Days Go By...

Lately time has just been flying by - we're working our way through May and pretty soon June will be here! 


So as I continue to grow - Tim and I have been keeping busy with baby projects and visiting family and friends. 

Here's what we've been up to these days:


We celebrated my mom's birthday and Mother's Day here in Rootstown.

We got to visit with this little guy - who in previous mentions on this blog was known as Miley, but is now Jackson as his true identity was discovered. Either way - boy or girl - he's still 100% adorable. 

We've watched spring roll in with all things new and fresh - some good like the little baby bird living under our deck and the baby bunnies that lived in a nest in between two trees in our backyard (Mom and Dad try to track them down and get them back in the nest after the dogs scared them away!)

And some bad - like the constant battle against the dandelions in our front yard:

We have added some color to our house with some spring flowers. Mom and Dad U gave us this awesome (MONOGRAMMED!!) pot for our front porch:

And that little pot went to this: 

 And lastly, we finally have a place for our little boy to sleep when he comes home in August: 

There is still much to come and much to do, but we're making progress little by little - and still enjoying the passage of time. Be sure to checkout Tim's Facebook page to watch our crib assembly process and visit our Flickr page: www.flickr.com/timbo16311. We'll keep this page updated with new photos as we take them - and more activity will be coming of course in August. 


Hope everyone is staying dry out there these days! 

Don't forget me!

If you know anything about us, you know that Ava and Adora are practically like our children. We miss them when we are away, we make sure they stay with family if we have to travel without them (a kennel for our girls? no way!) and they sleep safely tucked in with us each night (god bless the king-sized bed!). 

(Like how Ava NEVER looks face first at the camera - apparently she thinks the side profile is her best side.)


We've been asked a lot how the girls are going to handle the addition of a little human brother and the fact that our attention will be on something other than them. Well, we're not really sure, but I have no doubt they'll make sure we don't forget about them. Why, just look at this picture of us from Easter. 

Looks pretty good, right? Now - let's take a step back.

Yeah, she won't let us forget about her. 

Baby Steps

It is crazy to think how quickly time is flying by. 

In about 15 weeks or so, we will be meeting our son for the first time. As each day passes, we realize we are quickly running out of time to get everything ready for his arrival. And as type A planners - this just won't do. 

So, after nearly 23 weeks of doing nothing baby related, we finally started to work on his room. We didn't need to paint since we had already done that last summer by choosing a nice color of Mount Rainer. It must have been destiny to have a boy after all - the color is perfect for him. We've always known this would be our baby's room, but while there was no baby, the room became a storage place for the ironing board, shelves, clothes to go to Good Will,  etc. It was, well, a disaster and not fit for our little guy. 

We knew the color scheme would be based around the light blue walls and include chocolate browns, navy blue and accents of white. With the windows, I had always imagined chocolate brown bamboo shades and thick white curtains, but bamboo shades wouldn't block out enough light to create a dark little cocoon for him. That's when Tim talked me into plan B - white blinds (like the kind we have in our family room) and chocolate brown curtains - a classic reverse of the same colors that I loved. 

We ventured to JC Penney and found some awesome chocolate brown curtains that look totally BOY. Then, we went to our favorite home improvement store - Lowe's - and picked up some faux white blinds. After Tim battled with getting the drill through the window frame (we have struggled with this every time we hang blinds), we got the blinds and curtains up and ta-da - it began to look like a real baby's room. 

And we already have one piece of artwork hanging...a drawing of a dog face that looks like our favorite blonde girl, Ava. We want to incorporate those little touches of our life before our little guy - like our two four legged babies or polar bears in tribute to where his mom and dad met. 

Stay tuned as we post more pictures as his room comes together. Other room items to take care of:

-Crib

-Chair

-Dresser/changing table

-Storage bins/shelves/bookshelf?

-Rug

-Hang artwork

-Wall quote?

At least we won't have to worry about his wardrobe - thanks to Grammie and Jackie, he's already got a stylish set of clothes so he won't go naked!

Pop...there it is!

So, for those of you who don't see me on a daily basis - this is what I am looking like these days. Don't judge. Don't gasp. I'm self-conscious enough for all of us. All of sudden, I just popped out here in the last few weeks. There's really a baby in there! And we're halfway there - 20 1/2 weeks!

I've said goodbye to regular pants (I'd live in comfy sweats and yoga pants, if I could) and welcomed in pants with an extra panel for more room. Thanks to contraptions like the Bella Band and Belly Band (thanks, Mom U!) I've been able to go a few extra weeks in my jeans.


