or be pregnant soon (understandably!) but kept feeling like she needed to come over and tell me.

Now maybe it is all coincidence that she had this dream, and I'm just so hopeful to hear any good news that I'm clinging onto this, but I couldn't help but hug her and feel that she really did have that dream for a reason, and that we ran into each other today for a reason, and that this is indeed a message of comfort! I feel so much calmer now and a little like I AM being watched over instead of having to try to fly "under the radar." My pregnancy prayer is that we have a happy healthy pregnancy, a happy, healthy birth, and that we get to take home and raise a happy, healthy baby. God just might speak to some of us in dreams, and I am greatful for those who have the courage to then tell about it - it might just be the answer to someone's prayers.

On a side note, the picture is a graphite drawing I did called "Jesus and the Lamb" which I actually copied and slightly modified from my favorite picture of Jesus. I don't ever do religious artwork, this being the only one and from 2007, but I thought it was suitable here.