Other than my ever expanding waistline, pregnancy has been very kind to me. Sure, I get tired a bit faster than I used to, but otherwise the heartburn and backaches have been pretty minimal. I regularly sleep with a body pillow that helps me sleep on my side (which I will need to do from this point on) and I've come up with quick solutions to the leg cramps that sometimes wake me up in the middle of the night. 


All of it is so worth it now that I am able to feel our little guy move. Yes, move. I feel little movements throughout the day that let me know all is going well inside. I never knew you could fall completely in love with someone you've never met. I'm very much looking forward to when I can consistently feel him on the outside so that Tim can feel it, too. So magical.


I'm soaking up all these days of the middle trimester - I predict more cumbersome days ahead!

Christmas in March

I couldn't sleep last night. 

I could chalk it up to being uncomfortable, sneezing and a mild touch of heartburn, but maybe was because I am so excited about today. 

Today feels like Christmas morning. You know that excited feeling you had when you were little (and that I have even now! I love being with family!) and you couldn't wait to see what presents you got and what you'd get to play with all day - that is exactly how I am feeling this morning. 

Today we will learn whether we are having a boy or a girl. This is one of the most exciting parts along this journey. Today will forever determine what our life will be and whether we will be the mom and dad playing in the backyard with our little boy (who know doubt will be a spitting image of Tim) playing catch or making mud pies. Or will we be the mom and dad that are constantly putting pigtails into our little girl's hair and playing make-believe in a fort made from her bedsheets? 

Either way, Tim and I are 100% excited. We don't care what today may bring - it is all just an amazing miracle.

"Don't know much about you
Don't know who you are
We've been doing fine without you
But we could only go so far

Don't know why you chose us
Were you watching from above
Is there someone there that knows us
Said we'd give you all our love

Will you laugh just like your mother
Will you sigh like your old man
Will some things skip a generation
Like I've heard they often can

Are you a poet or a dancer
A devil or a clown
Or a strange new combination of
The things we've handed down

I wonder who you'll look like
Will your hair fall down and curl
Will you be a mama's boy
Or daddy's little girl?"

-From "The Things We've Handed Down" by Marc Cohn

Lessons in Babymaking

"And when we tried to think of the life inside, we found ourselves looking at the world through new eyes." - Mae

Contrary to what the title of this post may imply, I'm not about to launch into a sex-ed post to tell you how to make a baby. I think we pretty much all know how that happens. We spend a large majority of our dating and early-marriage years doing everything to AVOID that outcome. I, in fact, plan on telling my son or daughter someday, "Do not look at a boy. Do not kiss a girl. Do not hug anyone of the opposite sex. That is how a baby is made." We'll see how long it takes them to figure out it requires a bit more than that, but still...that's how things get started, right?

So really, today's lesson is not in babymaking, but to be accurate, a lesson in how to keep a baby. 

Through testing after our last miscarriage, my midwife and hematologist finally discovered the best way for me to keep a baby and to get us to where we are at today. 

I wanted to share with you a glimpse what the past 16 weeks have been like and how today's medicine combined with a lot of prayers is helping us get through each day.

First, I start each morning with a prenatal vitamin, 4 miligrams of folic acid and a docusate sodium pill (you know, to keep things moving.)


Then, from the week I found out I was pregnant to week 14, I took a progesterone suppository twice daily. It had minimal side effects, but I am grateful to be finished with it! As a prescription, it was $400/month, but thanks to drug reps (even Tim thanked them this time) we got a two-month supply for free.

Then, right before I go to bed, I either give myself or more often than not, Tim gives me an injection of generic Lovenox (a blood thinner) in the stomach, around my belly button. At first, it left me black and blue, but for the most part I am not bruising these days. This drug is around $1K/month, and after Tim and my doctor's office went toe-to-toe with the insurance company, we now get this for $10/month! Most people are only on this drug for 10 days or so post surgery, so it always raises red flags when I come in to get a 30-day supply every month.

Because it became pretty routine each day, we kept a chart taped in the bathroom above our sinks to keep track of everything. 

While we never anticipated this part of the journey, it has been so worth it. In fact, I really don't think about it too much anymore. It used to bother me that we had to be so conscious of how delicate this whole process was, but now it just seems ordinary.

And now I just have to make sure I am being a complete angel right before we go to bed. Because if I'm being bratty, Tim can just give me an extra jab with needle :)

My Invincible Spring

This was sent to me today from my dear friend, Tiffany.